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Zoe Helmick

1201 College Comp.

Mrs.Porter

2 April 2022

Social Media and Teenagers

Being around teenagers everyday you see how people react to what someone posted on

their Snapchat story, or how they reacted to a text sent to them. Or some could view how

teenagers get jealous of others’ lives, or get upset that they don’t look the same way as models,

or as other girls or boys at their schools. However, how does this not only affect how they feel

about situations or about themselves but how it affects their thought processes or their mental

health. There are many stories of people who were or are affected by social media. One story

comes from Crime Online, the heading stating “Teen Boy Dead After Exchanging Nude Photos

Online.”( “Crime Stories with Nancy Grace”). Another story comes from Complex with the

heading of, “This Story About a 12-Year-Old’s Social Media Obsession Is Seriously

Troubling”(Cowen). These are just two different stories, and they are at different ends of the

spectrum of how social media affects teenagers. These two examples show that no matter what

end of the spectrum you are at, there still is an effect on teenagers. This effect can be positive or

negative, however there are more negative effects to social media than positives.

Social media was not a big thing until the year 2005 to 2006. Social media was

something that existed however, you had platforms like MySpace, Friendster, and Vine. In 2010

Instagram launched and in 2011 Snapchat launched, which now are two of the biggest social

medias. Greater Good Magazine states that “Gen-Z has poorer mental health, they grow up
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slower, and they exhibit that they care more about others.”(Divecha) Many state that social

media causes depression, anxiety and many other mental illnesses. Etactics states, Eighth-graders

that spend a little less than half a day each week are 56% are more unhappy compared to others

who don;t spend as much time on social media(Clark).

Girls are more likely to use social media compared to boys. About 43% of girls compared

to the 21.9% of guys that use social media for over about three hours each day(Hurley). Due to

the higher use of social media it has been shown that girls are more exposed to online

harassment. Online harassment involves sexual harassment and cyberbullying. Cyberbullying

can contain mean posts, texts, rumor spreading, harmful or false information. It can occur on

gaming consoles, text messages, and social media like Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok (“What Is

Cyberbullying?”). This can cause depression, anxiety, and can also cause self-esteem problems

as well(Gordon).

Sexual harasment involves sexual comments based off of looks, rumor spreading, and

unwarranted sexual pictures or content(Bhandanker). The Swaddle uses a case study and the

paper, sexual but non-physical harassment can cause negatives affects like anxiety, depreesion or

low-self esteem(Bendixen, Daveronis, Kennair). These effects listed are some of the biggest

issues throughout Gen-Z. As they were listed for cyberbullying and for sexual harrasment.

Social media can allow people to connect and create plans with their friends or family. It

also allows people to talk to each other without being face-to-face with other people. Social

media isn't bad for communication, but there is a point where face-to-face is needed, especially

when making friends and learning(Ehmke). This online connection can cause other issues. As

stated it can cause cyberbullying, but it can also allow people to create a lack of emotion, it
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doesn’t allow people to have deep and meaningful conversations. Another huge effect is that it

can allow users to hide their emotions. This causes more and more people to be able to hide their

issues, and this can build in people causing more and more mental illnesses (Price-Mitchell).

As stated above issues with social media with cyberbullying and sexual harassment have

cause depression. What is depression and what is the cause of depression? Also what effects are

there to depression. Depression is a mood disorder that affects how people will feel, will think,

and continue to do activities everyday(“Depression”). Depression has symptoms of constant

sadness, anxiety, or “empty” mood, lowered energy, feelings of discouragement or pessimism,

and loss of interest in everyday activities(“Depression”). Depression can occur at an age and

there some factors to how you can develop depression are family history of depression, or even if

oneself has a past of depression, life changes, stress, and certain physical illnesses and

medications.”(“Depression”).

