In 1997, Online media website, Six Degrees, was made in 1997.

It empowered clients to transfer a profile

and befriend different clients in different cities. In 1999, the first writing for a blog destinations became
well known, making a web-based media impression that is as yet mainstream today. Soon the internet
planted its roots into the minds of mankind, giving them what they desired the most; social networking.
There are such countless features to online media, that the vast majority can perceive any reason why it
has turned into the amusement outlet, the primary way for some to impart, subsequently driving
organizations to attempt to capitalize on the frenzy. Now, communication was at your fingertips for free,
but a question arose in my mind leading me to research about this particular topic. Did it really come
without a cost?

Aims and Rationale:

Regardless of it being important, social media can affect society. On one side of the argument, it has
prompted the disintegration of emotional wellness by diminishing the ability to focus and the
confidence of large numbers of its users. It has additionally influenced how individuals deal with their
time since a large portion of it is spent on the web. Furthermore, finally, it has made a stage for
cyberbullying and spread of false information. On the flip side of the coin, the positive effects of social
media incorporate further developed correspondence and collaboration with loved ones, better
admittance to data and educative materials, and new business methodologies like online advertisement.

Social Media gives an easy method to interface up with individuals and speak with them. This has
permitted even socially detached and timid individuals to open up more and speak with others. Over
25% of youth report that social media will empower them to feel less timid and make more companions.
Despite religion or area, online Media makes and save significant relationships. According to Uepeople,
around 3 billion individuals utilize web-based media today, which implies that 40% of the world uses it
for correspondence. This corelates to the idea that social media can be used as a very significant rule to
set certain norms and ideas into society. We realize that having a solid informal community is related
with positive emotional well-being and prosperity. Routine online media use might make up for
lessening eye to eye social associations in individuals' bustling lives. Web-based media might furnish
people with a stage that conquers hindrances of distance and time, permitting them to associate and
reconnect with others and along these lines grow and reinforce their in-person organizations and
cooperation's.

Advantages and disadvantages related with online media utilize changed across segment, financial, and
racial populace sub-gatherings. In particular, while the advantages are by and large connected with
more youthful age, better instruction, and being white, the damages are related with more established
age, less training, and being a racial minority.

Literature Review:

To study the effects of social media on negative behaviors such as stress we can look at Jessica Browns
who states in this article https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180104-is-social-media-bad-for-you-
the-evidence-and-the-unknowns. She states “the survey of 1,800 people, women reported being more
stressed than men. Twitter was found to be a “significant contributor” because it increased their
awareness of other people’s stress. But Twitter also acted as a coping mechanism – and the more
women used it, the less stressed they were. The same effect wasn’t found for men, whom the
researchers said had a more distant relationship with social media. Overall, the researchers concluded
that social media use was linked to “modestly lower levels” of stress.” This leads one to say that
difference between gender can also affect stress levels for the effect of media. We can say that
depending on whether you're a male or a female or nonbinary folk, can affect what type of content you
view and what that leads to. Males might focus on something more confounding as politics and different
types of propaganda, new outlets or reports can lead to drastic opinions which result in stress on what
to follow or what not too, depending on what the social norm is following. Whereas females might view
something that is less controversial and mutually agreed upon such as feminism or women’s rights
movements which causes less stress levels and or a sense of community.

