How does social media affect adolescence’s mental health?
Social media affects adolescence’s mental health adversely. In social media era, most teens distinguish that complexity, fear, and sadness are in life and not in death. Affection, confidence, and satisfaction have changed over this period, they became as strong as death and harsh as grave if you have lost them. Social media created its own deceptive memories to match our ideal selves on the internet which led to “68 percent of people admit to exaggerating in their social media post and undergo a kind of digital amnesia when reviewing past posts, believing their own events as they have been written on social media sites.” (Lying on Social Media Creates False Memories) It has evolved into a life flooded with traumatic memories. This unfortunately consumes most their time and focus.
Imagine if your friend committed suicide because of cyber-bullying, beauty standards of social media, or peer pressure. There is much truth to this theory, as I have witnessed the burden of social media for a close friend of mine and the tragic result in his decision to take his own life. Suicide seemed the only way to escape from the world of cyber bullying. Social media has become increasingly negative, judgmental, frustrating, and cruel. This good friend of mine, who once loved life and freedom, simply could not bear the thought of another day on this earth. Social media had shattered his perception of life as impossible instead of it being the most precious thing. The digital world breeds a vivid lack of self-importance, existence, affection, satisfaction, and a distorted sense of reality. Social networking sites go beyond communication and entertainment. Too often, it can be more of a social burden for their users. It becomes part of their identity in which they cannot live without. Despite social media’s many benefits, networking sites have become an enormous threat to people of all ages. Teens have started to move away from constant and deep experiences that require effort and patience in the practical life. A distinct shift has occurred in the desire for immediate satisfaction, thereby forgetting the importance of delayed gratification. Our youth is overcome by superficial and immediate emotions rather than happiness and joy in demanding work and authenticity. The phenomenon of suicide through social networking sites has reached a dangerous high. This is above all the social problems and is considered one of the most fundamental problems resulting from the social imbalance or disorder that characterize modern human societies. The constant pressure of social media on any individual leads to the occurrence of deeply soulful and severe injuries. As a result, too many teens have resorted to take their own life. For many teenagers, the idea of suicide is an acceptable alternative to their digital reality and a conceivable way to overcome not achieving the goal they have initially sought after. The various psychological pressures, frustrations, and surprises that social media infiltrates, can lead to severe negative emotions, sadness, tension, despair, and anger.
What is adolescence and its psychology?
Studying the psychology of teens helps us have a better understanding of how and why social media affects adolescents’ mental health from all age groups. Let us start first by asking ourselves what is adolescence? Adolescence is the period of the upcoming adulthood. It is illustrated by instability, rebellion, and constant renewal and advancement towards human perfection. The threat of this phase is in the shift from childhood to adulthood and the transformation in the countless appearances of growth such as physical, mental, social, Emotional, and moral. Furthermore, adolescence is influenced by the capabilities of the child in the previous stage. In this phase, development is a constant process. I strongly believe that modern social structures in which adolescents live are responsible for the adolescent crisis. To put it succinctly, the more teenagers use social networking sites and the further they are given the mental importance of their contribution in these sites, the greater the risk of suffering from lack of sleep system, lack of self-confidence, depression, and anxiety. In fact, the practice of the internet network at night was directly associated with a greater risk that the adolescent had a poor sleep quality. Teenagers likely experience several challenges, both internal and external conflicts. This includes the conflict between family support and reliance on social media for security or confidence, self-acceptance and the masculine or feminine standards of others, responsible behavior and noticeable lack of commitment, impulsivity, and delayed gratification, as well as the generation in which they live with their views or ideas and the previous generation. Adolescents reject wisdom or reality when under the control of a family and school. They constantly want to seek independence. Therefore, using social media as a source of rebelling has become one of the most dangerous stages. The psychology of teens remains one of the most difficult problems faced by many specialists because of contrast and instability. Pickhardt in “why So Sensitive Adolescence and Embarrassment,” demonstrates that teenagers are trapped in a stage where they do not know if they should act like children or adults. He stated in his article that teenagers are “a perfect age for embarrassment because there are frequent missteps that lead to feeling awkward and insecure.” Richardt mentioned too that teens could be embarrassed by what peers could say in public or by not doing or knowing something. Teens have been going through a lot of pressure regarding their physical and mental changes. They started to be embarrassed because it is hard in that certain age to cope with the physical and mental changes as well. which they end up leading toward social isolation. Thus, they spend most of their time by themselves on social media.
