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Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

Khendra Barton

RWS 1302

4/23/2021
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Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

Table of Contents

Abstract: Page 3

Introduction: Page 4

Negatives: Page 5

Positives: Page 6

My Research: Page 6-7

Graph: Page 7-8

Conclusion: Page 8

Citations: Page 9-10

Reflections: Page 11
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Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

Abstract

Studies have been conducted on how social media is associated with mental health in

young people. These studies concluded that depressive symptoms were higher on score when it

came to low self-esteem and poor body image. (Kelly et al., 2018) In other studies, they focused

on how social media can help sooth depression when making connections with people they find

more relationships. This resulted in the increase of mental and physical wellbeing through

support. (Naslund et al., 2016) We will analyze the different emotions of young adults while

using social media will give a better understanding of why people argue whether or it is good or

bad. Social media can drive people to think in a bad way and lead them to doing self-harm or

think positively by using social media as a way to help them with their mental issues and

recover. We will discuss the different studies and how social media is abused or used for good.
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Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

Introduction

Social Media is taking over our mindset and changing us. Some adults believe that it is

for the better but then there are others who believe that it is ruining future generations to come.

Social media has become a big part of our everyday lives. Since it is another form of

communication people use it every day to contact others and even post about their daily events.

They can use it to find out about new trends and even grow in popularity. It became this big part

in society to that people develop “OFOMO or fear of missing out” (Mbevi, 2020) and find things

about social media that they want to take from behind the screen to make it their real life. They

post everything in which can be something taken as an inspiration to those around them and any

other good or it can be something that is spread around and is said to be a disgrace and

something that people will talk about to create more issues. It is always hard on those apps

because you have to be very careful since millions of people can see it. There are many people

who are sensitive in this world so there is no telling what they would do with what they see. 45%

of boys and 52% of girls have reported having an eating disorder due to the use of social media.

(Wongkoblap, A et al., 2017)

Questions Answered throughout paper:

1. What negative impact does it have on the community?

2. What are the expectations people develop that causes these mental health issues?

3. How does it affect our everyday lives?

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Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

4. What and who is the main target?

5. What are the different emotions and feelings of different people who use it?

Negatives

According to a study conducted by EClinicalMedicine, the magnitude of association

between social media use and depressive symptoms was larger for girls than for boys. (Kelly et

al., 2018) Another study proved that it was also correct by gathering participants of 4827

students to test the number of males and females with depression and the amount of exposure

and found that 49% of the women had depression and 46% of men had depression and that the

females were more exposed with social media. (Gao, J et al., 2020) Up to 74% of mental health

diagnosis have their first onset before the age of 24. Depression and anxiety symptoms are

particularly common among college students (Fitzpatrick et al., 2017), greater social media use

related to poor sleep, poor body image, experience of online harassment and low self-esteem, all

of which in turn related directly to depressive symptoms. (Kelly et al., 2018) Social media is

your own personal highlight reel you always want to show off your best wins, in which is the

cause of most teenager’s insecurities today and that’s because we’re always comparing our

struggles or behind the scenes to other people’s highlight reels. (Mbevi 2020) Social media

researcher Barbra Devos found that several children have had some significant conflicts on

social media and have ended up with self-harm problems, and then up needing hospitalization

because it progressed into suicidal thinking or people telling someone else to go kill themselves.

(PBS 2017) According to statistics published by the World Health Organization, more than 350

million people have depression. In terms of economic impact, the global costs of mental health

problems were approximately US $2.5 trillion in 2010. (Wongkoblap, A et al., 2017)

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Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

Positives

A study was conducted by Cambridge University Press on how many people look

towards online communities to find meaningful social relationships of people they find similar to

them and gives them the opportunity to voice their self-expression. People with serious mental

illness report benefits from interacting with peers online from greater social connectedness,

feelings of group belonging and by sharing personal stories and strategies for coping with day-to-

day challenges of living with a mental illness. (Naslund et al., 2016) This development is

matched by great patient demand with about 70% showing interest in using mobile apps to self-

monitor and self-manage their mental health. (Fitzpatrick et al., 2017) In other words, individuals

who are members of a social network, as opposed to those who are not, have access to

information, social support, and other resources such as other network members’ skills and

knowledge due to their network membership or social connections. (Bekalu et al., 2019) A

survey of young adults found that those with mental illness were more likely to express personal

views through blogging, build friendships on social media and connect with people online who

have shared interests compared with those without mental illness. (Naslund et al., 2016)

My Research

I conducted research from students of ages between 17 to 24. I interviewed students’

questions on how they felt about social media overall. For the first question I asked them about

what bothered them the most about Social Media. Every single one of them said that they show

very saturated lives and that there is always judgement that comes from it. They see mostly

hatred and fakeness that comes from social media and that things aren’t always what they seem.
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Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

The next question I asked was of what things can make them depressed when it comes to social

media? 1 person out of 8 said that they never experienced anything that would make them feel

depressed or anxiety. The other seven talked about the pressure they have when they are about to

post because there are too many negative people on the internet. It makes them overthink and

feel the urge to want to please everyone they see on there. They did say that they use it every day

for entertainment and it could something that can motivate them to do more and dream big.

