Kailey Lynch

Sophia Shealy

ENC2135

March 12, 2021

How Has Social Media Affected Mental Health?

As technology has skyrocketed and taken over society, social media became a new norm

in everyday life. This is significant because alongside this, the age of those with access to social

media has lowered. While social media can be a fun platform to post memories or share

thoughts, it could also be dangerous as everything you post is available for the whole world to

see. Similarly, it can also be detrimental to mental and emotional health as well. As this has

become a more pressing issue, there has been a lot more awareness raised to validate the

situation and attempt to have more research done into it. In the Ted Talk “Is Social Media

Hurting your Mental Health?” by Bailey Parnell she effectively uses a comforting tone to feel

connected with the audience to make them feel less alone in their struggles, as well as an

empowering shift into ways they may create a more positive experience online. Opposingly, in

the online article “ 7 Ways Social Media Can Benefit Mental Health” by Kevin Naruse, utilizes

various visuals and external sources to establish credibility in the argument of the positives of

social media as well as develop a connection with his audience to further emphasize its

importance.

In Parnell’s Ted Talk, she opens by quoting the internal monologue of a young adult

using social media: “Wow, I’m fat. She’s only nineteen years old, what am I doing with my life?

Does she really need more likes?” These are common thoughts that many young adults have

while scrolling through different social media platforms and without realizing, these thoughts
could be damaging to mental health. She emphasizes the ideas of unrealistic standards, and the

fact that social media is purely a highlight reel. By doing this, she establishes a friendly and

comforting tone, allowing her to make more of a connection with her audience, leaving them

feeling as if they are getting advice from a friend or an older sister. Alongside this, she is

utilizing both a digital and face-to-face medium to deliver her argument, which strengthens that

personal connection with the audience while still making the online viewers feel comfortable and

drawn into the argument. Parnell dives deeper into the idea of social media being purely a

highlight reel as she shares a social media post from a close friend of hers on vacation. She

essentially is making humor of the image as she says “wait why can’t I afford a vacation? Why

am I just sitting here in my PJs watching netflix?”, mocking an individual who may stumble

across the post. Thereby, she is building a connection with the audience by employing a

pathos-based appeal, allowing the audience to use their imagination and try to relate the scenario

to their own life. Tying into this, Parnell uses a personal anecdote in the beginning, illustrating

her own personal struggles with disconnecting from social media as it is now known to consume

the typical user. She shares how difficult it was for her to stray away from social media on a past

vacation with her sister for several days, sharing her internal thoughts during the process, “what

is social media doing to me? What is it doing to my peers?” This is important as she is utilizing

a logos-based appeal, building her credibility and reliability with the audience by sharing her

own experiences and allowing the audience to connect them to their own lives, wondering if they

had felt that way before or shared the same experience. As she shifts from the introduction, she

continues this comforting friendly tone as she highlights the common stressors of social media.

As she compares social media to a highlight reel, she develops a more empowering tone,
allowing the audience to care less about what others think. Parnell continues to use the

empowering, comforting tone throughout the rest of the ted talk.

On the other hand, in the online article “7 Ways Social Media Can Benefit Mental

Health'', Kevin Naruse writes in the midst of the global pandemic, where social media plays a

huge role within the young adult population, keeping individuals in touch despite not being able

to actually see one another. With this, he establishes a more informative tone throughout the

piece, as he introduces the topic by unbiasedly addressing the counterargument and continuing

on to further illustrate his point. Similar to Parnell’s Ted Talk, Naruse shifts to a more comforting

tone when emphasizing the benefits of social media within mental health. By doing this, he gains

more trust with the audience and connects with them, making them feel included. Additionally,

he also adopts the empowering tone Parnell displays as he shares how social media may inspire

healthy lifestyle changes, which may serve as inclination for the audience to believe the author.

