[논문 리뷰] The Hidden Toll of Social Media News: Causal Effects on Psychosocial Wellbeing

Olivia Pal, Agam Goyal외 2명|arXiv (Cornell University)|2026. 01. 20.

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한 줄 요약

본 연구는 Bluesky에서 준실험 설계를 사용해 뉴스 피드 참여가 심리사회적 안녕에 미치는 인과 효과를 추정하고, 상호작용의 유형에 따라 이질성이 나타나며, 우울증·불안·스트레스가 증가하는 반면 고독감은 감소하고 사회적 상호작용이 증가하는 trade-off를 보인다.

ABSTRACT

News consumption on social media has become ubiquitous, yet how different forms of engagement shape psychosocial outcomes remains unclear. To address this gap, we leveraged a large-scale dataset of ~26M posts and ~45M comments on the BlueSky platform, and conducted a quasi-experimental study, matching 81,345 Treated users exposed to News feeds with 83,711 Control users using stratified propensity score analysis. We examined psychosocial wellbeing, in terms of affective, behavioral, and cognitive outcomes. Our findings reveal that news engagement produces systematic trade-offs: increased depression, stress, and anxiety, yet decreased loneliness and increased social interaction on the platform. Regression models reveal that News feed bookmarking is associated with greater psychosocial deterioration compared to commenting or quoting, with magnitude differences exceeding tenfold. These per-engagement effects accumulate with repeated exposure, showing significant psychosocial impacts. Our work extends theories of news effects beyond crisis-centric frameworks by demonstrating that routine consumption creates distinct psychological dynamics depending on engagement type, and bears implications for tools and interventions for mitigating the psychosocial costs of news consumption on social media.

연구 동기 및 목표

• 일상적 소셜 미디어 뉴스 노출이 위기 상황을 넘어 심리사회적 안녕에 어떤 영향을 미치는지 이해를 촉진한다.
• 다양한 참여 방식(북마크, 댓글 달기, 좋아요, 인용, 재게시, 게시) 가 정서적, 행동적, 인지적 결과에 미치는 영향을 조사한다.
• 대규모 Bluesky 데이터세트에 대해 성향 점수 매칭을 활용한 준실험 설계를 사용하여 인과 효과를 추정한다.
• 참여 유형 및 시간에 따른 효과의 이질성을 검토해 플랫폼 설계와 개입에 정보를 제공한다.

제안 방법

• Adopted potential outcomes framework to define treatment as exposure to the News feed on Bluesky.
• Constructed Treated and Control groups via stratified propensity score matching using 520 covariates from baseline period.
• Used AdaBoost (SAMME) to estimate propensity scores and stratified into 10 propensity-score strata for balanced comparisons.
• Measured psychosocial outcomes across affective, behavioral, and cognitive domains using established linguistic, psycholinguistic, and behavioral metrics.
• Estimated Relative Treatment Effects (RTE) as stratum-weighted averages of treated vs. control outcomes.
• Analyzed heterogeneous treatment effects (ITE) by engagement type through regression of post-treatment ITEs on engagement categories.

실험 결과

연구 질문

• RQ1 RQ1: How does news exposure on social media affect psychosocial wellbeing across affective, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions?
• RQ2 RQ2: How are the types and intensity of news engagement on social media associated with psychosocial outcomes?

주요 결과

Outcome	Bookmark	Comment	Like	Post	Quote	Repost	R^2
Depression	4.60	0.30	0.03	-3E-3	0.17	0.07	0.250
Anxiety	5.60	0.02	8.7E-3	-4.6E-3	0.36	-0.10	0.416
Stress	4.50	0.19	0.01	-4.9E-3	0.20	-0.09	0.439
Suicidal Ideation	-2.80	-0.18	1.6E-3	-2.1e-05	-0.37	0.0

• News exposure is associated with higher depression (RTE=1.51), anxiety (RTE=1.36), stress (RTE=1.28), and negative affect (RTE=1.56), but lower loneliness (RTE=0.59) and higher social interaction.
• Treated users exhibit markedly higher quoting (RTE=39.56) and commenting (RTE=7.20) activity, and greater interactivity (RTE=3.20) after exposure.
• Treated users post longer content (verbosity RTE=1.59) yet more repeatable content (repeatability RTE=2.23); readability declines (RTE=0.59), and LIWC cognitive/social markers rise (RTEs around 1.24–1.37).
• Bookmarking shows the largest positive association with adverse affective outcomes (e.g., Depression RTE=4.60), followed by substantial effects for other engagement forms, with varying magnitudes across outcomes.
• The temporal pattern indicates initial spikes in negative affect and activity post-exposure that attenuate but remain elevated over two months.