Stanford Study: 36,000 Users Who Quit Facebook and Instagram for Six Weeks Showed Measurable Mental Health Gains

A landmark Stanford-led study involving roughly 36,000 Facebook and Instagram users found that participants who deactivated their accounts for six weeks before the 2020 U.S. presidential election reported meaningful improvements in emotional well-being, including lower levels of depression and anxiety. The findings, among the largest randomized experiments ever conducted on social media’s psychological effects, add rigorous evidence to a long-running debate about the platforms’ impact on mental health.

The research, led by economists and social scientists at Stanford University along with collaborators from New York University and other institutions, recruited a large, representative sample of American adults and randomly assigned a portion of them to deactivate their Facebook or Instagram accounts for six weeks ahead of the 2020 election. Random assignment is considered the gold standard in social science because it allows researchers to isolate cause and effect, something correlational studies on screen time and mental health have long struggled to do. Participants who stepped away from the platforms reported higher subjective well-being on validated psychological indices, with the improvements most pronounced for users who had reported heavier baseline use.

The findings feed into a contentious policy debate that has reached Capitol Hill, statehouses, and the U.S. Surgeon General’s office. In 2023, Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory warning that social media posed a profound risk of harm to adolescent mental health, and dozens of state attorneys general have sued Meta alleging its platforms are designed to addict young users. Industry defenders have countered that the academic literature is mixed, pointing to other studies, some co-authored by the same Stanford team, that found minimal effects of deactivation on political polarization. The new results suggest a more nuanced picture: platforms may not be radicalizing users as much as some critics fear, but they may still be exacting a measurable emotional toll.

What happens next will likely play out on multiple fronts. Federal legislation such as the Kids Online Safety Act, which passed the Senate in 2024 but stalled in the House, could gain fresh momentum as lawmakers cite peer-reviewed evidence of harm. State-level age-verification and social media bans for minors, already enacted in Florida, Utah, and several other states, face ongoing First Amendment challenges in federal court. Meanwhile, Meta continues to roll out teen-specific account protections, and researchers are expected to probe whether shorter breaks, partial use limits, or algorithmic changes could replicate the benefits of full deactivation without requiring users to disconnect entirely.

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