International Journal of English Literature and Social Sciences

Vol-7, Issue-1; Jan-Feb, 2022

Journal Home Page Available: https://ijels.com/

Journal DOI: 10.22161/ijels

Peer-Reviewed Journal

Influence of Social Media on Adolescent Mental Health

Jasseer Jabbar¹, Shibu Dharmarajan², Ritu Priya Raveendranathan³, Devanand
Syamkumar⁴, Alisha Jasseer⁵

1,3,4University
of Kerala. India.
2Assumption University of Thailand
5Calicut University, India

Corresponding author: [email protected]

Received: 09 Dec 2021; Received in revised form: 12 Jan 2022; Accepted: 19 Jan 2022; Available online: 31 Jan 2022
©2022 The Author(s). Published by Infogain Publication. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Abstract— Social media use during adolescence can adversely affect health and development. It could be
safely assumed that social media is the most famous and preferred leisure activity among adolescents.
Most teens report that social media gives positive contributions to their lives, but the modern research
literature documented that social media use and adolescents’ mental health are adversely connected.
Social media is a double-edged sword, so it can affect their mental health in a constructive or destructive
way. Hence the excess use of social media comes with some risks for adolescents. The present study found
the impact of social media on adolescent mental health. Depression, anxiety, stress, and aggression have
been found as mental health issues of adolescents. The participants for the present study were randomly
chosen, consisting of 312 (N= 312) adolescents aged between 14 and 19 years randomly selected from
Kerala, India. The variables like viz., social media use, Depression, Anxiety, Stress, and Aggression were
selected for the study. The outcome of the study reveals that there is a positive correlation between social
media use and depression (r= 0.62), anxiety (r= 0.59), stress (r= 0.57), and aggression (r= 0.51). All the
correlations were found to be statistically significant. The findings of the present research can be
explained how mental health could be affected if the time spent on social media is considerably higher than
usual.
Keywords— Adolescents, depression, mental health; social media, stress.

I. INTRODUCTION space for development among adolescents and young

People have an innate need to be recognized and adults.
embraced. People use social media to satisfy their socio- It could be safely assumed that social media is the most
emotional needs of acceptance and inclusion. Therefore, famous and preferred leisure activity among adolescents.
social media has taken a poignant position in everyone's They are not just influenced by cyberspace and several
lives. Social media's effect is such that it could effortlessly media associated with it, but they turn into content makers
alter one's perspective regarding anything under the sky. or content creators. The engagement in the creation is a
As per Pew Research Centre (2015), 92 percent of vigorous process inclusive of the constant involvement in
teenagers are vigorous social media users. Lenhart et al. constructing and reconstructing their identities. The heavy
(2015) found that children between the age of 15-17 are users, adolescents, are constantly involved in 'connecting',
predominantly heavy social media users. In another study, 'reconnecting' or 'unfriending' relationships. As a result of
Lenhart (2015) has said that social media plays a their choices and their decisions, they seem to be
substantial part in youngsters’ daily lives. Surprisingly challenging, influencing, and thus transforming the
enough, such platforms have transformed into an essential

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Jabbar et al. Influence of Social Media on Adolescent Mental Health

