Summary & Purpose
The pervasive use of social media has raised concerns about its potential detrimental effects on physical and mental health. Others have demonstrated a relationship between social media use and anxiety, depression, and psychosocial stress. In light of these studies, we examined physiological indicators of stress (heart rate to measure autonomic nervous system activation and cortisol to assess activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis) associated with social media use and investigated possible moderating influences of sex, age, and psychological parameters. We collected physiological data from 59 subjects ranging in age from 13 to 55 across two cell phone treatments: social media use and a pre-selected YouTube playlist. Heart rate was measured using arm-band heart rate monitors before and during cell phone treatments, and saliva was collected for later cortisol analysis (by enzyme immunoassay) before and after each of the two cell phone treatments. To disentangle the effects of cell phone treatment from order of treatment, we used a crossover design in which participants were randomized to treatment order. Our study uncovered a significant period effect suggesting that both heart rate and cortisol decreased over the duration of our experiment, irrespective of the type of cell phone activity or the order of treatments. There was no indication that age, sex, habits of social media use, or psychometric parameters moderated the physiological response to cell phone activities. Our data suggest that 20-minute bouts of social media use or YouTube viewing do not elicit a physiological stress response.
Date of Publication or Submission
2-1-2024
DOI
https://doi.org/10.18122/brc_data.1.boisestate
Funding Citation
National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Grant #P20GM103408; Additional support was offered by NIH Grants # 1U54GM104944, P20GM109095, and 1C06RR020533 and BSU-Biomolecular Research Center, RRID:SCR_019174 and National Science Foundation, Grants #0619793 and #0923535
Single Dataset or Series?
Single Dataset
Data Format
*.xlsx; *.csv; *.txt
File Size
97.2KB
Data Attributes
Referencing the publication will provide details on how the data was collected and analyzed; Instrument names are given in the article. The data dictionary can be found in separate CSV with "Column" in the title, or in the appropriate tab of the XLSX file. Both are provided because we are unsure which ones you wish to use.
Time Period
July 2019
Privacy and Confidentiality Statement
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Use Restrictions
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Disclaimer of Warranty
BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE SUITABILITY OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN OR PROVIDED AS PART OF THE SYSTEM FOR ANY PURPOSE. ALL SUCH INFORMATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY HEREBY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS WITH REGARD TO THIS INFORMATION, INCLUDING ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
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Recommended Citation
Oppenheimer, Suzanne; Bond, Laura; and Smith, Charity, "Dataset for Social Media Does Not Elicit a Physiological Stress Response as Measured by Heart Rate and Salivary Cortisol over 20-Minute Sessions of Cell Phone Use" (2024). Biomolecular Research Center Data. 1.
https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/brc_data/1
Comments
The data was collected at College of Western Idaho, Nampa campus