I have been studying technology use for over 20 years. I first became interested in this topic as a postdoctoral fellow, having moved from North Carolina to Massachusetts where I knew no one. Soon after moving to Massachusetts, I realized that one of the main ways I maintained contact with many of my social ties was through email. This led me to become interested in the ways technology could be used to enhance communication, social contact, and well-being. Back in 2010, I wrote about the implications of the internet for medical sociology long before they were commonly recognized by medical sociologists.
Since that time, information and communication technologies, such as mobile phones, smart devices, and apps, have evolved and technology use has proliferated. Over 5 billion people around the world use the Internet, with over 4.5 million using social media. Use varies across social groups and a digital divide still exists. The lowest proportion of use is seen among older adults, with 75 percent of community-dwelling older adults aged 65 and older in the United States using the Internet compared to 99 percent of individuals aged 18–29, with even fewer older adults using social media (only 45 percent). Internet usage rates among individuals with disabilities and those who live in residential care facilities are even lower. Although close to 50 percent of individuals aged 18–29 report that they are online almost constantly, only 8 percent of those aged 65 and older report this level of use.
As access and use have increased over time, so has the interest in the impacts of technology use on individuals, particular groups, and society. Over the past 20 years, numerous reporters have reached out to me to gain my perspective on whether technology use and social media use, more specifically, are associated with negative societal outcomes. There is no doubt that technology use can have myriad and varying effects on mental health and well-being. Technology is not a panacea to solve society’s ills, nor is it leading to the demise of society. Recent research, in fact, has found that excessive social media use among youth is less harmful for self-esteem than youth being socially disconnected from their social ties.
What Do We know About the Relationship Between Technology Use and Well-Being?
We are still in the early phases of understanding the long-term effects of technology use on well-being. This is partially the case due to the lack of longitudinal datasets that allow researchers to examine change over time as well as other methodological issues noted below. For an excellent overview of recent research on social media use and well-being, see Valkenburg as well as this entire issue of Current Opinion in Psychology.
What we do know about technology use and well-being is that most people use technology to enhance social connection with their social ties, stay informed of activities of friends and family members, coordinate life activities and schedules, find information, and so forth. In a longitudinal study, we found that for older retired adults using the Internet and/or email reduced the probability of being classified as depressed by 33 percent, even after controlling for prior depression. Given high rates of depression among older adults, this finding, even using very coarse technology use measures, suggests that Internet and/or email use has salutary effects on mental health among older adults. The majority of research shows that using technology helps people stay connected to their social ties, which can decrease loneliness and social isolation and enhance mental health and well-being. Technology use may be particularly useful for helping older adults stay connected with their social ties, especially when geographic and mobility constraints, or pandemics, limit in-person gatherings with social ties. However, as has been illustrated during the pandemic, not having access to technologies or skills in using technologies to connect and communicate with others may result in a double burden of exclusion for older adults.
Although maintaining contact with social ties may decrease loneliness and isolation, the ability to use technology allows individuals to have persistent contact and pervasive awareness of general activities and major life events among both weak and strong social ties. This is especially the case with social media. As we know from decades of social support research, not all support is beneficial. Given the pervasive awareness and potential for persistent contact as a result of increased technology use, some research has found that pervasive awareness may be associated with increased stress. It is likely that pervasive awareness and persistent contact have myriad effects on well-being, depending on the nature of the information and life events, relational demands, communication source, and perceived severity of the information and/or events.
While technology use allows individuals to be in constant contact, it may also blur work/life boundaries. This potential for constant contact may help with child and family micro-coordination, particularly when stressful situations arise. However, it may also lead to feeling like you can never get away from work when you perceive the need to be responsive to emails, texts, and other modes of communication with co-workers and others. This blurring of work with non-work may lead to work stress and burnout over time. Given the proliferation of technologies and increased use of technology over time, further research in this area is needed.
Technology Addiction?
In the sociology of mental health, there has been a long-standing debate about whether and how distress and disorder can be distinguished. I anticipate this will be the case in relation to technology use. Though “Internet Addiction Disorder” (IAD) is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the media routinely discuss technology and social media addiction, suggesting that individuals and some groups in particular have no control over their use of these technologies. I do not agree with this perspective in general, though I recognize that for a small segment of individuals not being able to regulate their technology use may be an issue.
Much of the addiction rhetoric by journalists and some researchers has resulted from high levels of use of some technologies by certain groups of people. As a sociologist, I encourage others interested in technology use and mental health to consider that the levels of usage that are normative for one age and other groups may or may not be normative for others. We socially construct what is normative. We should not assume that high levels of technology usage by youth and emerging adults, for example, mean that they are addicted to these technologies or that they have a disorder. When individuals’ use of technologies interferes with their role responsibilities and activities of daily living, then that use may be disordered or problematic. However, media or scholarly generalizations about certain groups in society being addicted to technology are not warranted, nor backed by rigorous research. The vast majority of people are able to successfully use technologies at high levels without it impeding their roles, responsibilities, and activities of daily living.
Be Wary of Technological Determinism
I often hear people say that technology is doing or causing a range of things. I cringe when I hear people saying these things. When thinking about technology use and the impacts on society, we should not engage in technological determinism, or the belief that the technology, itself, is resulting in either positive or negative outcomes in society. It is not the technology itself, but rather individuals’ use of technology that results in impacts. And, as I have noted in prior research, the impacts of technology use depend upon a range of factors, including the type, timing, purpose, and function of use. This is also true for social media use.
What Does the Future Hold?
One thing that is constant is that technology continues to evolve. New technologies are created, modified, and adopted and adapted by people around the world, sometimes in ways that the developers never intended. The constant change in technology is a challenge for researchers who wish to study the use and impacts of technology on society in general and for specific groups, particularly to discern change over time.
Another challenge is the quality of measures and potential for recall bias. If we are to be able to discern the impacts of technology use on mental health and well-being over time, we need data that is not subject to recall bias. On a regular basis, I use my smartphone and laptop numerous times per day and sometimes in conjunction with one another. If a researcher asked me how much time I spend using each of them, I would not be able to give an accurate response. Nor would I be able to determine the number of times per day that I use each device. For individuals who use technology frequently, this presents a significant challenge for researchers in terms of how to obtain valid and reliable measurements.
Given the pervasiveness of technology use in society and the multiple types of technology that we use (e.g., computers, smartphones, a range of apps) on a regular basis, determining the type, amount, purpose, and function of use can be challenging. We need companies that develop and disseminate these technologies to work with researchers to share data so that we have even a reasonable chance of elucidating the multiple pathways through which technology use may impact health and well-being over time. If these companies do not cooperate and collaborate with researchers, we will continue to have these same challenges as we examine the relationships among technology use and well-being.
In sum, do I think that technology use and social media use, in particular, are leading to the demise of our mental health and well-being? The answer is a definitive No. Do I think we still have much to learn about the impacts of technology use on society and health? The answer is a definitive Yes. The impacts of technology use on mental health and well-being depend upon how we use these technologies as well as the other stressors and resources that we have in our lives. As sociologists it behooves us to continue to push the boundaries of how we assess technology use as well as assess the impacts of that use over time across the general population and specific subpopulations.
Any opinions expressed in the articles in this publication are those of the author and not the American Sociological Association.
