Various Mental Illness Caused by Social Media

Various Mental Illness Caused by social media
Social media platforms have been out for years and have increased their numbers each
year as more people are downloading and using social media apps but exactly How Many People
Use Social Media in 2022?.Social media affects the minds of students” Using social media to
compare to others has been associated with negative effects of college students’ self-esteem and
feelings of self-worth” (Fraser, Stockdale, Bryce, Alexander, 2021). Social media plays a big
role in students’ mental illness, everyone has social media and goes on there social media apps
everyday to see what is new. A lot of students who use social media tend to get into there head as
they see picture perfect people online and want to be them but that is not the case. Not everyone
can be who they see on social media, and it really affects students and their self-esteem. Another
factor of social media is that students will see their friends posting about there day or night and
that person viewing them may have thought that they were friends and are confused why they
didn’t get invited. This situation has happened to so many students and it really affects students
minds as they are now stressing out about why they were not included and what they did wrong,
and they start to feel worthless along with thinking they don’t mean anything to their friends.
Social media is a very powerful source that affects so many students daily. College students face
a lot of self-thinking and really start to question if they are good enough due to social media, as
students try to change who they are just to fit in with the “popular crowd” at school as it makes
them feel important and feel known all over school. It is not always a great feeling to be involved
in large friend groups as you make one mistake, and everyone is talking about it or posting about
you on social media.
Social media really took a toll on students during COVID-19 since school was pushed to
all online and no one was really coming in contact with each other except for social media.
Students were forced to stay inside and not have physical contact with friends and live their
normal college life. “In the United Kingdom, research conveyed that 83% of young adults with
mental health disorders reported that COVID-19 made their disease worse, and 26% reported
that they had lost access to their mental health resources” (Fraser, Stockdale, Bryce, Alexander,
2021). Not only did COVID-19 affect students through social media but it also affected those
who were going to a therapist or counseling for their mental health, it ended up preventing those
from further pursing there needs. The impact that COVID-19 had was very drastic and really
created a disaster for students as their mental health was greatly impacted along with their
learning abilities when it came to online classes and not having the structure of going to class
and being physically present.
Do certain social media platforms bother you? Instagram is one of the most damaging
social media platforms out there for students. People may not think that posting a picture harm
anyone but someone who has low self-esteem could take that picture to heart and could dwell on
it for days thinking they are not good enough. “In a survey of almost 1,500 Britons aged 14 to
26, the RSPH found that young people were most likely to associate Instagram with negative
attributes and low self-esteem, resulting in poor body image and lack of sleep” (Gilchrist, 2017).
Along with Instagram Snapchat was also a close contestant for being an enabler of mental health
and wellbeing, as both platforms focus on having perfect bodies and perfect looks to in order to
be liked.
If you know someone who is having a hard time with there well being due to social
media, you should support them and push them to take a social media break and deactivate their
accounts in order to benefit themselves and work on their own self esteem. Social media is
meaningless as things being posted now will not matter in a few years or even months.
Citations
Fraser, A. M., Stockdale, L. A., Bryce, C. I., & Alexander, B. L. (2021). College students’ media
habits, concern for themselves and others, and mental health in the era of COVID-
19. Psychology of Popular Media.
Gilchrist, K. (2017, May 19). Instagram most likely to cause young people to feel depressed and
lonely out of major social apps, study says. CNBC. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/19/instagram-most-likely-to-cause-young-people-to-feel-
depressed-and-lonely-out-of-major-social-apps-study-says.html

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you on social media.

and being physically present.

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