Social Media and the Pitfalls

Why are teens so obsessed with their phones, is usually every parent's question. Embedded in these sources of social media are incentives that are eating away at vulnerable, teenage brains and essentially altering their way of life. Year by year, each generation is adapting to the advancements of technology, whether it may be Myspace in 2003 (“Myspace”) or Tik Tok in 2017 (“The Origins of Tik Tok”). With everyone being intertwined via Instagram and/or Snapchat, for example, it brings up a concerning question of how are the negatives of these apps contributing to us and our wellbeing. As new generations grow up with these said devices in their hands right when they're born, what’s going to happen to their minds when they grow into adolescence, and their perception of the world is altered? What’s going to happen when they're more susceptible to the world of cyberbullying? Society has been revolving around social media; our politics, meals, and work even. Everything is now digitized so everyone can see what you're eating, what your outfit of the day is, or the fact that you don’t want to be at work because you posted it on Snapchat. Social media is a lucrative industry that creates 52.7 billion dollars, but it also creates millions of problems affecting teenagers' mental health and a rise in cyberbullying (Social Networking Sites in the US”). 

 Society today puts a tremendous amount of pressure on young girls and boys to look and act a certain way. Throughout society's evolution, stereotypes have been developing with it and putting more pressure on these teens as they develop. People say that men have to be tough and any sight of emotion is frowned upon because it is a “weakness” and women have to be these dainty, fragile, thin beings. Now add the elements of social media and all these apps; the concoction of these two negative elements creates the wreckage of what was once a healthy mind. For instance, in the mind of a young impressionable girl, she can look at these posts on Instagram of women who are thinner and prettier and she can easily calibrate her entire perception and mindset into thinking that this is acceptable for society and its standards because that’s what society wants and likes based off of liking posts. On the other hand, body positivity and mental health awareness have gained momentum over the past years, but the direct catalyst to these movements has been social media and the modifications it has brought to teenagers. Social media is a place where you can find people just like you, sometimes even going through the same things. It is a platform that connects people everywhere, thus bringing this connection can bring destruction to people's mental well beings. Advancements in social media have been beneficial, but also have enabled a whole new set of bullying and belittlement: cyberbullying.  As social media becomes more advanced, teens growing up will be more susceptible to the toxicity that becomes from these apps. Social media is a direct catalyst to the growing numbers of mental illness in teens because of the degree society holds on the perception of how you're supposed to appear and the advancements of cyberbullying through these networks. Parents should be taking precautions like monitoring their children's screen time for minimizing the possibility of developing such mental deteriorating illnesses and protection from potential harmful cyberbullies. 

Societal standards have been plaguing generations, and it's still occurring to this day.  The addition of social media to these societal standards can lead to mind destruction of anyone's age, but specifically teenagers because they’re receptive. With many teens, snap chatting, tweeting, and posting on Instagram, they become more susceptible to the content that is being posted to their stream. Some may follow A list of celebrities, models, athletes, and/or influencers. They can disproportionately skew what they see online as normal and acceptable. For instance, “These influencers are getting a disproportionate amount of visibility, Brigley said. And, what they perceive as normal is influencing social media content” (Shearer). Social media is a place where everyone can post freely, but people have to take into consideration that these influencers' jobs are to portray a story to the public. How they look and display their content is deceiving and fabricated. Many people use social media as a way to express themselves by posting pictures and creating a virtual reality in which they desire people to perceive them; this can all lead to a lie. The Internet gives them the ability to escape themselves and to be who they want to be, but in the real world, up close and personal, that’s not the truth. Furthermore, “We recreate ourselves as online personae and give ourselves new bodies, homes, jobs, and romances” (Thomas). Ultimately, someone online can create the best version of themselves that they want people to see them as. Regarding 1984, Hate Week is where the people of Oceania gather around to spew hatred against their enemies. Winston, the main character, has to hide the fact that he is against Big Brother and the Party. He disguises himself to blend in with the rest of the people who are erupting with hatred for enemies, so Big Brother and the Party don’t kill him. Inevitably at the end of the book, he does get caught and die. With Winston’s disguise, for instance, “It was even possible, at moments, to switch one’s hatred this way or that by a voluntary act. Suddenly, by the sort of violent effort with which one wrenches one’s head away from the pillow in a nightmare, Winston succeeded in transferring his hatred from the face on the screen…” (Orwell 15). Winston had to make everyone perceive that he favored the Party and Big Brother’s ideologies to ensure his livelihood. This all relates to social media and perceptions because it’s how people perceive the posts and photos that influence the visibility of a person's truth. The more society gets deeper into the advancements of these perceptions, the more impressionable teens view these posts as acceptable and normal. Teens mimic what they see online and imbed what people like into their reality. 

