Assignments
Daneisha Espinosa
Eng 160
Sara Vinciguerra
October 16, 2023
Midterm Exam
Growing up in an era where everything is available to me at the touch of a screen has made me and many other people my age extremely self-aware of every little thing happening in the world. The first time I got on social media was when I was nine years old, when I downloaded Instagram on my iPad mini, an account I still use almost ten years later. This, as I now realize, took a toll on my mental health. At such a young age, I was comparing myself to these women, who are years older than me. I can say it had the same effects on many other kids I knew at the time. No child should be on social media from a young age; it simply isn’t beneficial for their minds to be exposed to so many things at once.
When I started an Instagram account at only nine years old, I didn’t think anything of it; I just thought it’d be a fun way to look at my interests. Next thing you know, being heavily into dance, I almost sent a random person a video of me dancing to them as an “audition,” assuming this was another little girl my age. As I got older, I started mimicking the self-destructive behaviors I would see online, such as self-harm and self-deprecating jokes, assuming that’s what I was supposed to do because I was already sad and that’s what I saw other sad people do. “…Kids who are already feeling depressed have a negative cognitive bias, which affects how they interpret what happens on social media…” (Radovic). I was comparing my undeveloped body to not only those I would see on Instagram but people in my everyday life, a habit I’m still trying to grow past. I already had both social anxiety and depression and seeing what I saw online contributed to my mental state worsening. “…is that many of the children involved had underlying issues to start with, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, social anxiety, or depression.” (Rich). Consuming social media at such a young age has given me many issues that I still haven’t been able to fully resolve at seventeen, even though I’ve distanced myself from that environment.
Social media is everywhere nowadays. You can be watching the news in your living room, and next thing you know, they have screenshots from Twitter or videos from Instagram as a part of their news story. Technology has been rapidly increasing for over 100 years, and the point that we are currently at is making us numb to the world around us, but we must point out that the news and word of mouth by telephone played a hand before mobile devices were made. “Which is why we use our smartphones and social media to such a degree yes they do openness to abuse the open to trolling the open to billion but so did the telephone so did the telephone many years ago and we wouldn’t think twice” (Ellis). In the past year, I have seen someone close to me get cyberbullied, people in my neighborhood killed, and even yesterday I heard gunshots while on the phone, all found out through technology. Social media is what gives us access to so many things we wouldn’t see on an everyday basis. First-hand, I’ve been able to see how this would affect someone’s mental health. Social media is a toxic environment that should be used in moderation if you are easily influenced.
A solution to some of the harmful effects caused by social media can be to not let children under the age of fifteen on it; if you have a preexisting mental illness, make sure you know how to filter out triggering content; and limit your overall screen time even outside of social media. These methods can help those who are more vulnerable to learning bad habits on social media and harming themselves mentally. I feel if we’re able to separate ourselves from the internet, all of our mental health and self-worth would improve. With less screen time you’d be able to focus on other aspects in your life. I personally have used some of these solutions and my mental health has improved immensely. As you get older you must learn social media does not define you.
Works Cited
Klass, Perri. “When Social Media Is Really Problematic for Adolescents”, June 3. 2019,
Accessed Oct 16 2023.
Ellis, David “ Is technology really ruining your life?” YouTube, Uploaded by TEDx Tallks, 12
July 2018 https://youtu.be/mNKN4dHGQKg?si=3GI5sE3w_3hR5Q8j