In correlation to age, an interesting review by David Ginsberg

https://about.fb.com/news/2017/12/hard-questions-is-spending-time-on-social-media-bad-for-us/
“when people spend a lot of time passively consuming information — reading but not interacting with
people — they report feeling worse afterward. In one experiment, University of Michigan students
randomly assigned to read Facebook for 10 minutes were in a worse mood at the end of the day than
students assigned to post or talk to friends on Facebook. A study from UC San Diego and Yale found that
people who clicked on about four times as many links as the average person, or who liked twice as many
posts, reported worse mental health than average in a survey. Though the causes aren’t clear,
researchers hypothesize that reading about others online might lead to negative social comparison —
and perhaps even more so than offline, since people’s posts are often more curated and flattering.
Another theory is that the internet takes people away from social engagement in person” to add to the
matter of fact, it can be argued that the level of information that one processes or retains information at
corresponds with the ability to comprehend it. The more information we are surrounded by our brains
tend to process and organize that information yet it is unlikely that all information stated will be true.
Especially as a teenager viewing the world and being at an age where your primary growth occurs,
excessive information can hinder with that protentional growth which leads teenagers into a sense of
depression or ill feeling; as they are unable to reach a sense of fulfillment whereas majority of adults
may not face this issue as they have already reached their sense of achievement (marriage, jobs, career)

Another article “IS SOCIAL MEDIA GOOD FOR YOU?” By Dr Peggy Kern from the University of Melbourne
https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/is-social-media-good-for-you contains research by PhD student
Elizabeth Seabrook, Dr Nikki Rickard from Monash University that concludes as follows “For many, social
media appears to have a range of benefits. It provides a way for many of us to connect with others. We
can support other people and feel supported by them. It may even be a useful way for those with social
anxiety and those who have a hard time with face-to-face interactions to connect with others. But for
those with depression or anxiety, it could make their symptoms worse. Indeed, people who often
compared themselves to their friends, ruminated about life, or had negative interactions with others,
were at greater risk of depression and anxiety. Notably, the number of hours that people spent on social
media didn’t make a clear difference – it was more the feeling of being addicted to it. It seems like what
a person writes about is more indicative of their state of mental health than the number of hours spent
online.” This structure also concludes to the fact that personal feelings such as fame, luxury, money or
validation that we receive or perceive online may fulfill a purpose in life. The phrase "Money cannot buy
happiness is often used to debunk this phrase. When we do not achieve our sense of fulfillment through
societal structures of welfare states such as finding community and peace within family, career choices
or even religious communities, we lose a sense of fulfillment. With social media usually confined inside a
cellphone, it is hard to establish certain relations in the real world where social bonds are replaced by
digital ones. With the amount of information, we receive per day about different people, we try to
replicate them to socially fit into this "online community". This outward fulfillment is now replaced with
personal fulfillment and milestones like marriage or jobs are replaced with having the most followers or
Instagram or the most comments on tiktok. These "likes and comments" fuels the validation within us, it
drives us to fulfill that personal achievement where we feel belonged to that online community whether
that be money or fame. The lack of this may result in a lack of achievement or fulfillment. For example,
even though students might be doing well in school, their depression rates might be higher due to the
chance that their sense of personal achievement and fulfillment online may not have been validated and
recognized, whereas adults may not fall prey to that as they receive awards for their work such as
paychecks.

"Can digital society be now considered the new opiate of the masses of neo-liberal capitalism? Is it part
of what can be termed the wider commodity opiates that domesticate us within capitalism? Do we exist
within a society of digital distraction that variously de-politicizes many, leads others to believe on-line
‘likes and ‘activism’ is the same as off-line action and involvement—or, via digital manipulation opens us
to fake news, other forms of propaganda and political inferences?" This article can provide as a direct
criticism to the fact that not all hard work and positivity is good. The bourgeoisie in particular may take
advantage of such a tool to make people feel more depressed with their situational full fitment and
make them feel lack of achievement. One may have found a sense of achievement in life but the
promotion of toxic positivity such as promotion of toxic positivity in social atmosphere might encourage
users to do too well, setting help higher goals and achievements for oneself might benefit the overall
market of capitalism. A prime example is Facebook. Facebook has introduced tools and accessories
which allow you to buy look at different stocks and their prices available. They advertise it through
various notions, most of them stating the chance to become a billionaire. It's almost like the bourgeoisie
bait the proletariats with the idea of achieving the fantasy of living the "American dream" but this
instead lulls them into a class co conciseness and results in the prior loosing themselves and their
mental capacity to the grips of toxic positivity. People who fail to do this result in losing their self-worth
of work as they are often discouraged leading to higher rates of depression