cultural norms applied both offline and online (Galarneau, attention to health, safety, family, and academics takes a
2011, 2012; Rutledge, 2013). back seat. Huang H(2013) noted that out of 75% of
teenage mobile phone users, 25% use it for social media,
54% for messaging, and another 24% uses for instant
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
messaging. It is significant to note that many adolescents'
The abundance of research shows that the younger socio-emotional development occurs whilst engaged on
generation of society uses social media platforms for self- their mobile phones and the internet. The compulsivity to
presentation and self-disclosure. Such behavior is maintain and remain in a virtual group leads them to
interconnected to their personality, intimacy development, addiction. Problematic conduct associated with internet use
and well-being (Subrahmanyam &Smahel, 2011; is deemed in psychiatric terminology as 'dependence'.
Michikyan& Subrahmanyam, 2012; Bartsch & Social media addiction is considered a habitual disorder.
Subrahmanyam, 2015). Social media use could facilitate
Adolescents' morning starts with scrolling through the
the most significant developmental task of adolescence,
social media pages (Osatuyi, &Turel, 2018). One could sit
i.e., identity formation. Cyberspace provides adolescents
for hours doing nothing but scrolling through the posts and
with an expansive opportunity to freely express different
pages on social media. The intensity of the addiction could
shades of their personality. The shades of their
react to a level where one could imagine having
personalities disclose their real, ideal, and false selves
notifications in their head and pushing them to check their
(Michikyan, Dennis, &Subrahmanyam, 2014). With the
phone. Looking at the adolescents' perspective, a focus
comfort inherently provided by an enclosed space (of their
group study among 11-18 years by Michelle O'Reilly et al.
rooms) and their computer or mobile phone, adolescents
(2018) reported that social media was seen as a threat to
consider it easy to find new and nuanced meaning thus
their mental wellness. Furthermore, three significant
continuously adding to their personality characteristics.
themes were recognized, i.e., a) they believed that it could
For an adolescent who is constantly engaged in self-
cause mood and anxiety disorder, b) it was seen as a
questioning and self-doubting, a platform that gives the
platform for cyberbullying, c) it was often framed as a sort
privilege to be anonymous is mostly seen as a savior of the
of 'addiction'.
difficult times. Additionally, it enables them to create a
narrative of the constantly dwindling sense of self. Overall, Kim (2017) noted that understanding social media effects
such an engagement is seen as bringing some order and on adolescents' wellness is of supreme importance because
meaning to their complex life. of the alarming mental health problem. Assessing the
relationship between the use of social media and
Being a double-edged sword, social media entails both
depressive symptoms among children and adolescents, a
positive and negative impacts. Social media use comes
systematic review of 11studies showed a significant
with some risks for adolescents. Moreno et al., 2011,
relationship (McCrae, Gettings, &Purssell, 2017). A Meta-
observed that social media is related to depressive
analysis of 23 studies revealed an association between
symptoms, stress (Egan & Moreno, 2011), and social
problematic Facebook use and psychological distress
anxiety (Shaw, Timpano, Iran, &Joormann, 2015).
among adolescents (Marino et.al. 2018). Numerous studies
According to Schneider, Gruman, &Coutts (2012), violent
have found a significant association between excess social
media can lead to a temporary escalation of aggressive
media use and depression (Best et.al. 2014 & Hoare et.al.
thoughts or long-term emulation of aggressive behaviors.
2016). Persons with mental health issues are prone to be
The time invested in social media is directly linked to poor
physically inactive. Inactivity caused due to the use of the
sleep, low self-esteem, and an increase in depression,
internet could increase the risk of mental health problems
anxiety, and aggression. If not monitored or restricted,
if overused. This finding was supported by Asare (2015).
social media usage by adolescents can severely affect their
Social media users have multiple accounts leading them to
overall wellness. Uncontrolled usage of social media
do multitask. Rosen et.al. (2013) indicated that
among teens can lead to internet addiction.
multitasking activities in online anticipate signs of mental
Adolescents place great importance on peer relationships disorders. Primack and EscobarViera (2017) revealed that
while mobile phones enable them to connect with their the number of social media accounts and anxiety levels is
peers; they also feel intense pressure to respond to correlated.
messages, posts, and other paraphernalia associated with
Hanprathet et al. (2015) observed a substantial nexus
social media. They fear losing social relationships since
between depression and Facebook addiction among
their sense of social belongingness will be in danger. The
adolescents. Li et al. (2017) observed that insomnia has a
intensity of the pressure to remain in the virtual group is
mediating influence on social media addiction and
such a swift change of priorities among adolescents. The

