Social media videos showed potential for easing anxiety around procedures
Health videos showed potential for reducing anxiety around procedures, but study quality and varied methods limit confidence.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
The clearest pooled result concerned anxiety around medical procedures, where video interventions showed improvement. Other reported gains in mood and physical activity mostly came from individual studies. The findings leave open how well these interventions work during ordinary social media use, especially because nearly all included studies raised concerns about bias.
Nearly all studies raised bias concerns. This abstract-based account omits pooled comparator details and absolute symptom changes, limiting interpretation of the benefit and its relevance to ordinary social media viewing.
What researchers found
Anxiety around medical procedures
The review reported moderate improvement with videos versus unspecified comparators. SMD measures the difference in standard deviations, units of score variation; exact assessment times were unreported.
What the review covered
Researchers examined longer social media videos that measured health outcomes. Most interventions used YouTube, and mental health conditions dominated the evidence, so the review covered a particular slice of online health communication.
Putting the score in context
A standard deviation describes how widely participants' scores vary; the reported improvement was 0.57 of that unit. The interval leaves uncertainty about the size of improvement, and absolute questionnaire-point changes were not reported.
The original publication
The Impact of Social Media Videos on Quantitative Health Outcomes: Systematic Review.
Chen F, Tay T, Thould H et al.
JMIR Infodemiology · 2026
- PubMed ID
- 41712867
- Record checked
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