Social Media Usage and Mental Health

40 hours a week.

6 hours a day.

That's a lot of time isn't it?  That is an entire school day, could be an entire work day as well.  Nope... believe it or not, these numbers represent the average amount of time teenagers spent on social media sites.

What could teenagers possibly be doing on these sites for this many hours a day?  Whether its scrolling through twitter feeds, Facebook pages, or instagram pictures, teenagers lives are consumed around worrying about the lives of their "friends".  As you can imagine this can not be good by any means for the self esteem, mental health, and psychological well-being of these kids.

As a matter of fact, longer amounts of time spent on the internet has been directly linked to increased loneliness, and smaller social circles.  People are replacing communication with their family members, and friends around them, and using the internet instead The use of these social media sites isolates teens from their friends and family, negatively affecting their psychological well being.

Increased social media use is making teens become more anti social with their surrounding peers, as a vast majority of their focus is directed towards these sites. The amount of time teens spend each day, whether it’s comparing themselves to others on Facebook, or looking at other people’s tweets, is harmful to their self-esteem. Teens who are constantly communicating with people on the internet actually create “weaker ties” with those online, in comparison to “stronger offline ties” with family and friends.  They are loosing the ability to connect on a physical level with those around them. 

Teenagers who’s lives are centered around the use of social media even report themselves being “less content” and even say that they are more prone to “getting in trouble a lot, are often sad or unhappy, and are often bored” The unhappiness that some people experience can unfortunately be taken to a whole new level for some teens.

Think about it.  If you have a facebook or some other form of social media, have you ever been scrolling through other people's profiles and felt a little bit of jealousy at some point? Maybe you see that other people are having more fun than you are, or that maybe you weren't invited to your friends birthday party, and happened to see a picture.  Teens that use these sites to lurk at other people’s lives often feel even worse about themselves, constantly being reminded of how much fun other people are having, creating jealously and low self esteem.  Some teenagers take this very harshly, and unfortunately develop severe mental health effects.

Not only do these sites cause hurt feelings, jealousy, and self-comparison, but for some teens, it’s a lot more serious than that. 

800,000 teenagers on Facebook have been bullied or harrassed, 15% just in the previous year.  Cyber bullying has been shown to cause extremely high levels of depression, in some cases even higher than bullying off of the internet. 

Percentages of different types of Cyberbullying experienced in a study at a southern school district.

Who knew that innocent teenagers scrolling through their social media sites could lead to such serious cases of depression, and psychological damage.  It has also been connected to many severe cases, connected to youth suicide attempts after reading hurtful comments on the internet.

Whether you know someone who has experienced these negative effects or not, it is important to always be aware, and keep an eye out for any type of harassment.

You never know, you could potentially save a life.