Affects of Social Media on Teens' Mental Health: The Bad

This post explores the negative affects of social media on the mental health of teens, however there will be a second post discussing the positive affects as well so stay tuned for that!

It is no big surprise that teens spend a lot of time online and on social media. Social media is a place with never ending, constantly new content. Being able to constantly see what new and exciting things other people are doing can be fun, but when it can also cause teens to feel like they are missing out on something or don’t have what other people have. When they post their own content, they want people to see what they are doing and feel like they should have been there too. And a study done at UCLA showed that when teens’ posts get liked by others, their brain lights up (Gordon, 2019). It is a reward for their post and adding to the never-ending stream of content.

While it is sometimes easy to think of teens as adults, or almost adults, and therefore they should be able to control their own actions, this is not always the case. The teenage brain is still developing. And because of this, they are vulnerable and often lack impulse control and restraint. This can lead to an overuse of technology and social media.

There are many mental health risks for teens when they over use social media. While social media can have good effects (blog post on that linked here), it can also have serious consequences when it used too much and too often. As I stated in my last blog post, social media can often be a place where teens seek approval from their peers. This approval seeking can become a problem.

Many teens feel pressure to keep up with their peers. They want to do the things that everybody else is doing–or at least what it appears that they are doing–and they want to do it better. This pressure to “keep up” with peers can weigh on anyone, but especially on teenagers. The pressure to show only the good times and only when you look good can create a false sense of perfection that is unattainable in reality. This stress can lead to anxiety. The worry to always make sure you are putting your best self forward, always having fun, and never making mistakes creates more and more stress for teens who are already under enormous amounts of pressure. Not only do they have to worry about being perceived as perfect all of the time, but they have to worry about what could potentially happen if they “slip up” and people see their imperfections.

What happens then?

Will it be ignored?

Or will others call attention to it?

Will they be bullied and harassed?

Will people be talking about it at school on Monday?

Can I take the post down before anybody sees it?

Did someone screenshot it?

Who saw it?

What will they do?

What am I going to do?

It is easy to see just how quickly worries can spiral out of control and become debilitating. This pressure to be perfect and to be liked by one’s peers can easily make someone–anyone–fraught with anxiety. And what happens when they can no longer keep up with the perfect image they have created? Many times, these unrealistic expectations created by social media can lead to depression for teens (Thapa, 2018).

One study showed that the more social media profiles a teen has, the more likely to be at risk for depression. This could be because of a multitude of reasons. One being that many teens try to compare themselves to what they see online. This is an easy trap to fall into, but it can be very detrimental, especially to a young person developing their own self-image. When all we see is an augmented reality created to hide any and all imperfections, it is not hard to see only our own flaws. Being confronted with our flaws in a place where it seems like no one else has any can be very isolating and make us feel like we are all alone in our imperfection.

Depression and anxiety can be brought on and/or made worse when our flaws are pointed out and made fun of by others. Social media can often be used to anonymously comment on other people and with that can often mean a place where people can be incredibly mean to other users. Sometime cyberbullying stems from jealousy and envy and other times it comes from the lack of consequences for what they say online (Gordon, 2019). Social media also makes it so we don’t have to see the person we are talking about or their reactions to our words, which can make it even easier to be cruel. This disconnection from real world consequences and reactions makes it seem as though it isn’t real and sometimes it can be difficult to remember that there is a real person on the other end and that your words matter. They matter so much that they can cause real harm to someone’s mental health and isolate them further. It can also make it easier for bystanders to stay quiet. Online, they can pretend like they did not see what was being said. This is why it is so important to always remember that, while “[t]he things we see on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat can often be exaggerated or even misleading” what happens on the internet could affect a real person in a very real and harmful way (Thapa, 2018).

Depression and anxiety are often exacerbated by lack of sleep, something most teenagers seem to struggle with–at least from my own experience. One study showed that one and five teens “almost always” wake up in the middle of the night to check their social media (Gordon, 2019). Sleep deprovision can put people at risk of depression, irritability, anxiety, forgetfulness, and can suppress their immune systems cause by less active immunity protectors resulting in them getting sick more often. It can even put people at risk of obesity and high blood pressure. There are also safety concerns not directly related to health. It is said that there are around 6,000 fatal car crashes each year caused by drowsiness and that 1 in 25 adults have reported falling asleep at the wheel in the last month (Johns Hopkins). I can only assume that it is even more dangerous for less experienced drivers such as teens to be driving without sleep. Aside from its physical manifestations, its mental ones like depression, anxiety, and irritability can make it the world seem even harder to live in than it is. It can also cause problems between peers and parents, which could potentially make these problems worse and isolate a teen even more–the last thing that someone suffering from these concerns needs.

Being aware of what potential risks teenagers are at with social media is the first step to finding ways to minimize them. Parents and teens both need to be aware of the amount of time they spend online and on social media. They need to the best ways to regulate their teens’ technology use and self-regulate their own. It is important that they work together and work with open and honest communication and come up with a solution with which they feel like they have both had input. This way both parent and teen can feel good about the solution and rule that they have come up with.