Social media platforms play a key role in the lives of teenagers today. It is how they communicate with friends, get their information, share their creativity and opinions and how they entertain themselves in times of boredom. However, being online 24/7 has raised some questions on the effects that it is having on these tweens and teens about what kind of impact it is having on their mental health and social growth.
A recent report from Common Sense Media surveyed teenagers from ages 13-17 and tracked social media’s evolution back from 2012 to 2018. The study found that 89% of teens have their own smartphones, compared to 42% in 2012, and that more than half of all the teens surveyed said that social media takes away from personal relationships and distracts them from fully paying attention to the people they’re within the moment.
Though surprising to many, the report also showed that most teenagers say that social media does not have a negative impact on them with 25% saying that social media makes them feel less lonely and 16% said it makes them feel less depressed.
However, vulnerable teens do show more negatives to social media if they already struggle with self-esteem issues, in particular, teenage girls.
According to BMC Public Health by age 15, 43% of girls report using social media at least an hour per day vs. 31% of boys and girls reported lower levels of happiness and they reported more social and emotional difficulties as they aged compared to boys.
Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair says that girls are especially at risk for this because of their socialization norms.
“Girls are socialized more to compare themselves to other people, girls, in particular, to develop their identities, so it makes them more vulnerable to the downside of all this.” She warns that a lack of solid self-esteem is often to blame. “We forget that relational aggression comes from insecurity and feeling awful about yourself and wanting to put other people down, so you feel better.”
According to a study from UCLA Brain Mapping Center, social media can also become addictive.
During the study, researchers used an fMRI scanner to monitor the brain activity of 32 teenagers as they used a fictitious social media app resembling Instagram. The teenagers were shown more than 140 images where "likes" were believed to be from their peers. However, the likes were assigned by the research team. They found that certain regions of teen brains became activated by "likes" on social media, sometimes causing them to want to use social media more.
According to researchers, this area of the brain is the same region that responds when we see pictures of people we love or when we win money. They also found a correlation between social media and peer influence. They found that the teenagers were likely to hit "like" on photos that were liked by their peers more often than the others regardless of the photo shown. Researchers believe this behavior shows that peers can have both a positive and negative influence on others while using social media.
Cyberbullying online has become a major topic regarding teens and social media in the past few years. However, only 13% of teens report ever being cyberbullied. But nearly two-thirds say they often or sometimes come across racist, sexist, homophobic or religious-based hate content in social media. Most of the mental health concerns involving teens come from non-intentional stressors.
According to a study of teens, technology and friendships reveal a range of social media-induced stressors including:
- FOMO: (Fear of missing out) seeing people post about events which they weren’t invited
- Feeling pressured to “look perfect” in posts and photos
- Feeling pressure to get comments and likes for affirmation
- Feeling replaceable: If they aren’t constantly available, will they be forgotten?
There are benefits to social media for teens dealing with creativity and their feeling of being connected. 27% of teens said that social media is important to them for expressing creativity. Sharing things that they create or their thoughts on the latest news can be a healthy outlet for teens to connect with others and express themselves. 25% of teens said they felt less lonely when using social media, 20% said they even felt more confident by sharing and connecting with others online through social media.
Overall, social media is shown to have no direct correlation to teen depression but has shown to increase those who are already prone to depression. And the addictive qualities of social media may be just another aspect of human nature where we all crave to be accepted and liked. Limiting screen time can be a healthy way to even out social media without restricting it altogether. Finding a balance of time spent online and time spent interacting person-to-person is important.
