讲座主题：Flick, Click, and Sick: Mental Health Risks of Short-Video Platforms

主讲嘉宾：刘畅 中国人民大学国家发展与战略研究院 副教授

讲座时间：2025年10月27日周一14:00-16:00

讲座地点：沙河校区11号楼308会议室

嘉宾简介：刘畅，经济学博士，中国人民大学国家发展与战略研究院副教授。研究成果发表于Journal of Public Economics、Journal of Development Economics等英文SSCI刊物以及《中国社会科学》、《经济研究》、《经济学季刊》、《世界经济》、《金融研究》等中文核心期刊。主持国家自然科学基金面上项目和青年项目，获得全国财政理论优秀研究成果一等奖、洪银兴经济学奖、当代经济学博士创新项目等奖励和荣誉。目前的研究方向为发展经济学和公共经济学。

内容摘要：By 2024, TikTok and its Chinese counterpart Douyin reached 2.6 billion users worldwide, each spending on average 52 minutes per day on these platforms. This paper provides the first large-scale causal evidence on how short-video platforms affect mental health taking China—the world’s largest and most mature market—as the case study. We combine city-level data on app usage time with longitudinal survey data (2010–2022) and exploit spatial variation in pre-2016 4G infrastructure, interacted with individuals’ prior internet use and the timing of Douyin’s 2016 launch, to instrument for exposure. We confirm that a ten-percentage-point increase in city-level short-video time share reduces mental health by 0.4 standard deviations among pre-2016 mobile internet users—about 80% as large as the effect of unemployment. Adverse impacts are more severe among vulnerable groups: youth, elderly, rural, poor, and less-educated individuals, with the left-behind elderly most affected. Mechanism analysis highlights four channels: unfavorable social comparison and heightened inequality perception; disrupted sleep and exercise; declining physical, cognitive, and non-cognitive health; and weakened interpersonal relationships, particularly between adults and their parents/children, suggesting potential spillovers beyond primary users. These findings underscore how digital innovation can exacerbate mental health disparities across social groups through multiple channels.

本讲座由中央财经大学2025年专题学术讲座资助计划和青年科研创新团队支持。