Teens Worst Enemy: Social Media

Teenagers use social media to connect with each other and find comfort and support. Teens are trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be. On top of trying to figure out who they are, they are also trying to balance school, sports, time with friends, jobs, and time with family. Social media are Internet technologies that allow people to connect, communicate and interact in real-time to share and exchange information (Brunskill). There are so many different places for teens to connect with others and to entertain themselves. YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat are the three most popular platforms among teens. On these platforms, teens can connect endlessly, stream videos, listen to music, and much more. Even though social media has many advantages, it also presents many dangers to teens. COVID-19 has built onto these dangers by intensifying them. More than ever, teens are looking for connection with their peers. Teens have started to spend more time on social media because of COVID-19 and it is hurting them.

Before the Internet era, the only way to be mean to someone was to do it to their face. A bully would either physically or verbally abuse their victim. Today teens are always connected, they have no escape from others who may be hurting them. One in six teens have experienced at least one of these forms of abusive behavior online:

- name-calling,

- spreading false rumors,

- receiving unsolicited explicit images,

- having their activities and whereabouts tracked by someone other than a parent,

- someone making physical threats,

- or having explicit images of them shared without their consent.

Enemies will always find a way to say what they want to say. People can be way more mean on social media because it isn’t face-to-face. They can say what they want with no real repercussion. But it isn’t the other users that pose the greatest threat to teens; it is social media itself.

For a technology that is designed to bring people together, it can users feel more lonely and separated people. The interactions teens have online cannot begin to compare to in-person interactions. The earlier teens start using social media, the greater the impact the platforms have on their mental health. Loneliness, depression, and anxiety are positively related to increases in social media engagement (Reer). Teens quickly start to use social media more and more each day due to its addictive nature. Social media has a reinforcing nature (McLean). When a teen uses social media, their brain’s reward center releases dopamine. Dopamine is the hormone associated with pleasure. When teens first start using social media, their time on it is pleasurable. They get to interact with friends and post fun things about their life. Users search for validation and ways to boost their self-esteem. Once they receive this validation, their brain realizes that this behavior pleases them, it will release dopamine in response to the action. Soon social media becomes addictive. 20% of people who have at least one social media account feel they have to check them at least once every three hours to avoid feeling anxious.

The idea that social media is addictive is a relatively new topic (Pantic). Fear of missing out (FOMO) seems to be a catalyst to the addiction. Users want to be up-to-date on what is being said and done, so they will try to check their social media during any free time they have. Social Media Anxiety Disorder and Facebook Depression are new illnesses that have formed due to the addictiveness of social media (Mackson). The unknown outcome of posting and the possibility of the desired outcome can keep users engaged with these sites.

Instagram has become aware of the way its platform is affecting its users. In late April 2019, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri announced a test it was going to start running in Canada on the platform. This test was going to hide the total number of likes on photos and videos on the main feed, permalink pages and profiles. The owner of an account will be able to see the total number and who specifically liked it, but their followers won’t be able to see the total number of likes a post has received. With this test, they hoped to focus user's attention on the content of the post and not the number of likes/who liked it.

Instagram, according to many studies, is one of the most detrimental social networking apps for young people’s mental health. “Likes are powerful because they are immediate feedback,” said Renee Engeln, a psychology professor at Northwestern University. Lots of her students have told her their day can be ruined when a post doesn’t get enough likes, some even go as far as deleting the post.

Although removing public likes in the experiment in Canada could result in users posting more authentic content and feeling less pressure on the platform, experts said it’s not a cure-all solution. Even though other people can’t see each-others likes, users can still see their own and still be driven by reward. This test doesn’t fix or address some of the other factors that can impact the self-esteem of users on the platform. Bullying, feeling left out, or thinking about other people’s lives as better than their own are still things users are going to do. Instagram is fully aware of the effects its app has on its users. They can see how addictive and unhealthy it can be. Instagram has slowly started to expand the test in other countries, but it is unknown what the results are from the other experiments.

