Social Media’s negative effect on mental health
During the past decade, online social networking has caused overwhelming changes in the way people communicate and interact. It is unclear whether some of these changes may affect normal ways of human behavior and cause mental disorders. Several studies have indicated that the extended use of social networking applications (SNA), such as Instagram, may be related to signs and symptoms of depression. In addition, some articles have indicated that certain SNA'S activities might be associated with low self-esteem, especially in children and teens. The relationship between SPA’s generating mental problems to this day remains debatable, and research on this issue is faced with various challenges. Social networking applications have a negative influence on mental health because these applications conflict with your mental health and generate depressive symptoms changes in self-esteem, and addiction to the Internet.
Although several studies have made the connection between device communication and signs and symptoms of depression, this issue is still arguable in current mental disorder research. There are many reasons why an SNA like Facebook, or an Instagram user may have a habit to become depressed, as there are numerous factors that may lead an already depressed individual to start to use or increase their use of social media. In one article, studies have found that teenagers who engage with social media during the night could be damaging their sleep and increasing their risk of anxiety and depression. Teenagers spoke about the pressure they felt to make themselves available 24/7, and the resulting anxiety if they did not respond immediately to texts or posts. In one article, June Eric Udorie, a 16-year-old student states, "Teens are so emotionally invested in social media that a fifth will wake up at night and log on". Which indicates that teens are lacking sleep. Teens and adolescents require longer hours of sleep than adults do, so nighttime social media use could be detrimental for their health. Also, with the development of these SNA'S, the time children and teens spend in front of the computer screens have significantly increased. This has led to the further reduction of face-to-face communication both in the family and in the much larger social environment. Although social networks enable an individual to interact with a large number of people, these interactions are very shallow and cannot sufficiently replace everyday face-to-face communication. One of the reasons why time spent on SNA may be associated with depressive symptoms is because computer-mediated communication may lead to the corrected impression of the physical and personality traits of other users. This may lead to incorrect conclusions regarding physical appearance, educational level/age, intelligence, as well as many other characteristics of online friends. For example, individuals who already have certain depressive tende...