Social media helps them see new things that they want to do, and it changed them to see society

differently.

Graph

This graph shows the different positive and effects the different social media apps have

on young adults and teens. It shows and a blue and red scale to help show on which category

each app has the most positive or negative effects so it can help the reader understand which app

gives most and which gives the least amount of harm to people of that age group.
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Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

Conclusion

There are too many problems that occur with social media that cause people to overthink

and not want to take care of themselves. Today’s society is really sensitive and there are people

out there that think that it’s okay to harm others when they are online because they get to hide

behind a computer screen. They fail to realize all the damage they cause and that everything they

say or do stays on the internet forever even if becomes the next irrelevant thing. Social media

always circles back to old things and it is really dangerous. There are good things about social

media, but people shouldn’t be too trusting. Those apps are full of expectations and lies that

certain entertainers put up. There are influencers that show a certain lifestyle but in reality, they

are something different.

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Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

Sources Cited

- Barton, K, (2021). Personal Interview on Social Media and Young Adults Mental

Health

- Bekalu, M. A., McCloud, R. F., & Viswanath, K. (2019). Association of Social Media

Use With Social Well-Being, Positive Mental Health, and Self-Rated Health: Disentangling

Routine Use From Emotional Connection to Use. Health Education & Behavior, 46(2_suppl),

69S-80S. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198119863768

- Effects of social media on mental health statistics. (2019). Retrieved April 02, 2021, from

https://doctorheck.blogspot.com/2019/09/effects-of-social-media-on-mental.html.

- Fitzpatrick, K. K., Darcy, A., & Vierhile, M. (2017). Delivering cognitive behavior

therapy to young adults with symptoms of depression and anxiety using a fully automated

conversational AGENT (WOEBOT): A randomized controlled trial. JMIR Mental Health, 4(2).

doi:10.2196/mental.7785

- Gao, J., Zheng, P., Jia, Y., Chen, H., Mao, Y., Chen, S., . . . Dai, J. (2020). Mental health

problems and social media exposure During COVID-19 outbreak. PLOS ONE, 15(4).

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0231924

- Kelly, Y., Zilanawala, A., Booker, C., & Sacker, A. (2018). Social media use and

Adolescent mental health: Findings from the UK Millennium cohort study. EClinicalMedicine,

6, 59-68. doi:10.1016/j.eclinm.2018.12.005
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Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

- Naslund, J., Aschbrenner, K., Marsch, L., & Bartels, S. (2016). The future of mental

health care: Peer-to-peer support and social media. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences,

25(2), 113-122. doi:10.1017/S2045796015001067

- Social Media and Mental Health [Television series episode]. (17, November 16). In

South Dakota Focus. PBS. Retrieved March 14, 2021, from https://www.pbs.org/video/social-

media-and-mental-health-1brnuo/

- TEDxTalks (Director). (2020, January 14). Impact of social media on Youth | Katanu

Mbevi | TEDXYOUTH@BROOKHOUSESCHOOL [Video file]. Retrieved March 15, 2021,

from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soHn6t_jjIw

- Wongkoblap, A., Vadillo, M. A., & Curcin, V. (2017). Researching mental health

disorders in the era of social media: Systematic review. Journal of Medical Internet Research,

19(6). doi:10.2196/jmir.7215
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Social Media and the Effects on Mental Health in Young Adults

Reflection

I learned a lot writing this paper and I actually had a pretty hard time on it but it was

interesting. There were many times where I was so confused and annoyed of the essay because I

couldn’t get it right and I had so many other essays, so the guidelines of each essay kept

colliding and messing me up. I was good at finding sources pretty well but in this essay, but I got

confused on what I was doing and accidentally added 2 sources that weren’t even relevant to my

paper, so I had to replace them and then one of the websites stopped working so I had to again

find a new website to help me better explain the position of the topic.

For the abstract I had to change it plenty of ways because I haven’t written an abstract in

so long that I forgot the rules of it and fixed APA citations of both title page and in-citations. I

forgot that the abstract is supposed to be on a separate page since it is the most important for

letting a person know of what they are about to read and can show researchers if they think it

will be relevant enough information for them. Also, for the abstract I changed the way I worded

it because it wasn’t that strong, and I added citations for credibility.

For the Introduction and body paragraphs I had a lot of fixes needed of course. I added

the questions that were researched and added a cite with a statistic at the end since I was

repeating a lot, so it replaced repeated sentences. For the body paragraphs I had to fix the

citations like 4 times because I still wasn’t getting it but then after I sent it to the writing center, I

finally saw what I was doing wrong. I added more to the negatives paragraph so it can show

more of what side I was on and had more facts so it can show more of why I was on that side and

made sure that the positives side was less because I couldn’t really find many people talking

about the positives of social media because there were too many negatives. I added a description

of my graph then fixed the citation of my personal research like writing center said.