The World Health Organization defines depression as a common emotional disorder, characterized by loss of interest or pleasure, sadness, feelings of guilt, cognitive deficit and both sleep and appetite disorders, which eventually leads to other behavioral changes such as deteriorating social functioning (isolation). Globally, it is estimated to affect around 300 million people and is the cause of suicide for 800,000 individuals annually.
In Chile, the mental health situation is also worrying. According to statistics from the National Health Survey, conducted between 2016 and 2017, it is indicated that 6.2% of the population suffers from a table of depression diagnosed, which places our country above the global average. In addition, given the seasonal influence of winter on the increase in these symptoms and coupled with the current context of confinement caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the mental health problem is expected to be exacerbated in our country for this period, so much so that to be addressed by health authorities they launched the #SaludableMente platform, which aims to guide and collaborate with this issue in the midst of the COVID-19 health crisis.
Clearly this situation has required changing various habits that were considered normal. In the particular case of the treatment of depression, many of the therapies have surely had to be performed remotely and using tele-assistance, also made it difficult to acquire antidepressant medications for more severe cases, which puts the effectiveness of treatment at risk, further exacerbazing the problem. But what if an action as everyday on social media as seeing or sharing memes can be beneficial to the mental health of depressive people? This question was asked by a multidisciplinary team of three prestigious UK institutions: the Department of Psychology, Sociology and Politics at Sheffield Hallam University, the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford and the Department of Psychology at the University of Northumbria.
The research, published in January this year, was led by Dr. Umair Akram and was based on previous research indicating an association between depression and prolonged internet use, as well as frequent exchange and observation of memes, the latter representing shared characteristics or experiences in a context relevant to a particular group of society. For this reason, the study focused on examining, through social media interaction, the processing of humor in people suffering from this mental disorder, considering as hypotheses that humor of negative orientation or with self-destructive signals, can attract people with depression when considering the contextual relationship of the affected person and the importance of the individual depressive experience.
To begin the study, 154 university students (24 years of average age) were sampled, who answered a questionnaire Online for two purposes. First, it was used to evaluate the patient’s mental health symptoms and thus categorize the severity of the disorder if it is developed (minimum, mild, moderate, moderately severe and severe). On the other hand, the survey was used to record participants’ perception of a variety of 52 memes, which were randomly displayed and evaluated on a scale of 1 (disagreement) to 5 (agree) on the following items: something they would share with another person, something that would make a person with depression feel good, whether they found meme funny, and whether they related the image to disorders such as depression or anxiety. After this and according to respondents’ responses, memes were classified into two categories: depressive (explicitly showing self-destructive content) and control (exposing neutral social chores, humorous facts, or having no reference to actions such as suicide or isolation). In conclusion, and once the participants were classified, they re-took the same questionnaire.
The categorization of the initial 154 students, which was done according to detection of signs associated with depression, allowed to define two groups: 46 of them had significant depressive symptoms and 56 individuals were identified as unsurded, so it is consideredhealthy rum. The latter were characterized by regulating the negative emotions caused by a depressive meme with positive humor granted by a control meme, while positive emotions allowed them to re-evaluate momentary negative emotions. But would people with severe depressive symptoms respond equally? Analysis of the results obtained showed that students diagnosed with this disorder interpreted images with self-destructive content differently from people considered healthy, calling depressive memes easier to relate, more humorous, and significantly “more shareable” on social media. In addition, as a result of the same survey, depressive individuals indicated that memes that alluded to this disorder could improve their own mood and felt that it could also improve that of others in the same situation.
The study concluded that, despite the obvious negative orientation of depressive memes, these can be considered contextually as positive, as it allows to visualize the overwhelming nature of this disorder and that for many of those affected it is difficult to express, and may ultimately be beneficial for those who experience these symptoms. Also, the researchers concluded that depressive memes provide, in these individuals, a humorous version of their own negative experience and that sharing this situation on social media allows social and emotional links to be formed with others who surely have similar symptoms. In addition, those affected indicated that by visualizing how other individuals also react to shared images, it increases the perception of peer support by a group affiliation mechanism. This social support, perceived through online interaction, seems beneficial in containing or reducing symptoms of depression, helping people recognize that they are not alone in the experience of discovering or analyzing their own symptoms. Finally, the authors of this research indicate that, with more complementary studies, this mechanism could certainly be projected as a possible therapy for this disorder.
Link article: nature.com/articles/s41598-020-57953-4
This article arises from the agreement with the Interdisciplinary Center for Neuroscience of the University of Valparaiso.
