Holland !

Owen Holland

ENG.1201.517

Joyce Barnes

13 April 2019

How do Social Media and Mental Health Relate?

When most people join a social media website, they feel like it will help them feel con-

nected with others. Teenagers may believe it can help their social status to post interesting

things on their pages. These websites are very appealing to most because we can completely

control how we are viewed based on our profiles. As a whole, social media may be the com-

plete opposite of what it is supposed to be. It is becoming more apparent than ever that spend-

ing more time on social media can lead to mental health issues. Teenagers also seem to be the

most affected by social media sites. A 2018 study done by Pew Research Center showed that

95% of teenagers in the United States have access to a smartphone. 85% of all teens in the

U.S. (Anderson & Jiang). said they used social media. These numbers show how serious this

problem should be taken. Social Media causes mental health issues in teenagers because they

feel like their lives are not as good everyone else’s, they feel left out, and cyberbullying is

more apparent than ever.

When most people post on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc, they are posting the

highlights of their lives. People are not going to be showing off the low points of their lives.

When people go on vacation to the beach, a beautiful foreign land, a big city, or any very ex-

citing place, they post about it. They are not going to post a pictures glorifying the boring day
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to day tasks that they need to do. You can see how this could easily make teenagers feel like

their own lives are boring. When you are sitting in your room doing homework and you see

your friends having the time of their lives on a beach in Florida. That can make anyone feel

depressed, but especially teenagers. High School is a tough time for most teens without social

media but now there is a pressure to have an interesting online presence as well. Teenagers

can have a hard time believing that they are having good lives when they go on social media

everyday and see people only posting the highlights of there lives. “The factors that may con-

tribute to depression are the various measures of popularity that Facebook creates. In particu-

lar, Facebook can make kids feel inadequate due to the ‘in-your-face’ friend tallies, status up-

dates, and pictures of others having a good time” (Mir & Novas). This is just one example of

what social media can do to a teenagers self esteem.

Social media’s affect on mental health can include self image. Females are usually more

affected by it then males, but everyone is still affected to some degree. When anyone posts on

social media they are posting pictures that they think they look particularly good in. This can

lead teens the think poorly about themselves. There are also attractive people that have huge

followings on Instagram and twitter that will make people more jealous. These problems

would all be severely reduced with less social media consumption. The affect that the media

has on young people's perception of what is good looking has always been talked about. It can

be an argument about female models being too skinny and male models being to muscular.

These problems have been around for a long time but it is worse than ever. It used to just be

an issue with models in magazines and television commercials. Now advertisements are
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everywhere you look. All the celebrities and the social media stars have the “ideal look.”

Over time, this can drastically hurt the self image of any teen that spends too much time on-

line. A study shown from the University of Pittsburgh that teenagers who spend a lot of time

scrolling through social media are 2.6 times more likely to have body image issues (Hurley).

like how people post the highlights of their lives, they are always going to post their perfect

angle.

Apps like Snapchat are commonly used for less significant uploads. Websites like Face-

book and Instagram are used to make less frequent but more significant posts. Snapchat and

Twitter on the other hand are usually more frequent, many teens will post multiple times a day

on those. With the apps like Twitter and Snapchat, they are always showing teens what they

are missing out on. Whenever they go on their phone they may see a group of people doing

something very fun, or a group their friends doing something that they were not invited to.

This is has been called the “fear of missing out,” or “FOMO” (Cain). This is very dangerous

because this causes people to feel lonely very often. A study done at the University of Penn-

sylvania and published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, asked 140 under-

graduate students to either limit their use of Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook to 30 minutes

a day, or to continue using them normally. The undergraduate students that limited there social

media use reported having reduced signs of depression and loneliness (Walton). A seemingly

great thing about social media, is that you almost always know what everyone is doing. It is

not as great as it was originally thought to be. If you always know what people are doing then

you always know what plans you are missing out on.
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People always knowing what everyone is up to can be more problematic than just mak-

ing people feel lonely. If people always know what you are doing that can lead to a lot of

judgement. Teenagers are already usually worried about what people think about them, now

social media can make everything more stressful. When nothing is secretive, that changes the

whole environment of high school. Rumors can be spread faster, people can be made fun of

for things they put on social media at school. The biggest problem with this though is not face

to face mockery, it is the bullying that is happening online.

