Effects Of Social Media On Mental Health

Social Media and Mental Health Essay

Social media is a revolutionary platform on the internet that drastically changes the world's overall view and has become an integral part of our society. Because of the evolution and expansion of social media technology becomes a vital tool for daily social interaction. The importance of social media in our world can be realized with the fact that nearly 2.65 billion people on the internet use this platform and this number is expected to grow in the coming years (Clement, 2019). Although social media has brought many benefits to our society, social media has many negative impacts on young people. Social media has influenced the mental health of adolescents and turned them into antisocial generations.

• How does social media affect mental health?

Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat have become very popular among teenagers. Often the use of these sites causes adverse effects on the mental health of young adults and because of this mental disorder becomes more common among these age groups. A study shows that 14 -17 years who use social media for more than 7 hours are more than twice the possibility of suffering from depression (Twenge & Campbell, 2018). When teenagers use most of their time on social networking sites they observe images and content posted by their colleagues who give rise to social comparisons ("Social Media Effects on Teenagers", 2019). Therefore, this allows children to analyze themselves more and have a negative impact on their self-esteem and body image can cause depression and anxiety. However, almost 43 percent of teenagers feel pressure when posting content on social media that makes them look good (Anderson and Jiang, 2018).

Nowadays, teenagers have addicted to social media in such a way that they sacrifice their valuable sleep. Lack of sleep is related to major mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. A study of high school students showed that every time you lost sleep associated with a 38 percent in risk of feeling sad and an increase of 58 percent in suicide ("how technology and lack of sleep affect adolescents", 2018). Because of the lack of adolescents become more aggressive, easily offended, and suffer due to lack of concentration which causes poor academic performance. In addition, social media has become addictive. Like other addictive behavior, the brain responds to social media with a dopamine release that gives them a sense of gift ("how technology and lack of sleep affect adolescents", 2018). Teenagers become too worried about their social media accounts and tend to enter uncontrollably leaving important tasks (Hillard, 2019). Therefore, addiction to social networking sites can not only damage the mental well-being of adolescents but can also affect their future. Addiction to social networks also has a big impact on the physical health of adolescents, because teenagers spend most of their time on various social platforms, and they do not do any physical activities such as playing outdoors, running and exercising. Due to a lack of physical activity, young people are vulnerable to various heart diseases, some of the most common cancer, and obesity.

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