Dylan Haggart

Instructor Camilleri

ENG 160-21

6 October 2021

Social Media’s Impact On Our Lives 

` Social media is a huge part of most people’s lives in this day in age. It is something that most of us use daily for a good amount of our day. Whether that be Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, or Tik Tok these are all forms of social media. It is something many people just use for fun and some people use it for productive reasons such as running a business. But is this a good thing, these sites are such a big part of our lives? There have been many studies done that suggest using social media all the time is not good for you. But there have also been studies done that suggest using it in moderation is not as bad. This is something that piques my interest so I want to find out how social media can impact our mental and physical health or if it even affects it at all.  

Most people use some form of social media in this day in age, “According to a 2016 poll, 79% of Internet-using adults have a Facebook account. Additionally, 76% of Facebook users report logging on once per day, with 55% logging on several times per day” (Lee). This study shows that most people who use social media use it daily and logging on daily can just be a daily part of your life. Going on social media for a short amount of time is one thing but lots of people spend way more time than that, “Another study recently estimated we spend a combined 50 minutes on social media each day” (Lee). This is a lot of time to spend on something daily and if you talk to your friends and family a lot of them will tell you that they spend way more time than that on social media every day and it usually is not doing something productive it. Social media can be used in a productive way because a lot of people including myself run a business with the help of social media. Everyone uses it therefore you can reach out to a huge crowd of people that you would not normally be able to reach. Some other positive impacts stated in the How Does social media Affect Our Mental and Physical Health article by Yong Lee are that it connects people, provides entertainment, empowers people to make social change, and helps senior citizens feel more connected. These are all positive impacts they can have. From personnel experience, social media is a fantastic way to stay in touch with friends that I would not have stayed in touch with if it were not for social media. It is also a place where I get news about sports and music, two hobbies that I have.  

There are also many negative impacts of social media on how it can affect your mental health. “Comparing Ourselves with Others is Unhealthy- Spending a lot of time looking at others’ “highlights” online naturally leads to thinking of ourselves as better off or worse off, which links to jealousy and more severe depressive symptoms” (Lee). This is one of the worst parts of social media because lots of people compare themselves to others which usually leads to them thinking negatively about themselves which worsens their mental health. If you go on someone’s Instagram account, it may look like they are living the perfect life and that could lead to you thinking there is something wrong with your own life. But there is nothing wrong with you and those people on social media who are perfect are far from it. Earlier I mentioned a quote of how people spend a lot of time on social media. This can negatively impact your mental and physical health. The time you spend on social media could be spent exercising, doing something creative, working, hanging out with friends in real life, etc. All these things are more productive than just sitting down scrolling through random things on social media. Another negative impact is “It Can Be Addictive- Research has shown users can suffer from addictive behavior using social media and show psychological symptoms of withdrawal when they’re unable to log on” (Lee).  If you use social media, you have experienced this at least once before. You are not around your phone for an extended period, and you feel an urge to check your social media accounts against your own will because it has become such a natural habit. Therefore, I believe using social media is not a terrible thing if you know how to use it in moderation and not be addicted to it.  

There was a study done in Sweden on adolescents and how social media impacted their mental health. “Adolescents with a higher use of social media report more symptoms of mental health problems, but there is no evidence for a longitudinal association between increased use and mental health problems. This suggests that social media may be rather an indicator than a risk factor for symptoms of mental ill-health” (Beeres). This is something I found interesting because this clearly shows that if you use social media more you can be more likely to have mental health problems, but social media does not necessarily cause them. One of the biggest reasons I believe social media can negatively impact your mental health is that it makes you compare yourself to others. “An observational study among rural, low-income high schools in southeastern U.S. found that social comparison and feedback seeking online was associated with an increase in depressive symptoms after 12 months” (Beeres). This is straightforward evidence that the theory is true and social media can lower your self-esteem, making you more prone to becoming depressed. That is why I believe you should not compare yourselves to others when using social media because it will make you think less of yourself. Another study done found out that social media can cause ADHD, especially among adolescents. “Social media offers features that may trigger particularly adolescents with symptoms in the ADHD spectrum disorders due to continuous arousal, quick rewards, and fueling a constant urge to be online” (Beeres). Therefore, I believe younger people should not be allowed to use social media because of how prone they are to getting ADHD. Children do not know how to control themselves when it comes to social media so if parents just let their kids do whatever they want there is a good chance they become addicted to it. I believe everyone should limit their social media use to a certain amount of time every day. That way you will not be at risk of spending too much time on the platforms. Overall, this study says that social media is more of an indicator than a cause of bad mental health. “This suggests that social media use may serve as an indicator rather than a determinant of risk of mental health problems among adolescents” (Beeres). So, this is something most parents and guardians should know about because if their child is always on social media there is a decent chance there may be something mentally wrong with them, that is why it is a good indicator. Not everyone would necessarily agree with this, there have been studies done that strongly suggest that social media can cause depression. 

