Cutting Back on Social Media and Depression: What 10 Trials Found

Studies that simply compare heavy and light users keep finding that more social media goes with more depressive symptoms, but they can't say which causes which. Randomized trials can: one group cuts back or stops, another carries on as usual, and the researchers compare how both feel afterwards. In 2025, three psychologists in Australia pooled every such trial they could use.

What the researchers did

William May, John Malouff and Jeanne Meynadier of the University of New England published their meta-analysis in the European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education in November 2025. They searched four databases, the reference lists of the studies they found and of an earlier review, up to September 2024, and kept randomized controlled trials that asked people to reduce or stop their social media use, did nothing else alongside it, and measured depression before and after with a validated questionnaire.

Ten trials qualified, with 1,491 participants in Germany, the US, the UK, Canada, Czechia and Sweden; three in four were women, and their average age was 24. Seven trials asked people to limit their use and three asked them to abstain from at least one platform completely, for 7 to 21 days.

What they found

• Cutting back eased depressive symptoms, a little. Across the ten trials the effect was small but statistically significant (Hedges' g of 0.25 after a correction for publication bias, 0.28 before it).
• Limits did at least as well as quitting. On their own, the seven limited-use trials showed a clear effect (g of 0.33), while the three abstinence trials showed a smaller one that wasn't statistically significant (g of 0.15). The difference between the two groups of trials wasn't significant either, so the honest reading is that limiting was no worse than quitting.
• Length and number of apps didn't change the result. Neither how many days the intervention lasted nor how many platforms it covered made a significant difference.
• The results varied. About half of the variation between trials reflected real differences between studies, not chance.

What the study can't tell you

The interventions were short, one to three weeks, and the review didn't test how long the benefit lasts. Only four of the ten counted people who didn't stick to the rules in their analysis, half didn't report how many dropped out, and nine of ten didn't require participants to reach any threshold of depressive symptoms to take part. The one trial that did had the largest effect of all, which suggests the average may differ for people who are struggling more. The authors say more trials with good methods are needed to test their conclusion, and more research on whether the effect lasts.

What it means for your phone

You may not need to delete anything. The trials that only set limits did at least as well as the ones that asked people to stop completely, which makes a ceiling you can keep a sensible first step. A daily limit on the social apps you choose, with Unrotten, locks them with Apple's Screen Time shield once the time is used up, until the day resets. To compare that with the other ways to block social media, read our guide to the best social media blocker apps, or plan a short break with our social media detox guide.

If low mood lasts for weeks, a doctor or therapist can help. If you ever have thoughts of harming yourself, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US, at any hour.