"The World Health Organization (WHO, 2017) reported that 10–20% of children and adolescents
worldwide experience mental health problems. It is estimated that 50% of all mental disorders are
established by the age of 14 and 75% by the age of 18 (Kessler et al., 2007; Kim-Cohen et al., 2003). The
most common disorders in children and adolescents are generalized anxiety disorder and depression,
respectively (Mental Health Foundation, 2018; Stansfield et al., 2016). According to the Royal Society for
Public Health, & Young Health Movement (2017), the prevalence of anxiety and depression has
increased by 70% in the past 25 years in young people" This Quantitative data proves the fact that signs
of depression and anxiety are said to be more apparent in youngsters compared to 10 years ago. The
building or the normalization of letting people know your every move can suggest depression rates if
people don't have anything to make up for it. Being exposed to the world at early ages such as 14 has an
extremely negative effect on oneself as it's encouraging the child to develop topics and understanding
that are beyond their comprehension and failure to understand these binds and concepts make lead to
excessive depression due to demand. In pre industrial societies, the absence of social media enlisted
peace within the younger community as they were far safe from being exposed to adult concepts, with
the same level of comprehension as their peers they felt accepted in this community and had a sense of
fulfillment or achievement as compared to the Modern Industrial Society where some children might
feel left out due to higher comprehensive levels.

In the abstract “https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673843.2019.1590851“ Betul Kettles

states, "The link between social media and mental health problems is not straightforward, with various
contributory factors. A report by the Royal Society for Public Health, & Young Health Movement (2017)
suggested impaired sleep as a mechanism. Internet use is a sedentary behavior, which in excess raises
the risk of health problems (Iannotti et al., 2009). A meta-analysis by Asare (2015) showed that
sedentary behavior has a deleterious effect on mental health in young people, although the direction of
this relationship is unclear: people with mental health problems may be more likely to be less physically
active. Multitasking is common on social media, with users having accounts on multiple platforms. A
study by Rosen, Whaling, Rab, Carrier, and Cheever (2013) showed that online multitasking predicts
symptoms of mental disorders. Primack and Escobar-Viera (2017) found that the number of social media
accounts correlated with the level of anxiety, due to overwhelming demand.” We see a change. We
always perceive social media as a tool but fail to recognize the fact that we are becoming a tool for
social media, a link for something bigger. It is in human nature to perceive the fact that we are a part of
something, to feel included. However, communicating with a tool or with a device may not be as
fulfilling or involving as a community would be.

In an article by “helpguide.org https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/social-media-and-

mental-health.htm” co-authors Lawrence Robertson and Melinda Smith state that “…Your social media
use may be problematic if it causes you to neglect face-to-face relationships, distracts you from work or
school, or leaves you feeling envious, angry, or depressed. Similarly, if you’re motivated to use social
media just because you’re bored or lonely, or want to post something to make others jealous or upset, it
may be time to reassess your social media habits. providing reasoning over how a possible type of user’s
mental health may be affected through the use of social media when compared to an individual whose
use of social media might strictly be professional or to catch up on particular news, rather than making it
their own personal alternative to casual socializing in its entirety and resorting to its use as a permanent
substitution to face to face engagements and meetings. It also sheds light on various negative emotions
that, if triggered, can show an unhealthy usage of social media and how in turn this can potentially
evolve from simply initially being problematic into being quite dangerous as this usage continues,
moreover leading to growing the potentially malign thought process that its earlier usage may have
planted inside the individual’s head. The article itself does a rather good job of identifying the symptoms
and problems of social media’s negative impacts on an individual’s mental health, but what makes it
even more of a complete piece of writing is that it also identifies possible solutions to improve the
ramifications of social media’s negative usage and provides brief instructions alongside the identified
solutions as well