1. TITLE: Social Media Usage on Mental Health Awareness.

2. CHAPTER 1

a) INTRODUCTION

Mental health, defined by the World Health Organisation, is “a state of well-being in which the

individual realises his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work

productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community”.

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think,

feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy

choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through

adulthood. When our mental health is not what we would want it to be. Finding it difficult to

manage how we think, feel, act with respect to daily stresses could be a sign of poor mental health.

This could result to depression. Having continuous episodes of depression could indicate a problem.

The factors that could be the reason triggering the depression on social media could be trauma, or

neglect, experiencing discrimination and stigma, social disadvantage, bullying and others. 1

We are to find out if one of the major causes of depression can be caused by social media among

adolescents. Multiple studies have found a strong link between heavy social media and an increased

risk for depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm etc.2 as wells even triggering suicidal thoughts.

Social media may promote negative experiences such as: Inadequacy about your life or appearance,

likings, lifestyle etc.

physical illnesses are less well established. We aimed to stratify selected chronic physical and

psychiatric illnesses according to their relative risk of self-harm.

B) BACKGROUND:

Mental health is as important as physical health. A person’s emotional, psychological, and social

well-being can depend on what they are going through on a daily basis or for some portions of their

life. Something shocking, traumatising or upsetting can affect people heavily that might cause

depression. Because, all people are different from each other. So, some emotional matters effect

people differently. Some more, some less. It affects how a person thinks, feels, and also acts.

Depression may cause overnight and last for a long time and might even have a permanent effect on

their lives. Mental health is important for the social well-being of a person at every stage in life,

from childhood to adolescence and even beyond. It is necessary to focus on having a positive mind

as well a healthy body.

It can be observed that social media has opened us up to a broader world as well as made us prey to

a darker world that has harmful things, upsetting news, and given a platform to negative people to

put others down. This has heavily affected people over the years. Which has resulted to everyone

having minimum chances to suffer from depression. Teenagers and young adults mostly depend on

social media from interacting to shopping, they’re extremely active. At this time, they can be

slammed by people or end up seeing horrible things that aren’t meant to be out there. But internet

has made the world smaller thus, they are exposed to such things. Such that most vulnerable people

to be affected by it through social medias are public figures, young adults, teenagers etc. as they are

highly active on social media. They are several platforms to connect with other people or promote

themselves. Which means they are more open to be attacked by the negative sides of the social

media.
Social media effecting your mental health does not always depend on other people saying stuff

against you or doing things to derogate you. It might be the individual forcing themselves to be

more than what they are, faking their lives for a few petty like or pushing themselves to do better

than before and project themselves as perfectionist. This creates the idea of them being not good

enough for themselves, creates anxiety of not being able to reach certain goals and fear to approach

a new path as well as makes you depressed for failing at things and not getting what they wanted.

This social media is a huge platform that the risk of reward is a small price to pay is their privacy.

Which puts them in place of danger where their life can be harmed at any point or time. Thus, their

mental health deteriorates time to time. Jacqueline Sperling, PhD, a psychologist at McLean

Hospital who works with youth who experience anxiety disorders, about Instagram’s recent

restriction. “Even if you remove the likes, there are continuous opportunities for comparisons and

feedback. People still can compare themselves to others, and people still can post comments.”-3

which its very true as not being good enough, getting hate online, comparing yourselves to others is

the part and parcel of social media which would definitely result to depression.

C) STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

The problem statements of the study are:

People are less concerned about mental health compared to other diseases or medical issues. Being

mentally unstable to a large population is being crazy and anxiety isn’t real to them so, people who

are actually suffering from such issues are not real to them which means eventually the victims will

suffer more for not being able to get help or proper treatment. Social media platforms are highly

affecting individual’s mental health. So, it rather be used to spread awareness. To let the people

know they are not alone, they are other victims and they can actually look for help on such

platforms.
People in general are not very open about their traumas and issues that caused their mental health to

be weaker. They are affected in several ways and the result of that is different from each people.

That might also result to them collapsing sooner or later if they do not get the required help. We are

to find out, how is the social medias causes depression among teens and young adults that causes

them victims to suffer and how it can be helped.

How do people deal with poor mental health is a concern. They have resulted to self-harming

themselves. If social media is the cause of it, then it should also be used to seek help and guidance

to recover from their suffering and come built a better and more positive social life. Because it is

necessary to bring them out of the dark place for the betterment of their lives.

D) PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY:

PURPOSE:

The purpose of the study is to highlight how social media might be the reason behind depression

among adolescents. The concern about mental health has been ignored as an issue over the years

and our purpose is also to aware people how important it is. It needed to be focused on as it is not

always something you deal with since birth. Overtime several things affect your mental health and

one of those things are social media. It may be unhealthy deep diving into the web of social media

as it may raise your confidence or destroy you from the inside completely. So, to learn about how

social media can affect your metal health and what is the aftermath of being affected by it is the

purpose of study.

The purpose of the study is to spread awareness about mental health welfare because the mass

seems to be ignorant towards the plight of the people dealing with mental health issues and do

nothing for them or their own good. Thus, the sufferings of the victims are enhanced over time. So,

to be able to help them they need minimal knowledge about mental health awareness. So, our study

is to highlight these problems raised through social media and to resolve the matters so it does not

have any negative impact on the consumers.

The objective of the article is to highlight depression among teens and young adults, which is

related to their mental health and how they can recover from it. To know what kind of negative

things are causing such sadness, and bringing displeasure to their daily lives’ and activities. We are

to discuss these issues effect their health, social lives and lifestyle etc. Our objective here is to find

out what can be done in order to prevent malicious activities online and keep it in a positive space.

The main objectives are:

• To identity how what circumstances on social media might cause depression.

• To identify the symptoms of depression to provide the victims with necessary help.

• To highlight how social media causes depression and anxiety among their users.

• To identify ways to reach out to victims who are suffering through social media.

• To identify ways to resolve the issue through help from hospital, agencies, family, friends

etc.

E) SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY:

The significance of the study is to figure out matters on social media that would affect the mental

health and how to recover from it. As well as, to highlight the importance of a stable mental health

that everyone deserves to have. Might as well spread awareness about reaching out if they ever need

help and to let them know they aren’t the only one suffering. These steps enhance them to have the

ability to feel, express and manage a range of positive and negative emotions. The ability to form

and maintain good relationships with others. The ability to cope with and manage change and

uncertainty.

1. Understanding the situation caused by social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, twitter

etc.

2. Acknowledging the people who need help and provide them with the help.
3. Discussing lack of efficient materials to tackle the situation.

4. Diffusing the negative impact by professionally taking steps.

F) LIMITATIONS:

The limitations faced during the study:

1. Public response might be partial as they do not want to address the situation.

2. Result of the research might not be accurate because of the lack of interest of the participants.

3. Insufficient data for further discussion.

4. Not being able to conduct face to face interviews.

G) Research Hypothesis and Research Questions:

Hypothesis

How the government, freelance organisations and public can take necessary steps to be able to take

actions malicious activities on social media and help spread awareness about mental health and how

these things affect the people.

The research questions, given the state of the existing literature are as follows:

• What are the things victims face online that affect their mental health?

• How can we put a stop to such activities?

• What steps are to be taken in order to improve their health?

References:

1. Mentalhealth.org

2. HelpGuide, www.helpguide.org

3. Maclean, Harvard Medical School Affiliate