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Anthony Hernandez

Dr. Sharity Nelson

ENGL 1302

11 November 2021

Consequences of technological and social media use

Introduction

Technological developmental methods surface across the world every year for children in

school of all grade levels, whether not it’s focused on a specific grade level these

“developments” are overall targeted toward trying to better and ease the education for students.

This however is significantly outweighed in that these children (most notably young teens) are

also presented with numerous different games that come out yearly along with whatever social

media apps / trends that are also coming out. However, it could be argued that social media or

honing motor skills playing video games is more beneficial in helping a person develop rather

than most forms of education. Do video games or social media really have a positive effect on a

teen’s learning experiences or is it crippling their development through very important learning

stages in life emotionally and even physically? Surely there are ways that could help, but I would

strongly suggest that social media and technology is nothing but a distraction and leads to

unprocessed emotions and feelings. For such a serious subject that position is very understated

because the emotions a teen could experience in school even without the technology or social

media is life changing! We now live in an era of social media saturation and digitized resources,

so the opportunities of how and when a teen will experience anxiousness or stress or any

pessimistic feeling about the future only increases.

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Negative Repercussions of Social Media and Technology

Everybody processes and experiences emotions from social media in much different

ways from one another. According to Irum Saeed Abbasi “Compulsive social media use has

repercussions on the users’ social, psychological, professional, and personal lives.” This aids in

supporting my claim that social media will have effects on your life no matter what, depending

upon many reasons these effects could be either life altering in ways, or they could be minor

inconveniences. Author Michelle O’Reilly states for children ranging between ages 11-18 “In the

UK 83% have a smartphone and 99% go online for 21 hours per week.” Authors Anderson and

Jiang reported very similar figures in the year 2018 for the United States as well. This goes to

show the magnitude of how many kids and how much time they’re dedicating their lives to these

devices and social media platforms rather than something far more developmental and

productive. This could also give you a firm idea on how unsafe or unpredictable social media

platforms could be. Imagine all the cyber bullying that goes on every second in every country, in

every state, and in every city! There are infinite ways a child is dangerously vulnerable on the

internet and most of the times they themselves don’t know it. These social media platforms may

have somebody that has fake / phony accounts that could lead teens to a world of problems from

something as innocent as selling email information, to something as serious as sexual harassment

online. Authors of “Social Media Use and Mental Health Among Adults” Chloe Berryman,

Christopher J Ferguson, and Charles Negy explain how “Some studies have indicated that social

media use may be tied to negative mental health outcomes, including suicidality, loneliness…”

Many people use social media or technology as an outlet or in other words an escape from

emotions or feelings that they should really be facing rather than turning away as easily as that

may be. Again, from the article Social Media Use and Mental Health Among Adults, “it is
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possible that some forms of social media use may function as a ‘cry for help’ among

individuals.” I’d strongly suggest introducing social media to children in a much more patient

and moderated way and even go so far as training them. Children and more notably young teens

need to understand that everything they may see on social media may not be true or real and to

never compare themselves to anything on social media platforms. They will only get this

understanding with very patient, and strict moderation by the parents or legal guardians.

Benefits of Social Media Use

It’s important to remember that a person will take in and feel emotions from a certain

situation in much different ways from others, some may over or under react or not know how to

react at all. An example used for positive effects through social media could be seen as a kid

developing social skills, and social media allows that kid or even adult to practice and build their

skills in ways maybe they’re comfortable in. From Hazards and Benefits of Social Media Use in

Adolescents authors, Santhiny Rajamohon, Erin Bennet, and Deborah Tedone discuss both the

negative and positive effects that social media may have on adolescents. They mention,

“adolescents who lack social skills may experience improvement in self-esteem and well-being

as a result of positive feedback from social media connections.” Once analyzing this quotation

it’s evident that this could go both ways very easily. Imagine two separate situations, one where

a kid of any age eagerly shares what they have to say or do on a social media platform or even

video game. Whatever audience this kid reaches will play an immense role in determining how

this kid will react emotionally to what other people may have to say, there are many beautiful

people throughout the world who will support a complete stranger and be extremely kindhearted

and this audience would definitely have a positive effect on this kid’s emotions. However, there

will always be an audience that is reached in some way where that kid will receive simple hazing
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remarks or even something as horrible as death threats such as… “That is such a dumb idea!” ,

“How stupid could you be to say or do that?” , “Honestly you should just kys for that.” (kys - kill

yourself) As mentioned, clearly this could go both ways whenever faced with a situation as such.

That being said, is it a good thing that some children experience the negative effects of social

media only in order to come out stronger and more knowledgeable?

Consequence

If you look at the term Addiction in the dictionary it reads, “the fact or condition of being

addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity.” Addiction is very overlooked in really

every aspect of anybody’s life, addiction could range from being addicted to a very bad street

drug to being addicted to cooking or eating food. The characteristics of a person who was

addicted to the drug are the same as the person who is addicted to cooking food. This could also

be seen with technology and social media use amongst people up to the age of 60 but most

obvious amongst children and teenagers. I’m confident this “addiction” children and teens have

for these devices and applications is what leads to erratic behaviors or erratic emotions. A very

extensive sleep and smartphone study was conducted to see if how much screen time a person

used was negatively affecting their sleep which further inevitably negatively effects overall daily

life. From Research Article, (Direct Measurements of Smartphone Screen-Time: Relationships

with demographics and Sleep Results Section) it’s said, “Longer average screen-time was