Life before and after Social media?
As we all know, social media has become one of the most powerful forces in the world and one of the greatest overruling connection that command the minds of young generations. It has become one of the furthermost influential attraction to teens in this generation too. Moreover, the internet become a remarkable thing to make all the information within our reach, and to connect millions of people around the world with each other in just a few seconds. Our life depends on it completely so that some people cannot imagine how life was before the Internet. Smartphones have made a significant leap in people’s lives, so their lifestyle today is much different than it has been in decades. When people needed to know what they were looking for in books, not Google, which would have taken longer, it allowed them to come across dozens of other information, they never knew. Eye contact was very normal in the days before the Internet, and it was strange to talk to someone who does not see people’s faces or does not look in their eyes. In “Life before and after Facebook,” by Suzanne Franks, talks about life before social media and how people lived and experienced life before the internet. People who get to experience life before social media had so much peace of minds than this generation. They had the ability to survive without technology. They could read books without getting distracted by the phone or any other tasks. They did not suffer from depression or any other mental problems as much as this generation did right now. Franks stated “There was a time when sending a misbehaving youngster off to their bedroom was viewed as a punishment. It was supposed to make them feel isolated and excluded; an admonishment to sit alone and reflect on their wrongdoing.” This is important to consider because it discusses how parents use isolation as a punishment for teenagers and how teenagers now are the one who would like to be isolated and excluded the whole time with their phones, due to social media, isolation would be a retreat for so many teens to be isolated. Social media was their refuge to get rid of their families’ control over them and prove their personality and fulfill their desires.
Some people used the word silence metaphorically to describe life before social media just like Tereza Litsa in “Do you remember life before the internet,” Litsa said, “I would choose silence. Silence was not literal, since we did not have to deal with all the social buzz and the noise that may turn distracting from time to time. Communication was more personal, face-to-face contact had to be less awkward.” Smartphones have made a momentous change in teens’ lives, so their lifestyle today is much different than it has been in decades. Newspapers and books were occupying an important space of time, both for news and for entertainment. Social networks have invaded teens’ world, and with the increasing rise of this invasion, the question of the impact on teens behavior has grown. One of the things that changed teen’s mental health too after the evolution of social media is love relationships. Social media undermines trust among adolescents which could lead to paranoid Personality disorder. After the inflation of social media, most teens have started to have a challenging time keeping a relationship to last long because they get easily distracted. They pay more attention mostly to their phones to match their deal selves on the internet and not spending time with their couples. Therefore, most teens could not keep any relationships because they lose the feeling of privacy, trust, and lack of life interaction.
How did social media change Teens’ lives?
Social networks have changed many of our teens habits, teens ties, and social relationships. The excessive use of social networking sites such as Facebook causes psychological disorders, especially among adolescents. Some teens who are already suffering from depression may resort to social communication to fill the void in their lives, also the use of natural persons by excessive use of these sites may be one of the causes of depression that leads them to addictions over time. According to the article “Is Social Media Dependence a Mental Health Issue?” Emma Stein stated that Social media’s addiction is the main concern because the excessive use of the internet could lead to severe mental illness. The CASA Columbia created a survey that showed the correlation between social media use and drug abuse. They found that “Those that interact via social media daily are five times likelier to use tobacco, three times likelier to use alcohol, and twice as likely to use marijuana. Forty percent of these teens surveyed admit to having seen pictures of people under the influence.” This survey should be taken into consideration because a lot of teenagers get affected by peer pressure. Therefore, they believed once they saw everyone trying drugs and posting pictures or videos related to it then, they should try it out in order to fit into the society. Most of teens rely in part on the ability to reflect their thoughts, feelings, and behavior to form their own mental image of self. The problem with social media is the adoption of this self-image on others and their views fundamentally. Those teenagers who absorbed the digital age suffer from more an exaggerated self-image than in previous generation. In analyzing this article and other surrounding factors, they proved to me that the addiction to this new communication will lead to other addictions that will significantly harm adolescent’s mental health. Most teenagers think that by the excessive use of social media, they will escape all their problems. However, the use of excessive addiction is one of the main causes of depression that leads them to become more addicted over time and more isolated from the people.
