The effects of social media on kids and adolescents
Miray Wanis
Department of English, The City College of New York
English 21003: Writing for the Sciences
Professor. Conroy
October 13, 2020
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is a literature review about four scholarly articles that reflect on the research question, “what are the effects of social media on kids and adolescents?”. These articles serve a purpose in which they focus on the negative consequences of social media. Each research focus on ideal harms that social media causes for adolescents such as depression, suicide, cyber bullying and separation from their surroundings. All four sources build on the mental health issues that are caused by social media, and they focus on the negatives rather than the positives. The articles chosen also reflect on the correlation between mental health issues and suicide rates in the past 10 years and they seem to be significantly increasing due to the increase of social media usage. There may be limitations to these findings and there may be future research required on this topic to be able to better understand this association.
Key words: depression, mental health issues, cyber bullying, suicide rates, adolescents, separation, reality v online worlds.
As technology evolves so does social media, and with social media evolving youth have been getting more and more attached to it and they rely on it, and most make it the main highlight of their day. In the past decade, the increase of the role of social media in adolescents lives has both brought new opportunity and challenges into their lives. Some studies discuss the effects social media on the mental health of both kids and teenagers, and they have seen both negative and positive linkages. Also, growing up with certain social media logarithms has influenced many children’s lives and even drastically influenced their lives.The increase of social media use in the past century has had many effects on teens and children. Social media use has increased drastically over the past decade, this has caused many teens to be involved with social media and has caused this to both effect their mental health an effect their everyday lives. Social media usage has become a main aspect of society both positively and negatively. Social media usage causes depression and many other mental problems due to wanting to measure up to society meaning, this has also caused the increase of suicidal rates and has caused teens to not be their true self on the media. Social media has created a barrier that creates separations of friends and doesn’t inspire them to say what they really mean. Another major theme discusses is that, social media has caused the amount of cyber bullying incidents and has bad many adolescents doubt themselves and their self worth. The articles “Online Social Networking and Mental Health” by Igor Pantic, “The Impact of Social Media on Youth Mental Health” by Jacqueline Nesi, “Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review” by
Fazida Karim , Azeezat A. Oyewande, Lamis F. Abdalla, Reem Chaudhry Ehsanullah, Safeera Khan and “How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers” by Rachel Ehmke all discuss these themes and help expand on them. The frequent question that is being asked is, what are the effects of social media on adolescents and kids lives? The effects of social media seem to be clear and expressed through various numbers of researchers. The effects of social media expressed in the articles above seem to all be negative and seem to negatively impact many adolescents’ mental health and even their lives and communications.
According to research, social media plays a major role in depression and other mental illnesses. Social media has caused the rate of suicides and substance use to increase because they often want to measure up to the expectations that they see online. As stated in “ The Impact of Social Media on Youth Mental Health” states that there was a “demonstrated a link between mobile screen time before bed and a range of poorer sleep outcomes, including shorter sleep duration, poor sleep quality, and daytime sleepiness” (Nesi, 2020 p 2). This is further proved when the rates of suicide are drastically increasing in the past decade. Mental health concerns such as depression and suicide, have significantly increased amount adolescents in the past years. Suicide and depression rates of youth “ aged 10-24 increasing 56% from 2007 to 2017 [6]. Given that this increase has coincided with the widespread adoption of social media, this has led to concerns regarding a potential link”(Nesi, 2020 p 2). As children and teenagers tend to become more addicted and attached to these algorithms, their mental health. In the article “How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers” a survey was conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health, in the UK and asked individuals ages 14-24 about how social media impacted their health. “The survey results found that Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all led to increased feelings of depression, anxiety, poor body image and loneliness”( Ehmke, 2020 p 1). This is farther proven in the article “Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review” where they believe it “has been indicated that the prolonged use of social media platforms such as Facebook may be related to negative signs and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress(Karim , Oyewande, Abdalla, Ehsanullah, Khan 2020 p 2). In the article “Online Social Networking and Mental Health” a research that was also conducted to see the correlation between depressive symptoms and social media use. Based on this research, it was inferred that the increased usage of social media led to individuals separating from their family members, and “Internet user’s social circle, which may further lead to increased feelings of depression and loneliness”( Pantic, 2014 p 3). It was also expressed that there was a correlation between depression and social media, “In our recent study in a high school student population, we found a statistically significant positive correlation between depressive symptoms and time spent on SNS”(Pantic, 2014 p 2).Social media has had a very big impact on the increase of the suicidal rates and the increased feeling of loneliness and depression that nearing 1 in every 5 teenagers has been diagnosed with depressive disorder as a result of wanting to measure up to social media. Technology and social media has played a critical role on the suicides and depression in the lives of these adolescents.
