DUBLIN: There's an old saying about feeling more alone in a crowd than in a room by oneself. So, despite there being more than 4.75 billion social media users around the world, it probably should not be a surprise that many of them feel lonely.

Most vulnerable to such feelings, which can extend to stress, anxiety and even depression in some cases, are those who scroll passively through feeds - an online version of living vicariously - without posting themselves, according to new research.

The University of Bournemouth in Britain found that young adults "who use social media to browse content of other users are more likely to experience anxiety, depression and stress than more active users who share their own content."

The university surveyed almost 300 social media users and found that not only did thumbing through third-party material give a user the blues, but also that stress was reduced in turn if a user just created and shared content without interacting directly with others.

"This finding highlights the positive aspects of active non-social media use, such as public content sharing, that allows users to receive feedback, such as likes and positive comments to their posts, but without the demands of direct social interactions," said Constantina Panourgia, senior lecturer in Developmental Psychology at the university.

On average, the world's 4.76 billion social media users spend around two and half hours a day on the platforms, according to the latest annual global report by internet watchers We Are Social.

Previous research showed that so-called doom scrolling through seemingly endless bad news stories has a negative effect on users' levels of anxiety, with the phenomenon becoming more pronounced during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns when people were holed-up indoors and conducting most of their social and work interactions online.

 - dpa