Depression can be caused by many things. However, through these last couple of years

the rates have risen. How have they risen and how much have they risen since social media has

become bigger is the question. Before Instagram and Snapchat was launched, depression rates

were about 8.8 % in 12 to 17 year olds according to Institute for Family Studies. When social

media became popular and a part of everyday use that 8.8% percent jumped to around 12.9%

(Lehman).
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Fig. 1: This image is from the Institute for Family Studies. It shows teen suicide rate and depressive rates since the year 2000 to the

2016.https://ifstudies.org/blog/are-smartphones-and-social-media-hurting-our-kids.

Depression and suicide rates have dramatically increased just due to social media. Why

is this though? Time that is spent on social media is presumed to cause higher levels of

depression (Strange). Users are trying to conduct and show their lives and how great their life is,

however some users edit their pictures. This pushes the users’ authentic selves further and further

away. Teenagers can also measure their lives against other people on social media. This can

cause depression and anxiety (Strange).

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Fig. 2: This image shows depressive symptoms caused by the time of social media used throughout the week. Teenage depression: The potential

pitfalls of too much social media use | UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care Blog

In the study listed above done by Bendixen, Daveronis, Kennair low-self esteem and

negative body image is listed. This goes hand and hand with social media. When people develop

low-self esteem sometimes these issues are caused by the amount of hours spent on social media.

When females look at other females that have the “ideal” body some users can get insecure and

begin to compare themselves to these women. These feelings can lower self esteem. This does

not only relate to females though, males can also experience these feelings. There was a straight

line from low-self esteem to eating disorders which is consistent with IPT-ED, which stands for

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) for Eating Disorders (Raykos, McEvoy, Fursland).

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There are many disorders like bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder also known as

(BED), and other eating disorders(“Overview of IPT for Eating Disorders”). Bulimia Nervosa is

when someone binge eats and then will self induce puking to undo the binging that just occurred

(“Bulimia Nervosa”). Binge Eating Disorder, BED, is repetitive times where people will eat

bigger portions of food, which is quick and can cause irritation. This can cause shame or a guilty

conscience which causes purging. This can come in different ways like laxatives or puking.

(“Binge Eating Disorder”). One more widely talked about eating disorder is anorexia nervosa.

Anorexia is when one might have body image issues and people will restrict calories, or restrict

what they eat. Some also could purge in the form of puking or laxatives(“Anorexia Nervosa”).

All of these eating disorders can be life threatening and there are other different eating disorders

other than just the three listed. Anorexia, BED, and Bulimia are just the most known eating

disorders, and most common.

Anxiety is defined as a general feature of fear. Anxiety is the body's reaction to events

that could be stressful, new, or dangerous(Jovanovic). Social media can cause anxiety and stress.

This is because users or teenagers can constantly check for notifications or updates. Some users

have an impulse to check social media which can lead to anxiety and low-self esteem (Social

Media can Induce Feelings of Anxiety”). There are also many different types of anxiety

disorders. There is generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder), OCD

(Obsessive-compulsive disorder), and one more being social anxiety disorder.

Now what is each of these disorders and how and why can they occur? Generalized

anxiety disorder is chronic anxiety that is not provoked or barely provoked. PTSD is an anxiety

disorder that develops after traumatizing events. Events like military experience, a violent attack,
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or a natural disaster. OCD is described as an anxiety disorder that deals with obsessions or

compulsions. People with OCD will do repetitive behaviors like washing hands, checking things,

or cleaning, however these are not the repetitive behaviors. Also these behaviors only result in

temporary contentment, and not doing these things can cause anxiety to rise. The last listed in

this paper is social anxiety disorder. This is caused by extreme anxiety and heightened

self-consciousness in everyday life, relating to social situations. These can result in not wanting

to talk in public situations, or eat and drink in public. This can also get so severe that people

could experience this feeling when just being with people(“What Are the Five Major Types of

Anxiety Disorders?”).