associated with shorter sleep duration and worse sleep-efficiency.” It’s well known if you don’t

get the sleep you need you will not perform 100% mentally nor physically. This goes to show

another, yet simple example of how technology and the applications available on them could

have a physical and mental effect on a person’s day to day life. Coming back to the concept of

addiction there is an extremely intriguing article written by Jon Elhai, Brian Hall, and Meredith
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Claycomb Erwin (“Emotion regulation’s relationships with depression, anxiety, and stress due to

imagined smart phone and social media loss.”) Through this very thorough research experiment

the authors attempt to distinguish any emotional relationships between two different research

groups. One large group named the “Smart Phone Loss Group” was instructed to imagine smart

phone loss of two days to that smart phone, and another group named the “social media accounts

loss group” was asked the same thing but with respect to their group. It was to my surprise found

that “Results suggest emotion dysregulation may be associated with psychopathology from

social media loss.” This leads me to believe technology isn’t at all the problem, although it is a

tool for these applications the technology would just be electronics sitting there if there wasn’t

any social media applications or games available on them. Since technology could be utilized in

many educational and entertaining ways, I strongly suggest completely reimagining the way

children are allowed to use certain social media apps and video games. If emotional

dysregulation comes more from the loss of the social media accounts rather than the actual

technology itself that should be enough of an argument alone to fight for the better development

of all the children who use this technology.

Solution

If there are any significant changes that should be made to children using technological

devices one of them will be the restriction, or heavy moderation of social media and gaming use.

If the magnitude of how much of a snowball effect still isn’t clear, a very recent article by the

name of, “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-Symptoms, Social Media Use Intensity, and

Social Media Use Problems in Adolescents: Investigating Directionality” talks about how, “In

2018, 45% of the adolescents in the United States aged 13-17 reported being online almost

constantly, while in 2015 this was 24%.” With these numbers increasing so quickly a solution
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should be made quickly as well before the world is equipped with technology that we can’t even

imagine yet. Something so simple as being stricter and “controlling” parental guardians toward

your child whenever they choose to use social media apps. Proof of this from Jasmine Fardouly,

Natasha R Magson, Carly J Johnco, Ella L Oar, and Ronald M Rapee from the article, “Parental

control of the Time Preadolescents Spend on Social Media: Links with Preadolescents’ Social

Media Appearance Comparisons and Mental Health.” States that, “Preadolescents, whose parents

reported greater control over their child’s time on social media, reported better mental health.”

This may be one very small step, however, it is a right step toward allowing these kids to

continue using technology and applications available on them without worsening their

development in any sort of way. Note how in the previous quote they say “greater control”,

simply with more enforcing along with technological enhancements like greater firewalls my

problem to children carelessly using these devices for social media would be solved.

Conclusion

After analyzing multiple scholarly resources with regards to my question on whether not

video game and social media use was beneficial or worse for the development of a child / teen

it’s clearly evident that I was correct in stating that these are only distractions that will lead to

unprocessed emotions and erratic behavior. However, I thought a solution to what you could call

this epidemic would be much more difficult than I imagined. There is clear proof that with the

right parental structure and control over their child, their mental health would not decline but

maybe even develop as they mature through correct supervised use of social media and video

games. Yet this is one very simple solution, something could and should be done on a bigger

scale like very strict age restrictions toward social media and video game applications, and actual

filtered technology that could filter information to a specific child’s needs for their development.
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Works Cited

Abbasi, Irum Saeed. “Social Media Addiction in Romantic Relationships: Does User's Age

Influence Vulnerability to Social Media Infidelity?” Personality and Individual

Differences, vol. 139, 2019, pp. 277–280., doi:10.1016/j.paid.2018.10.038.

Berryman, Chloe, et al. “Social Media Use and Mental Health among Young Adults.”

Psychiatric Quarterly, vol. 89, no. 2, 2018, pp. 307–314., doi:10.1007/s11126-017-9535-

6.

Boer, Maartje, et al. “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder-Symptoms, Social Media Use

Intensity, and Social Media Use Problems in Adolescents: Investigating Directionality.”

Child Development, vol. 91, no. 4, 2020.

Christensen, Matthew A, et al. “Direct Measurements of Smartphone Screen-Time:

Relationships with Demographics and Sleep.” Plos One, vol. 11, no. 11, 2016, p.

0165331., doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0165331.

Elhai JD, et al. “Emotion Regulation's Relationships with Depression, Anxiety and Stress Due to

Imagined Smartphone and Social Media Loss.” Psychiatry Research, vol. 261, 2018, pp.

28–34., doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2017.12.045.

Fardouly, Jasmine, et al. “Parental Control of the Time Preadolescents Spend on Social Media:

Links with Preadolescents’ Social Media Appearance Comparisons and Mental Health.”

Journal of Youth and Adolescence : A Multidisciplinary Research Publication, vol. 47,

no. 7, 2018, pp. 1456–1468., doi:10.1007/s10964-018-0870-1.

O’Reilly, Michelle. “Social Media and Adolescent Mental Health: The Good, the Bad and the

Ugly.” Journal of Mental Health, vol. 29, no. 2, 2020, pp. 200–206.,

doi:10.1080/09638237.2020.1714007.
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Rajamohan S, et al. “The Hazards and Benefits of Social Media Use in Adolescents.” Nursing,

vol. 49, no. 11, 2019, pp. 52–56., doi:10.1097/01.NURSE.0000585908.13109.24.