Cyberbullying has been around since the internet started gaining popularity. With social

media being as big as it is, cyberbullying is more prevalent than ever. People can comment

nasty things, post insulting things, and instantly spread embarrassing or incorrect information.

When you post something on social media, you are making yourself vulnerable to criticism.

Bullying has always been going on but something schools have been trying to stop forever.

When it comes to cyberbullying however, it is way easier. People can do it at anytime and

anywhere, often without any consequences. Cyberbullying will also be wherever you go.

Without social media, bullying would only happen at school or when you saw the person.

Now that most teenagers have smartphones, they can be getting teased in there pocket all day

long. Everyone has probably heard stories of cyberbullying causing people to do terrible

things like bringing guns to school or committing suicide. “Most of the ‘threats’ this genera-

tion has received have come through social media and texts, and therefore, they are more like-

ly to associate “words” with violence (Cain). This can lead to younger generations being more
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sensitive to verbal insults. That can be a reason to why cyberbullying is as big as it has be-

come. The scary part is these problems are not going away, they may even be getting worse.

In a documentary by Richard Grannon titled, “PLUGGED IN : The True Toxicity of

Social Media Revealed,” he touches on many issues with social media including cyberbully-

ing. Grannon believes the reason why people are so much more disrespectful and blunt online

is because of the humanity break. This is when people lose sympathy for people because they

basically do not see the target as a human with real emotions. This is caused because the peo-

ple posting nasty comments online are not seeing the humanity of the person that they are at-

tacking. This can explain why people are getting suggestions to kill or harm themselves on

social media. It is hard to imagine people saying such nasty things to someone face-to-face,

but many people do not feel such sympathy online. However, when someone is being targeted

in that way online, it is natural to take it very personally and this can be a huge blow to their

self esteem.

Despite most U.S. teens saying that they use social media, there is no definitive answer

from teens, as to if social media has a positive or negative impact on their lives. Only 24% of

teenagers believed that social media has a mostly negative impact on their lives. 31% of the

teenagers said that they believed social media had more of a positive influence on their lives.

While the other 45% said that they did not think that social media had a positive or negative

impact on their lives (Anderson & Jiang). No one can say any of the teenagers opinions are

wrong because everyone has a different experience on the social platforms. This data from the

Pew Research Center is alarming though, because it is clearly a mystery whether or not social
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media is good or bad, to the people that these sites are affecting the most. If teens are not edu-

cated on the effects social media can have on mental health than this can make them very vul-

nerable to be victims themselves.

Excessive use of social media has been associated with lower academic performance

along with depression, stress, and anxiety increases. Using social media for nonacademic pur-

poses and social media multitasking negatively affected the student’s academic performances.

Doing homework while having a smartphone right next to the students can cause a very large

distraction. Such easy access to the internet and social media allows for an infinite amount of

breaks from focusing on their work. A large sample survey conducted in the United States

also found that the time students spent on Facebook negatively affected their overall GPAs.

Since social media can hurt teenagers self esteem it will have the negative factors. Low self

esteem has been connected with anxiety, depression, and worse academic performance (Hou).

People overusing the internet has led a lot of researchers to believe that it is dangerously

addictive. “Often it is observed that, just as with illicit drugs such as cocaine or meth-

amphetamine, pleasurable activities such as eating, having sex, or using the internet can re-

lease dopamine” (Ferguson). This has created the comparison of a teens addiction to the inter-

net to the addiction of using illegal drugs. Although it has been hard to definitively prove the

severity of internet addiction because of disagreement on measurement scales, it seems pretty

obvious to most that teens have a hard time staying off of social media for even a short period

of time.
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Staying off of your phone for most of the day may seem like the best solution, but to-

day’s modern society will not allow this. Teenagers are commonly looked down upon for al-

ways being on their phones or other devices. At the same time, it has become such a social

norm for everyone to reply to texts very quick. Turning off your phone for a day does not

even seem like it is possible in 2019. When you turn it on the next day you could be met with

twenty messages from people who wanted to talk to you or make plans. This could create

even more stress for someone if they are constantly worried if someone is trying to contact

them.