Fig. 3: Fig Fig 3: Shows the different anxiety orders and more. This is the prevalence of anxiety. This is an Australian

graph however it shows the numbers and they are alike. Statistics - MENTAL HEALTH 4 TEENAGERS (weebly.com)

Social media can also become an addiction. This isn't seen as a disorder, however some

believe it is a behavior addiction(Smith). Social media addiction is the overuse and repetitive use
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of social media that could be compulsive and needed in users everyday lives. It can also affect

our everyday lives. It can affect work or school, time-management, relationships(any type), and

mental health. Social media addiction may include increased time on social media, which

includes creating the posts, ignoring personal relationships, lack of focus on things other things

that may be important, feeling restless, anxious, or agitated when social media is not available,

using it to escape reality, and increasing use over time to achieve the same gratification. There

are consequences to this addiction. Some of these consequences are procrastination, poor mental

health, and decreased physical activity. These are just some that are listed. There are also

common concurring issues that come along with this addiction. These concurring issues can be

anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and eating disorders (Smith).

Fig.4: This shows people who have admitted to their addiction and what percentages of the apps or media they are addicted to.

Social Media Addiction - Addicts by the Numbers | Brandwatch

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Some may argue that there are many positives of social media that outweigh the

negatives. For example, communication. Teenagers can easily make plans or figure out what they

want to do through other people and their social media. They can also talk about emotions or

feelings that are hard to get out or talk about when you are face to face with people. Social

media can also teach social skills. Social skills are very important, and learning what to say, how

to word things, and can also inform people on what is going on in the world and always people to

know what and what not to talk about in daily life or converstaions. Another positive effect is

allowing teenagers to express themselves(“How to Help Your Teen Navigate Social Media.”).

This is really big for many teenagers. Expression has gotten easier due to social change,

however it is still hard for many. Some teenagers and adults still don’t accept or approve of what

people do, or dress, or who people want to love. Through social media they can see others be

who they want to be, and could inspire users to express themselves however they feel, without

being scared or feeling looked at or judged by anyone and everyone.

While these are very important topics, the negative effects can lead to worse things. The

positives are great until they become negative because that could be a possibility. A user or

teenager could be using social media to express themselves and others could begin to cyber

bully. This is only a possibility, however it is an example. The negatives are overridden due to

there being many many mentions of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and cyberbullying,

Suicide is an event that could occur due to the negatives of social media. Anxiety could become

an issue in somebody’s life. Eating disorders can begin because of low self esteem. These mental

health issues outweigh the positives, and there are very many differences between each of them.
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All in all, social media has more negatives than

positives. Depression, anxiety, low self esteem, trouble

sleeping, and there is most definitely more than just the ones

listed. Social media has its positives but the use of social

media has definitely affected Gen-Z and will continue to

affect generations to come. There are ways that doctors and

professors have found ways to help reduce the risks.

University of Nevada, Reno gives a couple ways for parents

and teenagers to help with these issues. The examples given

are to give limits on time for social media, be careful of the

way that social media makes you feel, try to stay away from

the traps of social media, and remember not everything you

see on social media is real(“Impact of Social Media on

Youth Mental Health”). The Mayo Clinic also gives a

couple other tips for how to avoid issues that are listed

above. They say to have parents let their child know what is

and isn't okay on social media. They also say to encourage

face-to-face conversations(“How to Help Your Teen

Navigate Social Media”). This advice can help many

teenagers now and more generations with the negative impacts Fig. 5: This image just shows negatives to

of social media. There are many negatives to social media, social media. Disadvantages of Social

way more than positives, however if we can find a way and Networking:SurprisingInsights from Teens
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(rootsofaction.com)

use some of the ways listed above we can slowly get back to a normal and more connected

world, which is extremely important.

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https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/learn/by-eating-disorder/anorexia.

Bendixen, M., Daveronis, J. & Kennair, L.E.O. “The Effect of Non-Physical Peer Sexual

Harassment on High School Students’ Psychological Well-being in Norway: Consistent

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Bhandanker, Karun. “The Effects of Sexual Harassment on Teens.” The Swaddle, 15 May 2018,

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