Most people these days have a smartphone, whether it be the iPhone, Android, or Samsung, most people have a cellular device if they can afford it. 2007 was an imperative year for the smartphone industry because that's when they were essentially introduced (Miller). By the year 2015, almost 92% of teens and young adults had a smartphone (Miller). These years are prevalent in the rise of depressive symptoms in teens and young adults. To illustrate, “One of the most common contributors to depression in teenagers is sleep deprivation, which can be caused, or exacerbated, by social media. Research shows that 60 percent of adolescents are looking at their phones in the last hour before sleep, and they get on average an hour less sleep than their peers who don’t use their phones before bed” (Miller). It's a known fact that most teenagers suffer from sleep deprivation; nearly 87% of high school students in the United States get less than eight to 10 hours of sleep which increases their likelihood of anxiety and depression (Richter). With the increase in sleep deprivation because of the addictive usage of social media, many teens will increase their probability of depression and anxiety.

 Switching gears, about 9 percent of the American population will experience an eating disorder (Eating Disorder Statistics. General & Diversity Stats: ANAD). About 4 percent of teens suffer from an eating disorder (“Ten Statistics of Teenage Eating Disorders”). Through the usage of social media, many teens can get “feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness… ” because of the posts they see of models who are thin and beautiful (Kearns). Many adolescents grow up seeing these posts and develop a sense of hatred towards themselves and what they see in the reflection of the mirror. Being a teenager can be described as overwhelming, persistent, and stressful. You're always having to keep up with everyone and maintain your physique and these cause detrimental issues to your psyche that can overpower someone to the brink of insanity. Accordingly, from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, in Social Media and Eating Disorders article, “Their findings revealed that the subjects who spent the most time engaged with social media each day had 2.2 times the risk of developing eating disorders” (Kearns). More time spent on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat can lead to causation of a developmental eating disorder. One in five teenagers will have a mental disorder, this is 20% of the population (Mental Disorders). Additionally, “ Media influence and gender norms can exacerbate the disparity between an adolescent’s lived reality and their perceptions or aspirations for the future… Some adolescents are at greater risk of mental health conditions due to their living conditions, stigma, discrimination or exclusion, or lack of access to quality support and services” (Kessler). Mental illness is an epidemic in itself, everyone no matter what age, it can still affect them. Some people learn to cope with them but some people some of the time feel like the pain is unbearable to even live with. Social media has its highs and its lows, but the lows with social media outweigh the highs. Social media is a network that has infiltrated toxicity into the minds of the vulnerable. 

Cyberbullying has plagued the minds of teenagers via the advancement of smartphones and developmental technology.  There is a clear between regular bullying and cyberbullying; in cyberbullying the bully can hide behind a screen name and torment their victims. Cyberbullying is much harder to detect by parents and teachers. Furthermore, cyberbullying has grown more common over the years than most people assume according to the article “What is Cyberbullying? An Overview for Students, Parents, and Teachers- The Cyberbullying Research Center,” “Girls were somewhat more likely to be a victim of cyberbullying than boys: 36.7 percent of adolescent girls had experienced cyberbullying at some point in their lives, compared to 30.5 percent of adolescent boys”. As technology progresses, cyberbullying will progress with it. These percentages will only increase as new apps come out and get into the hands of teenagers. There are many signs of cyberbullying yet many of the times they can be unrecognizable because teens hide them, for instance, “Many teenagers hide the fact that they are being bullied, online or in-person, from their parents, teachers, and other adults in their life… They may not know what cyberbullying is, feel embarrassed or ashamed, or worry that their online privileges will be taken away. They may fear that the bully will retaliate or the abuse will intensify if they speak up, or they may simply want to figure out how to handle this situation on their own” (“What is Cyberbullying?…”). Social media and these platforms give more cyberbullies an advantage to hide their identity, thus more inclined to bullying more. The effects of one being cyberbullied are injurious to their entire mentality. Cyberbullying can cause a spiraling depression, a decrease in self-esteem, emotional distress, and sometimes suicidal thoughts (“What is Cyberbullying?…”). Throughout the advancements of social media, cyberbullies have risen and tormented victims and left an indent in their lives.