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Jabbar et al. Influence of Social Media on Adolescent Mental Health

depression. In a study, Wang et al. (2018) opined that 3 Measures

social media addiction and depression are positively Three instruments were used for collecting the data. The
associated. It was found that poor self-esteem constituted details of the tools used are enumerated below:
the influence of dependence on depression through
a) Social Media Disorder Scale (Eijenden et al., 2016)
rumination. Lisa Barman, DiptaKanti Mukhopadhyay et al.
(2018) observed that intense use of social networking sites, As a screening tool, the scale measures Social Media
especially odd hours, was significantly linked to Disorder using 9 items based on the nine criteria for
depression and anxiety. Pantic et al. (2012) observed internet gaming disorder (DSM V,2013),
among high school students that the time spent on viz., Preoccupation, Tolerance, Withdrawal, Persistence,
Facebook and depression are correlated positively. Lou et Displacement, Problem, Deception, Escape, and Conflict,
al. (2012) showed that the intense use of Facebook The scale claimed to have internal consistency,
predicted an increase in loneliness. convergent and criterion validity, strong structural validity,
and appropriate test-retest reliability.
Certain inquiries noted that the use of social media predicts
exaggerated mental health in the future (Vannucci, b) DAS Scale (Lovibond and Lovibond, 1995)
Flannery, &Ohannessian, 2017; Coyne, Padilla, Holmgren, It is a 21 item, four-point Likert scale which measures the
& Stockdale, 2019), while in some other studies, mental intensity of depression, anxiety, and stress. The Internal
health anticipated future use of social networking sites consistency reliability of subscales of DAS was found to
(Scherr, Toma, & Schuster, 2018). Moreover, few other be 0.94, 0.88, and 0.93 for depression, anxiety, and stress,
studies have obtained a bi-directional and longitudinal respectively. The Construct validity of DAS was found to
relationship between mental health and social media use be correlated with the indices of convergent validity (0.65
(Frison, &Eggermont, 2017; Nesi, Miller, &Prinstein, and 0.75).
2017; Houghton et al., 2018). A significant investigation
c) Aggression Scale (Roma Pal and Tasneem Naqvi,
regarding the topic was conducted by Twenge, Joiner,
1986)
Rogers, and Martin (2018), who investigated differences
among generations in the use of social media and several It is a 30-item scale that identifies and evaluates different
outcomes in adolescents. The study revealed that the aspects of aggression among adolescents. Each item has
present generation (termed as 'Igen' for those who are 1995 five alternate answers, and it is graded on a five-point scale
born or later) shows a greater propensity to face on the positive dimension and a zero point on the negative
depression, loneliness, sleep deprivation, and avoidance of dimension. The reliability of the test was found to be 0.82.
adult roles than the previous generation. They also stated The content validity of the items has been collected
that the duration spent on social media could lead to a through expert opinion.
steep increase in problems of mental health in adolescents. 4 Statistical techniques
In such a scenario, an inquiry to understand the impact of
To determine the correlation between social media use and
social media and adolescent mental health is vital.
adolescent mental health problems, Pearson Product
Moment Correlation was computed.
III. METHOD
1 Participants IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The participants for the investigation were randomly The current study investigated the correlation between
chosen, consisting of 312 adolescents belonging to the age social media use and mental health among adolescents.
group of 14-19 years. They were selected from schools and Mental health concerns such as depression, anxiety, stress,
colleges in Kerala. and aggression have been assessed in the study. To assess
2 Variables the relationship between these variables a Pearson Product
Moment Correlation (r) was employed. The results of the
The variables like viz., social media use, depression,
same are illustrated in the table given below.
anxiety, stress, and aggression were selected for the study.