Social comparison is the next step in social media addiction. Once a person feels comfortable and connected, they begin to notice and pay attention to the types of things others are posting. David Brunskill discusses in his journal article how social media doesn’t appear to be designed to promote or enhance psychological authenticity (Brunskill, The Dangers of Social Media for the Psyche). Social media is fake. The things teens are seeing aren’t real. Now young people know how to enhance their photos through extensive editing. Teens change the lighting by adding filters, but they can also edit their appearance through Photoshop and other editing tools. They can add fillers to their lips, make themselves look thinner, and change much more about their bodies. People can also make events and activities look more fun than they really are, they can make it seem like they have the best friends, and that they love themselves and are confident in who they are. Social media is able to facilitate dramatic changes in users’ identity and behavior through other posts. Missing experiences that feel and look real can create anxiety and depression (McLean). When teens look online and see or feel like they were excluded from something, it can affect their thoughts and feelings and can affect them physically. Strategically formulated self-presentation is at the root of social media.

COVID hasn’t made these feelings of loneliness, depression, and anxiety any easier. GlobalWebIndex found that during the pandemic, 23% of Internet users aged 16–24 have spent considerably more time on social media (Aranjuez). COVID has magnified what is happening around us, both in immediate circles and around the world. With the world being shut down, social media was one of the only tools people had constant and consistent access to. Users turned to social media to connect with their friends and family that they couldn’t see. It was a good tool to stay connected, but it also caused more problems. In a time that already felt lonely, these feelings were increased when users saw what others were doing during their quarantine. People are already lacking in strong social connections, which can lead to serious risks to people’s mental and emotional health. With COVID, almost all social connections were disrupted. And sadly social media will never replace real-world human connection. This increased time spent online is related to a decline in communication with others close to us and increases feelings of loneliness, depression, and anxiety (Pantic).

Social media became a security blanket for many users. It was literally the only way to interact with others who didn’t live in your household. People flocked to it. Users would post about their “fun” quarantine activities and projects and interact with those they couldn’t see in person. This further separated those who didn’t find comfort or joy in their quarantine.

Social media has become teen’s worst enemy. They go to it searching for happiness and exit the app feeling sad and lonely. The addictive nature of social media causes so many problems among teens. It leads to changes in behavior and the way teens think. As teens lose confidence in themselves, they start to compare themselves and try to measure up to an impossible and fake standard. And sadly COVID-19 hasn’t helped dissipate these feelings. COVID-19 is affecting people in so many ways, but I think that its effect on people’s mental health is the biggest downfall. The increase in users on social media was due to the fact that people couldn’t see each other. Using the Internet and social media was the only way to connect with people outside of their household. The feelings of loneliness, depression and anxiety aren’t going away. People are still physically separated and it is still hard to interact in person. It has pushed people away from each other and forced people out of their daily routines. So much changed in a short amount of time and social media was the one thing that was constant.

Bibliography

Aranjuez, Adolfo. “Infectious Scrolling: Social Media, Mental Health and Covid-19.” Metro, no. 206, Oct. 2020, pp. 124–125. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=146578762&login.asp&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Brunskill, David. “The Dangers of Social Media for the Psyche.” Journal of Current Issues in Media & Telecommunications, vol. 6, no. 4, Oct. 2014, pp. 391–415. EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ufh&AN=108921776&login.asp&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Mackson, Samantha B., et al. “Instagram: Friend or Foe? The Application’s Association with Psychological Well-Being.” New Media & Society, vol. 21, no. 10, Oct. 2019, pp. 2160–2182. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/1461444819840021.

McLean Hospital. “‘Like’ It or Not, Social Media’s Affecting Your Mental Health.” How Does Social Media Affect Your Mental Health | McLean Hospital, McLean Hospital, 5 Nov. 2020, www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/it-or-not-social-medias-affecting-your-mental-health.

Pantic, Igor. “Online social networking and mental health.” Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking vol. 17,10 (2014): 652–7. doi:10.1089/cyber.2014.0070

Reer, Felix, et al. “Psychosocial Well-Being and Social Media Engagement: The Mediating Roles of Social Comparison Orientation and Fear of Missing Out.” New Media & Society, vol. 21, no. 7, July 2019, pp. 1486–1505. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/1461444818823719.