While both sources are arguing different points, they both use similar yet different tones to

establish their ideas on both sides. In the article, Naruse utilizes a quote from Mesfin Bekalu, an

individual who conducted a study with the Harvard School of Public Health, suggesting “social

media may provide individuals with a platform that overcomes barriers of distance and time,

allowing them to connect and reconnect with others and thereby expand and strengthen their

in-person networks and interactions.” By using this Naruse applies a logos-based appeal, further

establishing credibility behind his argument, making it more trustworthy for the audience. On the

other hand, because Naruse is delivering his argument through a digital medium, he isn’t fully

able to secure that connection with the audience. Additionally, he is utilizing many other sources

while minimally sharing his ideas, which shifts the effectiveness of his argument.
 The visuals are much more significant to Naruse’s article than they are to Parnell’s Ted

Talk as they further help establish social media as a positive platform. Naruse includes different

visuals for each point he makes regarding why social media may be beneficial for one's health.

The first image he uses is a large web intertwining many different people, which helps

emphasize and persuade the audience to see how social media helps you connect with others

which helps with loneliness, a common factor of diminishing mental health. He further backs this

visual by suggesting, “actively interacting with people - especially sharing messages, posts, and

comments with close friends and reminiscing about past interactions - is linked to improvements

in well-being”, which continues to emphasize his argument. The next image he uses is a tweet

that shares someone’s story of overcoming alcoholism and sharing their 6 year sober

accomplishment. This is important for the article because it provides the audience with a sense of

empowerment, giving them the idea that social media allows you to connect with others who

share similar experiences. This tweet is also important for the tone shift to an empowering tone,

as by sharing “I’m so grateful & finally feel like the real ME again. If I can do it, you can.

#wedorecover #recoveryposse”. The hashtags and the encouragement of the tweet make social

media seem very inclusive and make the audience feel more comfortable. Additionally, this also

serves as a pathos-based appeal for Naruse’s argument, allowing him to establish a more

emotional connection with his audience, gaining their trust.

Differently, Parnell in her Ted Talk hardly utilizes visuals to help her argument and she

relies much more on how she expands on these visuals. Early in her Ted Talk, she utilizes visuals

to highlight statistics in a visual way, so that it opens up the audience’s eyes to see the actual

detriment social media may have to mental health. Following this, an important use of visuals in

this Ted Talk is when Parnell shares a story of how social media negatively affected an individual
in a certain way and highlighted their picture on the screen. For example, she shares the story of

“18-year-old Tyler Clementi who took his life after his roommate secretly filmed him kissing

another guy and outed him on twitter” and she displays a picture of him smiling in the

background as she shares this information. This is extremely significant for Parnell’s argument as

the image portrays him as a sweet young man and it makes the audience feel pity for his family

and further convinces them that there may be negative consequences alongside the use of social

media. Also similar to Naruse’s argument, Parnell utilizes this to employ a pathos-based appeal

and continue to strengthen the emotional connection she has begun building with her audience.

The emotional connection is very important for Parnell to build with her audience, as she is

targeting a young adult population, as well as those who may be suffering from these damaging

mental health effects of social media. By incorporating all of the different emotional and fact

based appeals she keeps her audience attention and makes them feel as if they can trust her

argument. Although the two arguments were both sufficient in their own ways, overall Parnell’s

argument presented as more effective. The connection Parnell is able to make with her audience

is much more significant than Naruse, which strengthens it immensely, humanizing her and

making them feel as though they can trust her. Because Naruse’s name was simply at the top of

the article, it makes him seem invisible and just like any other online article.

While social media has demonstrated adverse effects on some populations, it is important

to understand how these problems arise so that they can be prevented in the future. As the age of

those on social media platforms continues to decrease, it is key to understand its impacts and

understand how to make it a safe place for younger children so that it does not affect their mental

health despite already being surrounded by it. Social media use does not seem to be diminishing
anytime soon, that is why it is important to emphasize these benefits and consequences of the

platform on mental health now whether social media is seen as a positive or negative form.

Works Cited

Naruse, Kevin. “7 Ways Social Media Can Benefit Mental Health.” Painted Brain, 16 Dec. 2020,

https://paintedbrain.org/editorial/7-ways-social-media-can-benefit-mental-health-2/

Parnell, Bailey. Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health? Youtube, Ted Talk, 22 Jun. 2017,

https://youtu.be/Czg_9C7gw0o