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Jabbar et al. Influence of Social Media on Adolescent Mental Health

Table1: Correlation among the study variables

Variables Social media Depression Anxiety Stress Aggression
Disorder
Social media 0
Disorder
Depression 0.62** 0
Anxiety 0.59** 0.75** 0
Stress 0.57** 0.61** 0.69** 0
Aggression 0.51** 0.49** 0.14 0.06 0

The results show that the social media use is positively low self-esteem. Scott (2016) found that nighttime
correlated with depression (r= 0.62), anxiety (r= 0.59), engagement in social media was related to poor quality of
stress (r= 0.57), and aggression (r= 0.51). All the sleep, anxiety, and symptoms of depression. Wood and
correlations were found to be statistically significant. The Scott (2016) noted that excessive social media users
results indicated that the adolescents who engage in experience poor quality of sleep, weak self-esteem, and
problematic use of social media experience symptoms of greater levels of anxiety and depression.
depression, anxiety, stress, and aggression. The results Aggressive behavior is a general problem among young
were substantiated by many research findings (Kim, 2017; internet users (Ku et al., 2012; Hindiya&Patchin, 2013).
McCrae, Gettings, Purssell, 2017; Marino, Gini, Vieno, Cyberbullying is an antisocial behavior intended to inflict
&Spada, 2018). This may be since the current generation is pain, boredom, and behavioral imbalance. Cyberbullying is
dependent on social media. Because of their restricted self- general and has a significant impact on adolescents'
regulation capacity and their susceptibility to peer wellness (Cappadocia et.al 2013; Kowalskiet. al. 2014;
pressure, teenagers are at a higher risk of facing backlash Tsitsika et al., 2015; Hanm et al., 2015). The problem-
in overusing social media, and therefore, they are at a generating use of social media leads adolescents to get
higherof developing a mental disorder. involved in overt-reactive and instrumental aggression and
Kraut et.al. (1998), Nie and associates (2002), Robinson reported escalatedlevels of different kinds of victimization
et.al. (2002), and Baym (2010) proved that social media (Martinez-Ferrer, Moreno, &Musitu, 2018).
has an impact on adolescents' mental health. But The findings of the present research can be explained
Anderson and his colleagues (2017) mentioned that the based on Lins'sdisplacement hypothesis and use and
impact reduces inter-personal interaction, promotes gratification theory. Lins's (1993) displacement hypothesis
addiction-related behaviors. cyberbullying, and social suggests that the hours spent on social media have the
comparison led to social pressure. Furthermore, due to the potential to displace other essential activities such as sleep
elevated exposure to suicide stories on social media, it (Scott, &Woods, 2018) or face-to-face interaction with
poses a threat of contagion effect (Bell, 2014). friends (Twenge, 2017). This concept explains how mental
Vidal et.al. (2020) summarized the findings of many health could be affected if the hours invested on social
studies which revealed that the time spent on social media media is considerably higher than usual. In contrast to the
and depression are positively correlated. Sampasa- displacement hypothesis, the uses and gratification theory
Kanyinga& Lewis (2015), Sampasa-Kanyinga&Hamilton (Katz et.al. 1974) posits that poor mental health is linked
(2015), noted that frequent use of social media, i.e., greater with the future use of social media (Quan-Hasse&Young
than or equal to 2 hours a day, was positively linked to 2010; Bulut&Dogan, 2017). The same perspective
suicidal ideation and para-suicide. Lee et.al. (2017) considers individuals as active choosers of social media,
additionally found links to self-regulation arrears in with everyone actively choosing to be a part of which
adolescents due to excess usage of social media. Factors particular social media so that their needs are fulfilled.
such as the number of social media accounts and the According to the displacement hypothesis, social media
frequency of visits to sites are associated with depression. usage is nothing but a means of escapism and digression
(Barry, Sidoti Briggs, Reitor, &Lindsey, 2017). from ordinary life (Coyne et.al. 2013). In such a situation,
Wang et al. (2018) concluded that social media use and to avoid pain and stress, a teenager may decide to connect
depression are mediated by rumination in adolescents with with others online through social media. They turn to
social media to alleviate the pain.

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Jabbar et al. Influence of Social Media on Adolescent Mental Health

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