[iak8god]

Here's what they say in the abstract:

> Providing stronger evidence of the directionality of this effect, Study 3 (N = 171) showed that in college students CRP predicted increased social media use in the subsequent week even after controlling for current week’s use.

The basic methodology for this part is:

* Blood sample (measured for CRP)

* 1 week later: survey on social media use (participants using Screen Time app to objectively measure their activity)

* 1 week after that: survey on social media use again

Then they ran some regression analyses.

I didn't see anything here that rules out the alternative possible explanation: college students who use social media more are more stressed out as a result of their social media use.