Social media is not all bad for mental health of course, there is good from it. Many

celebrities and pro athletes have publicly spoken about there mental health problems on social

media and have received a lot of support. There are plenty of websites that can get people to

talk to professionals for help with mental health issues. There are also websites where teens

can join groups and talk to other teens that are going through similar things as them. Social

media also helps teenagers with communication skills and making social connections (Mir &

Novas). It can also be used to help grow and maintain relationships. Healthy social media use

has also been shown self esteem enhancement and health promotion in many cases (Guinta).

Although, social media like most things involving the internet, needs to be handled very care-

fully.

Teenagers can have mental health issues from Social Media because they feel like their

lives are inferior everyone else’s, they feel lonely, and cyberbullying is very common. Most

people’s social media profiles only showcase the highlights of their lives. People are usually
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posting their most attractive pictures, or at least the ones where they believe they look the

best. This can lead teenagers to feel poorly about themselves. Teens often feel lonely when

they see social media posts where they feel like they are not included. Social media posts is

also a whole new aspect of life that can be judged and picked on. This also created a new

branch of bullying called cyberbullying that can really do damage to teenagers. Cyberbullying

is such a problem because you cannot walk away from it. Most mental health problems that

are from social media are due to teens losing self esteem from it. We need to make sure we are

aware of these issues and take them very serious.


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Works Cited

Anderson, Monica & Jiang, Jingjing. “Teens, Social Media, and Technology 2018.” Pew Re-

search Center. 31 May 2018, https://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-me-

dia-technology-2018/. Accessed on 12 April 2019.

Cain, Jeff. “It's Time to Confront Student Mental Health Issues Associated with Smartphones

and Social Media.” American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, vol. 82 issue 7, Sept

2018, pp. 738-41. EBSCOHost, https://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?

vid=4&sid=60adba34-2578-4215-8a1f-d05bded23dda%40sessionmgr4006&bdata=Jn-

NpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=ehh&AN=132137452.

Ferguson, C.J. “Social Media, Societal Changes, and Mental Health: You Can Live Online

Wholesale.” In Encyclopedia of Mental Health Edition: Second Edition, Elsevier Inc.,

2016, pp. 179–183. EBSCOHost. https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?

vid=0&sid=c16ce5bf-e0eb-43c3-9cca-8feea9662eba%40sessionmgr103&bdata=JnNpd-

GU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=B9780123970459000689&db=edselp.

Grannon, Richard, director. Plugged In : The True Toxicity of Social Media Revealed.

PLUGGED IN : The True Toxicity of Social Media Revealed, Spartan Life Coach, 23 Jan.

2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHzwMLx-rKc.

Guinta, Maggie. “Social Media and Adolescent Health.” Pediatric Nursing, vol. 44, no. 4, Aug

2018, pp. 196-201. EBSCOHost, https://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?

vid=5&sid=60adba34-2578-4215-8a1f-d05bded23dda%40sessionmgr4006&bdata=Jn-

NpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=131366570&db=ccm.
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Hou, Yubo. “Social media addiction: Its impact, mediation, and intervention.” Cyberpsychology,

vol. 13, issue 1, 2019, pp. 1-17. EBSCOHost, https://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/de-

tail?vid=3&sid=53d1208f-14d7-4906-913a-95b24aff1f3d%40pdc-v-

sessmgr05&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=134920818&db=a9h

Hurley, Katie. “ Social Media and Teens: How Does Social Media Affect Teenagers’ Mental

Health.” PSYCOM, PSYCOM, 7 March 2019, https://www.psycom.net/social-media-

teen-mental-health. Accessed on 10 March 2019.

Mir, Elina & Novas, Caroline. “Social Media and Adolescents’ and Young Adults’ Mental

Health.” National Center for Health Research. 2018. http://www.center4research.org/so-

cial-media-affects-mental-health/. Accessed on 12 April 2019.

Walton, Alice. “New Studies Show Just How Bad Social Media is for Mental Health.” Forbes,

Forbes, 16 Nov 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2018/11/16/new-re-

search-shows-just-how-bad-social-media-can-be-for-mental-health/#256aedb17af4. Ac-

cessed on 9 March 2019.