Media and Mental health
A sharp and significant decline in self-esteem among all teens because of increased activity on social networking sites. A lot of teens suffer from dissatisfaction with overall appearance and want to lose/gain weight. Social networking sites had made girls more likely to be ridiculed. The spotlight of social media users to flawless pictures of their lives arouses feeling of jealousy on the part of their friends who inaccurately believe that others live happier and more effective lives. One of the internal problem or conflict that we face nowadays is the inability to resist temptation. According to adolescent therapist Kathy Catenacci in “How social media changed teen life forever” stated that “Teens cannot escape the constant barrage of negative posts, how they should look, dress and act without being able to escape it for very long.” Also in “Media influence and body dissatisfaction in Brazilian adolescents,” The authors noticed a huge percentage of dissatisfaction from adolescents. Then they made a point that teenagers are influenced by the media because it has its own beauty standard. and if they do not fit in that beauty standard then they will be going to suffer from depression or even committing suicide. The dissatisfaction has become a major concern for teens. This problem arises when social media began to evolve as shown through results of a questionnaire that, “47.1% of the public-school girls presented some level of dissatisfaction, judging that they had a thinner figure than boys. Adolescents internalize messages from the media regarding established beauty standards.” In other words, social media had the ability to change beauty standards which led to an increased rate of body dissatisfaction, as a result, it affected undesirably their mental health. They concluded the essay by stating if adolescents kept on following and believing in the beauty standards recognized by the media, it will lead to unhealthy behaviors targeting to accomplish ideal beauty like anorexia nervosa – (“is an eating disorder categorized by an abnormally low body weight, because of the powerful anxiety of gaining weights and go against beauty standards.”)
Violence in Media
Cyber bullying and mental health
One of the fundamental issues that has been generated by social media is cyber bullying. Adolescents who have a habit of using cyber bullying are the ones who be terrified of disagreeing or expressing their feelings and emotions, they feel most frequently powerless. Adolescents who cannot achieve control or authority in their own life, thus they pressurize to cyber bullying. Julia Fluck’s aim of her study in “Why students bully?” “was to establish the motives behind bullying, she focuses on how to classify cyberbullying. She came up with five dimensions: instrumental, power, sadism, ideology, and revenge.” In order for adolescents to feel powerful and revengeful to overcome the existence of their internal conflicts including: independence and the reliance on it and the ambitions and lack of commitments. They need nothing more than to publish an embarrassing image or write a hurtful comment to anyone on the internet to feel powerful and in control of their lives. The prominent clinical and developmental psychologist Dr. Donna Wick states that “Kids text all sorts of things that you would never in a million years contemplate saying to anyone’s face” (Using Social Media Affects Teenagers.) A lot of researchers have stated the fact that cyberbullying has broader effects on adolescents than face to face bullying. Thus, adolescents who have the experience of cyberbullying will most likely conduct hostile behavior to other society members because they are not emotionally equipped to deal with social degradation. Therefore, they escape all the problems through fictional characters on the internet. Social networking sites are easy tools for adolescents to take out all their negative energy without getting punished by violating other people’s privacy, encouraging lies and hypocrisy through cyberbullying. “According to 2012 center for disease control and prevention report. Victims of cyberbullying are almost twice as likely to have attempted suicide compared with adolescents who were not the target of online attacks” (teen depression and how social media can help or hurt). Let us take Korea as an example. Korea is one of the top countries in the world that use technology in everything. It is also one of the top countries that has high rate of bullying and suicides. A lot of theorists and scholars named Korea as the “capital of suicide,” the Korean government took this problem into consideration and funded research projects regarding the high rate of bullying and suicides. The government found that “60 percent of people who attempt suicide are suffering from depression. Yet too many people in South Korea have outdated views of psychological illness” by Young-Ha Kim. (South Korea’s Struggle with Suicide). They came up with a conclusion that the rise and the advancement of technology had enormous impacts on the mental health of teenagers such as paranoia, phobic anxiety, and deep depression because they are the most sensitive and delicate age group. They are easily affected by anything and more frequently than any age group to get mentally harmed. They could effortlessly face depression and low self -esteem.
