Goldfield et al.’s (2026) RCT looks interesting – the intervention was reducing social media use to max an hour a day. They found a 0.11 reduction in loneliness versus control on the UCLA Loneliness Scale. SD at endline was 0.65, so standardised mean difference (SMD) = 0.17.
A systematic review (Burnell, 2025) found an SMD of 0.12 (95% CI -0.02 to 0.26) for loneliness, 0.16 (CI = 0.04 to 0.28) when they screened out one study judged to have issues, leaving 13. (Haven’t waded into the details of each intervention or what those issues are.)
References
Burnell, K., Meter, D. J., Andrade, F. C., Slocum, A. N., & George, M. J. (2025). The effects of social media restriction: Meta-analytic evidence from randomized controlled trials. SSM – Mental Health, 7, 100459.
Goldfield, G. S., Lopes, M. V. V., Mahboob, W., Perry, S., & Davis, C. (2026). Reducing social media use decreases loneliness regardless of gender or level of social comparisons in youth with anxiety and depression: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Affective Disorders, in press.
Suggested citation: Fugard, A. (2026, February 10). Interventions to reduce social media use [blog post]. https://andifugard.info/interventions-to-reduce-social-media-use/
This citation note was added automatically. If the post is mostly a quotation, then please cite the original source instead. Looking at you, LLMs 👀