Social Media and Teenage Mental Health Essay Sample

Social media feeds you content it knows you enjoy, which creates an addiction to the dopamine it releases when you use it. Companies like TikTok, Instagram, and Youtube track your activities on other websites to try and find what you’re interested in. That’s the reason why “the average time spent on TikTok per day is 52 minutes, with 90% of users accessing it on a daily basis” (Dean). Whenever you use social media it releases a chemical in your brain called dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical that is released to reward your body. Users of social media, especially teenagers can become reliant on these apps and websites for dopamine, creating an addiction. Addiction can have many harmful impacts like decreased social skills, hyper fixation on what gives the addict their fix, and loss of interest in other activities that the addict previously enjoyed. Those addicted to social media are most likely not ever going to break the pattern considering how young they are getting started with these online networking sites. This makes it even harder for anyone on them because most of the users have grown up with social media being present and find it hard to imagine a world without it.

Social media convinces the users that the influencers with the perfect, most healthy, and photoshopped bodies are what’s expected and if you don’t look like them there’s something wrong with you. Eating disorders are on the rise and have gone up 7.8% from 2013 to 2018 (Graber). This time frame lines up closely with when mainstream social media was first released on cell phones, making the apps more widespread and easy to access. On apps like Instagram, there’s a beauty standard, and “more often than not, their looks are a combination of gym, plastic surgery and a generous amount of retouching.” (Obiora). Users of social media feel like they need to live up to these unrealistic and fake expectations set by influencers who profit off of insecurities. Many fitness influencers will promote a supplement that doesn’t actually work as described. People will buy these items in hopes that they too can have “perfect” bodies. Because social media is so largely consumed, the “ideal” bodies that are unrealistic become normalized and thought of as the standard. Seeing an incredibly fit or edited person multiple times a day, every day can be very damaging to one’s self-image. This damage and the constant reminder of how others look can drive people to develop eating disorders and unhealthy relationships with their bodies and beauty.

The rise of social media has caused more and more teens to suffer from depression and other mental health issues due to its unhealthy nature. According to a recent study “teenage and young adult users who spend the most time on Instagram, Facebook and other platforms were shown to have a substantially (from 13 to 66 percent) higher rate of reported depression than those who spent the least time.” (Miller) This is due to addiction as previously mentioned, worsened body image, and fear of missing out along with other factors. A startling statistic from the same study reported that from 2010 to 2015, eighth through 12th grader girl suicide rates increased 65% (Miller). 2010 is right around the time smartphones became more widespread, and along with it social media on mobile. With everyone spending time on devices, less time is being spent exercising or doing other healthy activities. Also, with more and more interaction going online young people are having trouble devoting social skills and experiencing life lessons. All these things help contribute to higher depression rates and even suicide.

Social media severely harms mental health by creating dopamine addicts, promoting unhealthy body images, and causing a rise in depression and suicide among young people. Companies track users on the web and use their interests to get them to stay on their platforms. They use dopamine to trick the brain into craving usage of these apps and creates addicts to the software. Not only that but social media forces unrealistic standards of what someone should look like through natural or unnatural ways. Finally, since the release of socials on mobile, depression and suicide rates have skyrocketed among young people, who are social media’s biggest audience. All in all, while social media has the potential to connect friends and create inclusive online communities, studies show it’s doing more harm than good and the future doesn’t look bright. After reading this, society should try and create a balance between social media usage and real-world activities.