Conclusion
This research proves how social media has an adverse effect on the mental health of teens. The attention and obsession with social media has reached the point of addiction and isolation from the world. We all need to understand that teens at this age are looking for how to be independent in all the things they do and so they may rebel sometimes. Parents need to be friendly and close to their children instead of being too busy with work or other less important personal distractions. Parental neglect or lack of physical closeness to an offspring naturally affects the relationship or connection one has with their kids. It is imperative that parents spend more time face to face with their children in order to protect them from social media or support them through the emotional rollercoaster of cyberbullying, depression, loneliness, and addiction. In this digital era, we need to create more awareness about websites that children are using so that we become more familiar with what they are going through or facing. We need to monitor the interaction and communication that occurs between children on the web so we could direct and advise our youth as to what is useful rather than eliminating the sites entirely. Otherwise, our children might resort to alternative measures of accessing the web and resist the positive and necessary influence of parental guidance as well as support.
Works cited
Fluck, Julia. “Why Do Students Bully?” ResearchGate,10 Aug. 2014. http://www.bing.com/cr?IG=31D61527DB3D4B0CA9C454DDCAC00CB4&CID=34DBFA1A527368DA025FF122537569F5&rd=1&h=aNQbBvo9zstLPh0h25kWbWyEHU6M_HDVxeikArgRMFY&v=1&r=https%3a%2f%2fwww.researchgate.net%2fprofile%2fJulia_Fluck%2fpublication%2f265300581_Why_Do_Students_Bully_An_Analysis_of_Motives_Behind_Violence_in_Schools%2flinks%2f55dc2a4f08aeb38e8a8ba2ab.pdf&p=DevEx,5067.1.
Francisco N. M. Uchoa1, Romario P. Lustosa2, Maria T. M. Rocha1, Thiago M. C. Daniele3, Naira F. Deana4, Nilton Alves5,6*, Agata C. M. Aranha7. “Media influence and body dissatisfaction in Brazilian adolescents.” Biomedical Research 2017; 28 (6): 2445-2451. ISSN 0970-938X. Accepted on October 27, 2016
Franks, Suzanne. “Life before and after Facebook.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 3 Jan. 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/03/life-before-and-after-facebook.
Kim, Young-Ha. “South Korea’s Struggle with Suicide.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 June 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/youngha-kim.
Klein, Sarah. “Is Social Media Dependence a Mental Health Issue?” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 May 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/07/social-media-mental-health_n_5268108.html
Litsa, Tereza. “Do You Remember Life Before the Internet?” Social Media Week, 24 June 2015, socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/06/life-before-internet/.
Mash, The. “How social media changed teen life forever.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 8 Jan. 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-mash/how-social-media-changed_b_8939686.html.
Pickhardt, Carl. “Why So Sensitive? Adolescence and Embarrassment.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 14 Oct. 2013, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/201310/why-so-sensitive-adolescence-and-embarrassment.
Ring, Dr. Melinda. “Teen depression and how social media can help or hurt.” CNN, Cable News Network, 6 Aug. 2015, www.cnn.com/2015/08/05/health/teen-depression-social-media/index.html.
Shoemaker, Natalie. “Lying on Social Media Creates False Memories.” Big Think, 4 Jan. 2015, bigthink.com/ideafeed/lying-on-social-media-creates-false-memories
Hunter College Writes 