Social media has had a myriad of negative impacts on the life of teenagers and society at large. Its usage has increased over the years, making people rely on it for different reasons. If used appropriately, social media is an effective platform to promote businesses and carry out advertisements. However, its growing use among teenagers has played a significant role in causing depression and anxiety issues.
Teenagers have become addicted to social media to the extent that they seemingly use it until very late in the night. Most of them spend log in on Facebook and Instagram and stay on these sites for unusually long durations (Hinman, 2018). This seemingly affects their sleep patterns. Nighttime social media use and lack of proper sleep have detrimental effects on their development. It contributes to them developing depression and anxiety issues. A 2016 study that included approximately 450 teens showed that this nighttime social media use was linked with worse sleep quality and higher depression and anxiety levels.
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Increased use of social media has also caused some teenagers to develop low self-esteem. They feel that they cannot match up to the trends or the lives that their supposed friends are flaunting on social media. Evidently, those who can't match up always feel cast out and unable to fit in their social circles. This makes these teenagers develop lower self-esteem, which eventually leads to social anxiety. It deters them from making new friends and completely fitting in with their peers.
Another negative impact has been online bullying, peer pressure, and teens being radicalized to have uncouth ideologies. The emergence of social media has led to a spike of suicides and attempted suicides among many teens (Magee et al., 2013). This is because teenagers lose a sense of self-worth and feel unwanted. This causes depression, which provokes them to indulge in actions that cause them harm. Moreover, this rise in attempted suicide is because social media has disconnected many teens from reality and has made many live a fast life that they cannot finance. This has led many to be indebted at very young ages to facilitate these lifestyles. On radicalization, many teens have fallen trap and led them to commit crimes. For example, the rise of gun violence in the United States has majorly been committed by teens.
Lastly, social media has led many teenagers to spend a lot of time neglecting other key activities in their lives. The over-reliance on them has disrupted family time and exercises. For instance, many teenagers isolate themselves and reduce parental contact significantly due to their increased social media usage (Edwards, 2018). These habit has made many teens be vulnerable health-wise to lifestyle diseases such as obesity and anxiety disorders.
In conclusion, overreliance and increased social media usage among teenagers have significantly impacted their overall development. It has increased the chances of these teenagers falling into depression or developing anxiety issues. As such, there is a need to limit their usage of social platforms to avoid and mitigate the effects associated with the overreliance on social media.
References
Edwards, C. (2018). Social media and mental health: Handbook for teens . Pulling The Trigger.
Hinman, B. (2018). Teens and social media . Teen Health and Safety.
Magee, R. M., Agosto, D. E., Forte, A., Ahn, J., Dickard, M., & Reynolds, R. (2013). Teens and social media: Where are we now, where next? Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 50 (1), 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1002/meet.14505001017
