Key Takeaways
The increased use of social media by teenagers can lead to addiction, depression, and other mental health issues.
Time moderation, high privacy settings, and open communication between teens and parents can help decrease social media’s negative effects.
Social media has been a pervasive force shaping society differently since its start. However, research shows that it can also have negative effects on young people. Today, we’ll see how it affects teenagers’ lives.
Why is Social Media so Prominent?
Social media can be appreciated for its qualities as a real-time tool for communication and self-expression. It keeps us all connected, whether it is your family or friends or new connections from around the globe, making it alluring. From ideas to inspiration, everything is at your fingertips, and that can be some of the reasons why people, including millions of teens, have joined social media.
How Does Social Media Impact Teens?
To get the most likes and comments, kids can forget what social media is doing to their health. Vivek Murthy, US General Surgeon, quotes:
“Even if it might have been that good for most people on average, it seems bad for teenagers… I’m very concerned that social media has become an important contributor to the pain and struggles of many of our young people.”
So, it has become essential for young people to know what social media can do to their health. Here are some of the ways social media is impacting teens today:
1. Mental Health
Social media has been responsible for mental health conditions like stress, anxiety, and depression a lot in the last few years. Teens can feel overwhelmed by the pressure to perform best on the platforms, and that can result in damaging their mental health.
2. Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying is a form of bullying that happens with the use of the internet, and due to the increase in social media platforms, the rate of cyberbullying has also increased. According to the Cyberbullying Organization’s statistics, one-third or more of middle and high school students have had encounters with cyberbullying.
Teenagers can get depressed and even form suicidal thoughts because of cyberbullying. Because of social media’s anonymity and high privacy settings today, it can be hard to track down the bully.
3. Social Comparison
Social media platforms are filled with misinformation, edited images and videos, and unrealistic content. Whether it is the unbeatable beauty standards that can result in self-esteem issues or trying on diets, these diets and comparisons can result in setting up body image issues and making unhealthy comparisons.
4. Loss of Sleep
Since most people sleep with their phones next to them, scrolling through social media feeds one last time before drifting off has become a routine. However, it can also disrupt teens’ sleep patterns, making them lazy and prone to fatigue. This, in turn, can make their learning harder.
5. Addiction
Many teens choose to use social media instead of doing other activities. This constant use of social media can make them addicted, which can interfere with their other responsibilities.
5. Eye Problems
Research shows that children and teens can have similar eye problems using digital devices while playing video games. Because social media is a big part of using these digital devices in the first place, apart from studying, the chances of suffering from problems like eye fatigue, blurred vision, and irritated eyes can be seen.
7. Disrupts Interpersonal Relationships
When teens see others performing better than them, jealousy and conflicts can arise within their group. This can hurt their relationships.
8. Privacy Concerns
Teens can share private information without thinking about consequences and future opportunities. This increases their security risk, and the data can be exploited by different people, whether it be hackers or bullies.
How to Tackle Social Media Usage?
To overcome social media problems, teens need to be informed of all the possible negative factors affecting their emotional and mental health. This is how their social media usage can be tackled:
1. Set Boundaries
Having clear boundaries on different aspects related to social media usage can be helpful, like setting the age at which people can create social media accounts or what they should and shouldn’t post on their social media accounts.
2. Set Screen Time
Setting a limit on how much time they can use a particular social media is an integral part of tackling teens’ usage of social networks.
3. Start Conservation
Parents or caregivers should ask questions about their kids’ social media profiles. It will help you connect with them while ensuring they are safe on the platform.
Madeleine Goldin, a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW), says:
“So we do want to supervise our child’s social media usage. Ask them what social media represents and what values they want to represent, and ask about the content they post. Why is it important? What’s interesting about it? … We keep it open-ended. We keep it consistent. We check in often, and we invite that conversation.”
4. Security Concerns
Teenagers can share their data, like photos, thoughts, and more, which can become a problem in the future as it may be exploited by bullies, hackers, or other malicious people. To avoid this, you can make teenagers aware of the importance of their private information.
If you have any concerns regarding time spent on social media, fill out a questionnaire to help determine its effect on your life.
Conclusion
It wouldn’t be practical to think that we can cut off social media from the lives of teens. But we can set rules like no social media until 14 or anything similar and teach young people about the negative effects of using social media to have a balanced life.
