Social media and health: Evidence from college students

Last registered on February 10, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Social media and health: Evidence from college students
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0017673
Initial registration date
February 05, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
February 10, 2026, 6:33 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Argentina
Region
La Plata, Buenos Aires

Primary Investigator

Name
Maria Laura Alzua
Affiliation
CEDLAS-Universidad Nacional de La Plata
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Azul Menduiña
PI Affiliation
CEDLAS-Universidad Nacional de La Plata
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PI Name
Milagros Onofri
PI Affiliation
CEDLAS-Universidad Nacional de La Plata
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2026-02-01
End date
2026-06-30
Keywords
Behavior, Health
Additional Keywords
Social media, Adolescent mental health, Anxiety
JEL code(s)
I12, I18
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This paper provides causal evidence on the short-run effects of social media experiences on adolescent anxiety in Argentina. We conduct a randomized survey experiment among approximately 2,500 first-year university students at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata in 2026. Following Mani et al. (2013), we model realistic social media interactions as situational psychological shocks. Participants are randomly assigned to treatment scenarios with potential emotional salience—such as posting content without feedback, receiving negative comments, viewing idealized bodies, or encountering AI-generated content—or to a placebo group exposed to emotionally neutral online content. Immediately after exposure, anxiety is measured using the state subscale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Causal effects are identified through comparisons of post-exposure anxiety levels between treatment and placebo groups. The design allows us to isolate short-term psychological effects of specific digital experiences and to examine heterogeneity by gender. The study contributes new causal evidence from a developing-country context with near-universal social media access.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Alzua, Maria Laura, Azul Menduiña and Milagros Onofri. 2026. "Social media and health: Evidence from college students." AEA RCT Registry. February 10. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17673-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The study implements a randomized survey experiment in which participants are exposed to simulated social media scenarios. Individuals are randomly assigned to either a treatment group, which views short and realistic online interactions with potential emotional content (e.g., lack of social feedback, negative comments, exposure to idealized images, or AI-generated content), or to a placebo group exposed to emotionally neutral online content. Immediately after exposure, participants complete a standardized measure of state anxiety. The intervention is designed to capture the short-term psychological effects of specific digital experiences.
Intervention Start Date
2026-02-09
Intervention End Date
2026-02-16

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The primary outcome is participants’ level of state anxiety measured immediately after exposure to the experimental scenario. Anxiety is assessed using the state subscale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-20), a validated psychometric instrument that captures transitory anxiety. The outcome is constructed from participants’ responses to the STAI-20 items, with higher values indicating higher levels of anxiety.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The primary outcome, state anxiety, will be constructed using responses to the 20-item state subscale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Items phrased in a positive or calm direction will be reverse-coded so that higher values consistently indicate higher anxiety. The anxiety measure will be obtained by summing the recoded responses across the 20 items, generating a single composite score, with higher values indicating higher levels of state anxiety. For ease of interpretation, this score may also be standardized using the mean and standard deviation of the placebo group in some analyses.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The study uses an individual-level randomized survey experiment. Participants are randomly assigned to either a treatment group or a placebo group. Treatment participants are exposed to a single simulated social media scenario with potential emotional content, while placebo participants are exposed to an emotionally neutral online scenario. Randomization is conducted at the student level, and each participant is exposed to only one scenario. Outcomes are measured immediately after exposure using a validated instrument for state anxiety. The experimental design allows for causal identification through comparisons of post-exposure outcomes between treatment and placebo groups.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization is conducted automatically by the survey platform. Participants are randomly assigned at the individual level to the treatment or placebo group by the platform’s built-in randomization algorithm at the time the survey is administered.
Randomization Unit
The unit of randomization is the individual participant (student). Randomization is implemented within classrooms, but assignment to treatment or placebo occurs at the individual level through the survey platform, with no group- or classroom-level randomization.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Approximately 2,500 individual participants (individual-level units; no clustering).
Sample size: planned number of observations
Approximately 2,500 individual participants, all first-year university students.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Approximately 1,250 individual participants assigned to the treatment group and approximately 1,250 individual participants assigned to the placebo group.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
CEDLAS-FCE-UNLP
IRB Approval Date
2026-01-16
IRB Approval Number
n/a
Analysis Plan