While social media is a tool in connecting people, a new study suggests that it’s not actually surrounding you with the people you care about or doing much for loneliness. Researchers at Oregon State University studied more than 1,500 US adults between the ages of 30 and 70, and looked at how different types of social media connections relate to loneliness. The findings? People you don’t know in real life may actually be making things worse.

Why online strangers could be the problem

According to the study, social media connections with people users had never met in person were often associatd with higher loneliness, with the findings also revealing that 35% of the participants’ social media contacts being people they’ve never met offline. Meanwhile, the researchers found that connecting online with people you do know in real life was not linked to increased loneliness. But at the same time, it wasn’t linked to reduce loneliness either.

In other words, even familiar social media contacts may not provide the emotional payoff people expect.

How close onlnie connections still have their limits

Study leader Brian Primack added that lonely users may want to look more critically at how they interact with strangers on social media, even when those online connections feel close. He says that prioritizing in-person relationships is more important than social media ones.

What makes things worse is relationships. Co-author Jessica Gorman noted that online interactions can influence people to idealize other people’s friendships, which can make social comparison worse. This effects get even stronger with people you’ve never met, since there’s no real-world experience to balance out the impression created online.

Most social media researchers focuses on teenagers and young adults. However, this study is different because it looks at midlife and older adults, which is a group that makes up most of the US population and is heavily exposed to social media.