Social Media: Is it Beneficial or Detrimental to Lives?
Nowadays, social media is everywhere becoming a part of people’s lives. So many
people, especially teenagers, can be seen on their phones most of their daily lives. With social
media being as active as it is in lives, the real question is, is social media beneficial or
detrimental to lives? There are benefits and detriments to having social media as a part of our
lives, but one weighs out the other. Social media is mostly detrimental to our lives because it can
cause mental harm, it can influence people to cause harm to ourselves, and it has the capability
of ruining our lives.
To begin, social media is detrimental to our lives because it can cause mental harm. For
example, MUO (MakeUseOf) states that social media can cause depression and anxiety. Studies
have shown that being on social media for more than two hours a day scientifically prove the fact
that this has the chance of causing depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety are two major
mental health issues that are a challenge to overcome. A study done by BBC also proves how
social media can cause depression and anxiety. More than 700 students were found to have
depressive and anxiety symptoms such as low mood and feelings of worthlessness and
hopelessness after having online interactions. Another example is that the BBC states that social
media deprives sleep. Studies show that staring at technology emitting light actually causes
people to not feel tired. Not getting enough sleep is bad for the human body and brain. Studies
also show that sleep is a vital part of lives. What sleep actually does is it recalls what happened
throughout the day and actually puts it into our memory. Without enough sleep, people can be
not only exhausted, but hardly have any memory of what happened the previous day. All of this
shows how social media can cause mental harm.
Secondly, social media can influence people to cause harm to ourselves. According to
The Guardian, Dave Smith brought to their attention the account of his daughter’s interaction
with social media. His daughter, Hannah Smith, age 14 was being cyberbullied on a local
question-and-answer website. Not long after being cyberbullied, it was announced that Hannah
Smith had killed herself. Dave Smith stated, “How many more teenagers will kill themselves
because of online abuse before something is done? These sick people are just able to go online
and hide behind a mask of anonymity while they abuse vulnerable teenagers.” This quote shows
that there are so many other accounts of teenagers killing themselves because of cyberbullying.
No matter how many benefits there are to social media, there is not enough to outway the
detriment of suicide. Another account is told by a parent of a 16-year-old boy. They stated, “My
sixteen year old son was cyber bullied on Facebook over a period of 8 hours. The event was so
traumatic it caused my son to have an acute psychotic break and to be hospitalized...