In addition, another effect of social media on adolescents is the increase of cyber bullying and the separation of people that builds a barrier due to increase of online friendships and relationships. It is shown and expressed that peer relations have a greater influence, it is stated that “Peer influence processes may also be heightened online, where youth may access a wide range of their peers in addition to potentially risky content”(Nesi, 2020 p 5). This isn’t the only concern, social media makes teens disconnected from their friends and they cannot really express emotions. Rachel Ehmke cites a very significant finding by Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair, a clinical psychologist talks about this in her book,The Big Disconnect, she writes that social media ‘“puts everybody in a nonverbal disabled context, where body language, facial expression, and even the smallest kinds of vocal reactions are rendered invisible’(Dr.Adair 2017 p 4)”(2020 p 4).This is a very significant idea that Rachel Ehmke discusses because she brings up the idea that a big part of growing up is taking risks, and being involved fully online doesn’t inspire individuals to express how they really feel or even take risks. Kids need to relate to people and if this inset happening then “social negotiations only get riskier as people get older and begin navigating romantic relationships and employment”(Ehmke 2020 p 5). In contrast, there was a belief that also stated that social media helps relationships form and social media helps “people understand their abilities, solve everyday life problems, work well, and make a significant contribution to the lives of their communities(Karim , Oyewande, Abdalla, Ehsanullah, Khan 2020 p 1). Although many relationships are formed online and many teens are able to make a lot of online relationships, it effects their relationships in person and these online interactions “ are shallow and cannot adequately replace everyday face-to-face communication”( Pantic 2014 p 4). The association shown in these relationships and interactions are very significant because it farther proves the negative effects social media has on children and teenagers. Communication is a very important aspect that is needed as you grow up, and social media cuts down on these communications and develops loneliness.
Another association shown in these articles is the relationship between social media and cyber bullying and teens changing their identities to fit in . Social media is the primary place where bullying happens and social media significantly increases bullying. There is a lot of content about suicide and teens bullying each other and suggesting that suicide is the answer. Many researches have been done and it was concluded that most suicides were somehow related to online drama. As stated, the “Content related to suicide and self-injury may also be readily available online, potentially increasing suicide risk among youth who are already vulnerable” (Nesi 2020 p 4). Self esteem is a big part of social media, many people lose their self esteem while looking at important influencers and social media representatives. A report by Mehdizadeh expressed the findings of a study which included a 100 Facebook users at York University and they were asked to gather “self-esteem and narcissistic personality self-reports. The results indicated that individuals with lower self-esteem are more active online in terms of having more self-promotional content on their SNS profiles” (Pantic 2014 p 6). Cyber bullying is a main cause of low self esteem, whilst teens are getting bullied online about their looks, their self esteem tends to always go down and decreases. Furthermore, communicating more indirectly is that it has gotten easier to be cruel and it can do much more harm then good based on the information discussed by Rachel Ehmke, in the article “How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers”. Rachel Ehmke also writes about the finding by Dr.Donna Wick, she writes that Kids are able to gin the confidence to be mean to each other and bull each other and still hide behind a screen. ‘“Kids text all sorts of things that you would never in a million years contemplate saying to anyone’s face’( Dr. Donna Wick p 4)”(2020 p 7). Dr. Donna Wick is a clinical and developmental psychologist and she goes on further to say ‘“social media is teaching them to do is disagree in ways that are more extreme and do jeopardize the relationship’(Dr.Donna Wick p 4)”(2020 p 7). Teen girls try to compete with each other and try to make themselves look better than other girls and teenage boys “compete for attention by trying to out-gross one other, pushing the envelope as much as they can in the already disinhibited atmosphere online. Kids gang up on each other”(Ehmke 2020 p 9). Social media creates different people, it makes girls and guys photoshop their pictures to fit in with society’s guidelines. “The more identities you have, and the more time you spend pretending to be someone you aren’t, the harder it’s going to be to feel good about yourself”(Ehmke 2020 p 9). The depiction here is that all three sources had very similar ideas and they all joined on the idea that bullying is increased by the usage of social media, and teens and children even tend to change their identity to fit in with other teens, the theme here is seeking acceptance online.
To conclude, based on these sources, the effects of social media on adolescents is that there was a positive correlation between mental illness and social media. Social media increases depression and it causes loneliness for both teens and children. Social media also causes cyber bullying, suicidal thoughts and even causes teens to fake their identity to fit in with the rest of the kids their age. The question we first asked was, what is the effect of social media on teens and children, and based on the information provided in these sources, there is a negative relationship between social media and the mental health of teens and children, meaning that are far more drawbacks than benefits present.
Works cited
Nesi, J. (2020, March 01). The Impact of Social Media on Youth Mental Health. Retrieved October 13, 2020, from https://www.ncmedicaljournal.com/content/81/2/116
Pantic, I. (2014, October). Online social networking and mental health. Retrieved October 13, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183915/
Karim, F., Oyewande, A., Abdalla, L., Ehsanullah, R., & Khan, S. (2020, June 15). Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review. Retrieved October 21, 2020, from https://www.cureus.com/articles/31508-social-media-use-and-its-connection-to-mental-health-a-systematic-review
Ehmke, R. (2020, June 16). How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers. Retrieved October 13, 2020, from https://childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-affects-teenagers/