Whilst mental illness and cyberbullying cannot be entirely erased from society, there are steps that parents can take to monitor their teenagers’ usage and properly educate them on the deterioration these platforms can do to a person with improper usage. Consequently, the Pew Research Center has collected data on parents monitoring tactics, “Fully 61% of parents say they have checked which websites their teen has visited, while 60% report checking their teen’s social media profile. Teens are increasingly using mobile technologies to communicate, share and go online ­ and nearly half (48%) of parents say they have looked through the phone call records or messages on their child’s cellphone” (Anderson). These tactics measured can lead to distrust in both the parents and the child, but all in all, it’s for the protection of the child. With parents monitoring phones and screen time, it can eventually lead to somewhat of a decrease in mental illness and cyberbullying caused by social media because they’ll be policing and picking up on the content. Then again, mental illness cannot be wiped off the Earth because with eliminating social media as a factor there can always be a biological or environmental factor. Bullying has been going on since the dawn of time. There has been policy making put into effect that has limited the occurrence of bullying/ cyberbullying: New York State’s Dignity for All Students Act. This New York State law, “seeks to provide the State’s public elementary and secondary school students with a safe and supportive environment free from discrimination, intimidation, taunting, harassment, and bullying on school property, a school bus and/or at a school function” (“The Dignity Act”). This act ensures the protection of students under New York State law for a bullying-free educational experience. Precautions taken by parents and legislation passed by state and/or national governments can ensure the reduction of mental illness by social media and cyberbully. Ultimately, through the usage of technology, there’s always a margin for error for the development of cyberbullying. The likelihood of whipping out mental illness and cyberbullying is slim to none. To minimize these two areas, parents have to attack cancer itself: social media and its sects of complications to the impressionable. 

American society has grown deeper into the world of social media and has developed a dependency on it. Social media has become this network where people from all over share what they're doing at that exact moment. Come to think of it, it has become very creepy and somewhat in a way invading people’s privacy, but if they are posting this, their content is displayed for everyone to see. This is one of Orwell’s biggest fears, surveillance as depicted as one of the key issues in 1984. The world of social media has become this sphere of toxicity where mental illnesses are discovered and developed, like depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Through the evolution of social media, cyberbullying was born and has since impacted thousands of teenagers in the United States. Moving forward, the social media industry will only get bigger and more influential on teens. These ideologies will infiltrate the minds of teenagers and influence them for the worse. Almost every teen in America has battled with a feeling of worthlessness and inconsequential due to social media and their case of cyberbullying. Social media is a clear ingredient in both cyberbullying and mental illness in teens. This industry has created more complications in peoples’ lives, what’s going to transpire when the new generations are already born with phones in their hands? How will society move into the future, when these two proponents plague our young, impressionable, children's minds who are our future? 

Works Cited

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“Eating Disorder Statistics. General & Diversity Stats: ANAD.” National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, ANAD, 15 Dec. 2020, https://anad.org/education-and-awareness/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/ 

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Kessler, RC, and M. Angermeyer. “Adolescent Mental Health.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 28 Sept. 2020, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health 

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Shearer, Nicole. “Is Social Media Shifting Social Norms to More Extreme Levels?” University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada Today, 5 Mar. 2019, www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2019/extremity-bias 

“Social Networking Sites in the US.” IBISWorld, IBISWorld, 17 June 2020, www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market-size/social-networking-sites-united-states/ 

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“The Dignity Act.” The Dignity for All Students Act, New York State Education Department , 20 July 2020, www.p12.nysed.gov/dignityact 

Thomas, Sherry. “A Virtual Life - How Social Media Changes Our Perceptions: TCSPP.” Insight Digital Magazine, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, 7 Oct. 2016, www.thechicagoschool.edu/insight/from-the-magazine/a-virtual-life/ 

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“What is Cyberbullying? An Overview for Students, Parents, and Teachers- The Cyberbullying Research Center,” Maryville Online, Maryville University , 15 Feb. 2019, https://online.maryville.edu/blog/what-is-cyberbullying-an-overview-for-students-parents-and-teachers/