Put the device down! The growing mental health side effects attributed to social media

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

In the last 10-15 years, there has been an explosion of development when it comes to social networking sites. The more popular ones: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, have caused profound changes in the way people communicate with each other.

Facebook is the biggest social networking platform, with more than one billion active users, and it is estimated that this number will significantly increase, especially in developing countries. Facebook is used for both business and personal communication, and the platform has assisted in: increasing connectivity, sharing ideas, and online learning.

Whether we want to admit it or not, social media has taken over our lives. What I have noticed is the way that it has affected society on a whole, and not in a great way. In this article I want to take the time to present some interesting studies that look at how social media has affected our mental health, and the importance of understanding the need to PUT YOUR DEVICE DOWN!

One of the first studies I want us to look at is The Psychological Effects of Social Media on Teens (https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/mental-health/psychological-effects-of-social-media/). This study is one of the latest contributions to a growing body of research revealing the troubling psychological effects of social media, especially on adolescents.

Around 2010, a rapid increase of smartphone use was noted, and surveys of adolescents show that teen depressive symptoms and suicide rates also increased beginning around this time, especially among females.

The theory. The rising rates of teen depression and anxiety could quite possibly be driven in part by the effects of social media in particular and technology use in general.

In a 2018 study, researchers compared the mental health of fourteen to seventeen-year-olds who used social media seven hours per day to that of teens who interacted with it for only about an hour a day. They found that frequent users were more than twice as likely to have been diagnosed with depression, been treated by a mental health professional, or taken medication for a psychological or behavioral issue during the 12 months preceding the study. Did you just read that? I wonder how many people are aware of that.

There was a recent study by researchers at University College London that tracked three years of social media use by 13,000 teenagers, starting when they were thirteen. Their findings were interesting. They looked at how social media affected the teenage girls in three areas: sleep, exposure to cyber bullying, and physical activity.

Sleep
Teenage girls stayed up late to continue scrolling through their social media feeds, a habit known as vamping. This meant that they were not getting adequate sleep to sustain them throughout their days. Another factor is the artificial blue light given off by smartphones. It activates arousing neurons in the brain that disrupt the body’s ability to produce melatonin, a sleep-inducing hormone.

Exposure to cyber bullying
Teens seemed to more exposed to the effects of having harmful, false, or private content about them posted on social media.

Physical Activity
Vamping on their phones or other devices meant that girls sat for longer periods of time and had less time for exercise. This meant that they missed out on the beneficial impact of exercise on mental health.

The impact on teenage boys has also been studied. What was noticed was that they spent a lot of their time on social media looking at curated and filtered photographs of their peers and celebrities, leading to social comparison, which are associated with depressive symptoms among teenagers.

A survey was also done by Common Sense Media, and they found that:

• 35% of teenagers on social media worry about being tagged in unattractive photos
• 27% are stressed out about how they look when they post pictures
• 22% feel bad about themselves when nobody comments on or “likes” their photos.

In 1998, Kraut et al. published one of the first studies to indicate that Internet use in general significantly affects social relationships and participation in community life, Online Social Networking and Mental Health (Article by US NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183915/)

In this study, the researchers found that increased time spent online is related to a decline in communication with family members.

We cannot end this article without speaking about the addiction factor. Addiction to online social networking has been insufficiently investigated.  It was frequently discussed and sometimes disputed that the addictive nature of social media is supported primarily by the mental preoccupation of many chronic social media users. With this addiction comes the tendency to neglect other aspects of their social functioning such as family and offline friends.

What I would suggest for our readers is to watch the NETFLIX documentary “The Social Dilemma.” This documentary will give you some insight as to why we are so addicted, and how to take back control of your life.