Social Media Use and Young People’s Mental Health

Social Media Use and Young People’s Mental Health
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Social Media Use and Young People’s Mental Health
Abstract
Parents and guardians need to understand how social media can affect young people’s mental health. They facilitate the over-usage of the Internet by buying electronic devices for their children and fail to monitor and control the number of hours that these young individuals stay online. Despite social media having numerous benefits, including learning, accessing academic materials, communication, and online shopping, it as well poses a danger to young people’s mental well-being. Social media contributes to physical inactivity, poor interpersonal relationships, isolation, depression, anxiety, stress, obesity, overweight, and other risk factors for mental health issues. The research comprises literature focusing on the following sections: social media and interpersonal relationships among young people, digital technologies ownership, social media and young people’s mental health, socializing online is the current trend, social media usage and symptoms of mental illnesses, and social media and physical inactivity. Specifically, social media increases young people’s vulnerability to mental illnesses, particularly due to facilitating a sedentary lifestyle.
The rate of social media usage among young people has increased tremendously. Notably, this trend has far-reaching consequences since the Internet has its merits and demerits. Social media has improved the way people communicate. Currently, individuals can keep in touch with their friends, families, and colleagues regardless of their geographical location. Businesses have found an effective way to advertise their products, particularly to the young people who spend most of their time on social media. However, the dark side of the web includes disrupting youth from their studies, cyberbullying, and mental health issues among others. For instance, according to a cross-sectional study performed in Ontario, the percentage of teenagers with average to severe mental distress rose from 24% to 39% between 2013 and 2017 due to increased social media usage (Abi-Jaoude, Naylor, & Pignatiello, 2020). This research targets parents and guardians so that they can understand the effect of social media usage on teenagers. The primary purpose of this paper is to show how social media influences young people’s mental health.
Literature Review
This brief reviews the literature on how social media affects young people’s mental health in six areas: social media and young people’s mental health, social media and interpersonal relationships among young people, digital technologies and social media usage, socializing online is the current trend, social media and physical inactivity, and social media usage and symptoms of mental illnesses. Social media refers to various networking platforms, such as TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Messenger, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest (Nesi, 2020). In addition, young people in this research comprise those between 1 and 28 years old.
Social Media and Young People’s Mental Health
Research depicts that many young people using social media for an extended period are vulnerable to mental disorders. Karim et al. (2020) conducted a qualitative study with an aim of understanding the impact of social media usage on the aggravating mental health issues among young people. These researchers found out that the number of individuals using social media had an annual growth rate of 9%. In 2019, it was expected to reach 3.484 billion (Karim et al., 2020). In particular, social media has become an important part of young people’s lives such that they find it challenging to control how to use it. In another qualitative study by Naslund et al. (2020) focusing on mobile and web platforms that enable young individuals to connect, researchers depicted that social media users are more vulnerable to a broad range of mental health problems, including psychotic disorders and depression than the general population. The vulnerability to mental disorders is around 70% among older and middle-aged adults and 97% among young people (Naslund, Bondre, Torous, & Aschbrenner, 2020). A 2017 survey done by the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) reported that many young individuals who self-identified to have schizophrenia spectrum disorder used their digital devices for approximately 2 hours daily. More than 97% of young adults and adolescents aged between 12 and 21 years with mood and psychotic disorders reported using social media for over 2.5 hours daily (Naslund, Bondre, Torous, & Aschbrenner, 2020). The most popular social media used by these young people were YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat.
Social Media and Interpersonal Relationships among Young People
Studies exploring how social media affect young individuals’ interpersonal relationships have revealed that many of these people prefer using social networking platforms behind closed bedroom doors instead of going outside to meet and interact with their friends. Valkenburg et al. (2022) conducted a survey with over 600 participants from over 25 reviews. Researchers found high levels of adolescents suffering from mental disorders due to over usage of social network sites (SNS). The coefficients ranged from r=0.05 to r=0.17 (Valkenburg, Meier, & Beyens, 2022). Additionally, Valkenburg and colleagues analyzed happiness, depression, and life satisfaction. They found that the majority of adolescents who used the SNS for at least 2 hours daily had depressive symptoms. Some of these young people said that their unhappiness was contributed to comparing themselves with others based on their lifestyles as portrayed on the SNS. Abi-Jaoude et al. (2020) conducted a survey with a sample of approximately 513 young individuals from 2009 to 2014 in Canada. These researchers found that hospital admissions for Canadian girls increased by 110% since these young individuals intended to harm themselves. Moreover, for adolescents aged between 14 and 17 years, the prevalence of non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal attempts, and ideation were 8.8%, 4.3%, and 8.1%, respectively (Abi-Jaoude, Naylor, & Pignatiello, 2020). Many of these young people who planned or harmed themselves had poor interpersonal relationships since they focused on connecting with virtual friends online rather than physical interactions. In the long run, they ended up depressed and thought that self-harm or suicide was the only solution.
Digital Technologies and Social Media Usage
Some studies explore why young individuals cannot keep off social media and what they do on the Internet for an extended period. Young et al. (2020) conducted a cross-sectional study with 124 respondents who were recruited on how to participate in advertising on social networking sites, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook (Young, Kolubinski, & Frings, 2020). The primary variables evaluated were mental health, general wellbeing, SNS, and attachment style. The participants admitted that they had access to electronic devices that would get connected to the Internet, which was why they accessed the web. Researchers found that about 75% of the participants used SNS daily with 47% using Instagram and 45% using Facebook. In addition, respondents admitted that they only knew around 70% of the people they interacted with on social media, and approximately 64% said that they spend more time online (Young, Kolubinski, & Frings, 2020). They also made it clear that they could only socialize offline if they did not access social media. Nesi’s qualitative study focused on children and adolescents. The most surprising thing about the researcher’s findings is that children aged two years and below spend an average of forty-two minutes on social media daily. Based on the national statistics, over 95% of young people aged between 13 and 18 years have access to smartphones, and about 88% have access to a laptop or desktop at home. The most popular social networking platforms that these young individuals use include...