A new study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships provides us with information that might indicate that social interaction can lead to lower levels of loneliness and depression. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic started, concern started to arise regarding social distancing and isolation and how it could negatively impact individuals’ social lives and mental health. Research has shown that the quarantine did raise loneliness and depression levels, which is consistent with previous research showing how social interactions are important to human's happiness.
Researcher Adam Kuczynski and his team were looking to analyze the components of social interactions in daily life that are associated with altered levels of depressed mood and loneliness through their study. They studied a sample of adults in King County, Washington who got recruited via various locations, such as social media or fliers in the grocery store.
They ended up with a sample of 515 participants in total. They were asked to complete a survey for 75 days in a row, including measures on depression, loneliness, social interaction quantity, perceived responsiveness, and vulnerable self-disclosure. It was discovered that those who participated in more social interaction can be a protective factor, regardless of their baseline. Increased vulnerable self-disclosure was shown to be linked to higher depression and loneliness when the person felt like there was more responsiveness, showing inconsistencies with similar research released recently. The effect of quality and quantity of social interaction was similar for both loneliness and depressed mood, which displays the relationship between the variables.
The longitudinal design and daily data allow for the study to be very strong. However, it is important to note that there are still limitations, due to the fact that it is extremely hard to know how the results would look if the participants were sampled more or less frequently. This study also is unable to rule out the possibility that instead of social interactions altering depression levels, depression levels might be altering a person’s frequency of social interactions. Also, it is a possibility that due to the fact that this study was collected at the beginning of the pandemic, it might not translate to ordinary life.
“Concerns about the possible effects of social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted several gaps in our knowledge about the association between social interactions and mental health,” The researchers explained to PsyPost. “The current study aimed to characterize the unique effect of social interaction quantity and quality on daily depressed mood and loneliness and to identify the degree to which these processes operate at the within-person and between-person levels of analysis.”
“Results suggest that social interactions in general, and perceived responsiveness in particular, may protect against depressed mood and loneliness independent of one’s trait levels of these variables. Substantial heterogeneity in these effects was observed, however, and future research should focus on identifying factors that predict this heterogeneity.”
Reference:
Manis, Emily. “Study Suggests High-Quality Social Interactions Can Protect against Depressed Mood.” PsyPost, 30 Apr. 2022, https://www.psypost.org/2022/04/study-suggests-high-quality-social-interactions-can-protect-against-depressed-mood-63047.