Is There an Association Between Social Media Use and Mental Health? The Timing of Confounding Measurement Matters

To the Editor Riehm et al report an association between social media use and increased risk of internalizing and combined internalizing/externalizing problems 1 year later (between waves 2 and 3 of Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health study data), controlling for psychopathology and alcohol/marijuana use at wave 1. However, the analytic strategy is vulnerable to substantial residual confounding.
Source: JAMA Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research