Social media takes a big toll on people’s mental health if not controlled properly. Addiction to social media can cause people to make unhealthy decisions or make them think differently about themselves.
Social Media
Likes, Comments, Repost, Concern. When a person hits the post button some don’t care about the attention they get, while others’ whole day revolves around it.
Social Media can influence you to change to fit into what’s trending, whether you feel comfortable or not. Seeing influencers and how they live their lives can make you rethink yours. It’s unhealthy, it is mostly impacting teens because it’s what they grew up around and what they are discovering.
Addiction
According to the National Library of Medicine, 5-20% of teens are considered addicts to social media, finding it hard for them to connect with the real world. Social media can lead to many mental health problems.
“I think it depends on the teen but I would not really put a screen time on a teens device, as their personal business might be important to attend to like their work contacting them, and also I feel like its the teens responsibility to know when not to use their phone or online devices.” Said Giavonna Whitsett, a student at Colonia High School.
Out of the data that was collected in a survey for the declaration 83.3% of people said that they mainly use social media for entertainment. The people we see online look like they are having amazing lives. It causes one to unintentionally compare themselves, little do people know that most of these perfect lives are fake.
Mental Health
All these comparisons are not healthy. Teens tend to start changing their lifestyle in order for it to be a little bit more like the ones they see online. That can lead to unhealthy habits as well as mental health issues. From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 95% of teens are known to suffer from depression and anxiety and the cause is social media. Some teens suffer from these mental health problems more than others.
Savannah Maye, another student at Colonia High School, said, “teens should not have screen time because they should live their life and not miss out”.
Many teens begin to compare their bodies, looks, features, etc to people they see online which can lead to more illness such as: Eating disorders or insecurities.
Comparison
When these insecurities are pointed out, anyone, not just teens, begins to notice it more, or try to hide it. “When I was a kid a family member joked about my nose. As a kid I didn’t think anything of it, but as I grew older it stood out to me more than it should. Thankfully I was raised to not let those things bother me, but I know if I had a different mentality, things could have been much worse” said by anonymous. Your brain can get exhausted from wanting something you can’t have yet. It can make someone lose motivation to be a better person or can completely shut those thoughts out.
Comparing anything to what you see online is not okay especially with the wrong mentality. If you have the right mentality, comparing things can help motivate you to accomplish your goal in a healthy, well minded way. Not understanding these criteria can lead to major mental downfall.
Teens vs. Adults
When you look at statistics for mental health issues that come from social media a high percentage is from teens. Adults can suffer as well, but most of the time adults don’t even have time to open their socials, and if they do it mostly consists of news or “adult things”.
Teens on the other hand are exposed to other types of posts. There is a thing called a “for you page” on Tiktok. This page is a personal page where the company takes account of the videos you’ve liked and forms a page of similar videos. When one gets addicted to social media, what they “like” to see can be mentally exhausting.
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