Most associations were negligible, below r = .10. The exceptions were between-person: active use correlated with greater online support (r = .34), wellbeing (r = .15), positive affect (r = .11) and also anxiety symptoms (r = .12). Passive use looked worse in general feed contexts but not inside social-media groups.
How it was done
A meta-analysis of 141 studies, roughly 145,000 participants and 897 effect sizes, testing whether active and passive social media use relate to mental health, wellbeing and social support.
What it means
The popular story — passive scrolling makes you lonely — is not what 141 studies say. What survives is narrower: interaction is associated with support, and consumption is associated with not much either way.
Related panel work found little support for the idea that social media displaces direct contact with people close to you. It most likely displaces other media.
We publish this because it cuts against a convenient narrative for a product like ours. Face-to-face contact really has fallen. Pinning that on social media is not something this literature can carry.