Health Effects of Excessive Facebook usage Among Medical Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

Facebook, a social networking website, is used widely by young people to post photos, videos, status updates and meet, reconnect and interact with family, friends and others. It is becoming more and more popular by the day. However, its frequent use has also brought in possible excessive use by some and therefore adverse physical and psychological effects. To elucidate any association Medical students of 23 years age or less, of both sexes, were enrolled and given a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire which included the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) to correlate their psychological health with Facebook use. To correlate subscales in the GHQ-28, Pearson Correlation Coefficient was adopted for analysis. The 4 important psychological effects-Anxiety/Insomnia, Severe Depression, Somatic effects and Social Dysfunction-were found to be positively correlated with Facebook use, in the sample of students. Facebook usage by medical students shows a correlation with the physical and psychological effects. Excess use of Facebook may create dependence to the site, adversely affecting health. It is recommended that the young be made aware and educated on such possibilities.