An article by Child Mind Institute has done studies to show that heavy social media use can cause depression. Their studies show that teens and young adults who spend the most time on social media have a much higher rate of depression than people who spend much less time on it. There is a direct correlation between more people having smartphones and an increased number of depressive symptoms. “A 2017 study of over half a million eighth through 12th graders found that the number exhibiting high levels of depressive symptoms increased by 33 percent between 2010 and 2015. In the same period, the suicide rate for girls in that age group increased by 65 percent…. The rise in depressive symptoms correlates with smartphone adoption during that period, even when matched year by year, observes the study’s lead” (Miller). This clearly shows that social media use is negatively impacting kids, but there is not much that is done about it because lots of parents are not aware of this. The reason for this is I believe most of our parents did not grow up using social media, so they do not fully understand it. Another negative thing about social media is a lot of things on it are not real but people think they are. “Another theory about the increase in depression is the loss of self-esteem, especially in teenage girls, when they compare themselves negatively with artfully curated images of those who appear to be prettier, thinner, more popular and richer” (Miller). Therefore, you should never take social media too seriously because it makes you think less of yourself, and most of the time whatever is making you think less of yourself is not even real in the first place. Therefore, you should never compare yourself to others when using social media, you should not compare yourselves to others in any situation but especially not on social media. Social media can also stop or make it harder to get your daily tasks done throughout the day. “Another thing disrupted by social media is the process of doing homework and other tasks that require concentration. It’s become common for teenagers to engage with friends on social media at the same time they are studying” (Miller). This is something everyone has experienced where their phone has distracted them from doing something important. The best thing you can do about this is keep your phone out of reach when you are doing something important, so you are less prone to getting distracted. On the Child Mind Institute Website, Dr. Hamlet says, “Basically multitasking isn’t possible.” Multi-tasking is never a good thing to do, you should always just focus on one thing at a time because you will be able to get whatever you are doing, homework, working, reading, etc. done in a much more thorough and faster period of time.    

The conclusion I have come to from these studies is that social media can be a detriment to your mental health if you do not know how to use it in moderation. It is important to limit your time used on social media every day, so you do not get addicted to it. The more you use social media the more likely it is going to negatively affect you in some way or another. Children should not be allowed to use social media because at such a young age they are much more prone to the negative effects of it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dylan Haggart

Instructor Camilleri

ENG 160-21

6 October 2021

My provisional title is going to be, The Impact Social Media Can Have On Your Mind and Body. My research essay is going to be about the impact social media has on your mental and physical health and whether it is positive or negative or both. Positive means it improves your mental and physical health and negative means it makes it worse. People also spend so much time on social media and I want to find out whether this is a good or bad thing. I am doing this because social media is such a big part of everyone’s life, so I think it would be interesting to research how these sites can impact us. I find this topic very interesting and that is the main motivating factor as to why I am doing this. I plan to integrate sources by finding studies done on various websites and scholarly resources on social media’s impact on people. I am mainly interested in exploring how it impacts you negatively. Without doing any research my best guess would be that social media negatively impacts people because of how much time they spend on it and how a lot of people end up comparing themselves to others which makes them think negatively of themselves. Social media is not the real world but lots of people treat it like it is.  Some of the scholarly and other website sources I cited mainly revolve around studies of social media done on people and how it impacts them. These will be very important for my essay because they have actual evidence of its impacts and not just opinions and speculations. In my research essay, I will try getting many different sources and research from different websites to provide accurate evidence to my claim.

 

Works Cited

Beeres, Dorien Tecla, et al. “Social Media and Mental Health Among Early Adolescents   in Sweden: A Longitudinal Study With 2-Year Follow-Up (KUPOL Study).” Journal of Adolescent Health, vol. 68, no. 5, Elsevier Inc, 2021, pp. 953–60, doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.07.042.

Lee, Y. (2017, November 13). How does social media affect our mental and physical  health? Community Health Center in Houston, TX. Retrieved October 28, 2021, from https://www.offeringhope.org/social-media-affect-mental-health. 

Miller, C. (2021, October 18). Does social media use cause depression? Child Mind Institute. Retrieved October 28, 2021, from https://childmind.org/article/is-social-media-use-causing-depression/. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflective Analysis

Searching for my topic was relatively easy my topic just came to me in my head when I saw the prompt for the assignment. It came to me easily because it is something that actually interested me so I enjoyed researching my topic. That is why I enjoyed writing this essay because we were allowed to write it on what we wanted to. It is much easier to write about something you are interested in rather than some random book or poem that everyone in the class is forced to read and write about. 

I only used 3 sources to write this essay because I felt that they all provided enough information to get the point across and it would just be repetitive to use more sources because they will have similar information. I feel that the sources I used were good because they all had similar points. Some of these points were, using social media all the time is never a good thing, if it is used in moderation it isn’t a bad thing, children shouldn’t be on social media, and social media can be really helpful if you have your own business. Something that I would’ve done differently is that I would find sources that directly go against each other, then take a side with whatever side I ended up agreeing with.

After doing research on this essay it helped me realize that I should start trying to limit my time on social media as much as I can because of all the negative factors that revolve around it such as wasted time, bad for your attention span, and can cause ADHD. I feel like the impacts social media can have on you should be educated in schools because I strongly believe most people would be better off being aware that it can actually negatively affect you in various ways.