Health experts love to say that sitting is the new smoking. Given the number of diseases to which sitting is linked, and the number of people it apparently kills every year, sitting is one of the worst things we can do for health. But possibly as concerning is the thing that we often do while we're sitting: Mindlessly scrolling through our social media feeds when we have a few spare minutes (or for some, hours). And as we probably know intuitively, and as the research is confirming, it's not the best habit when it comes to our collective psychology.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has warned about the potential for negative effects of social media in young kids and teens, including cyber-bullying and "Facebook depression." But the same risks may be true for adults, across generations. Here's a quick run-down of the studies that have shown that social media isn't very good for mental well-being, and in some ways, it can be pretty damaging.Experts have not been in total agreement on whether internet addiction is a real thing, let alone social media addiction, but there’s some good evidence that both may exist. A review study from Nottingham Trent University looked back over earlier research on the psychological characteristics, personality and social media use. The authors conclude that “it may be plausible to speak specifically of ‘Facebook Addiction Disorder’…because addiction criteria, such as neglect of personal life, mental preoccupation, escapism, mood modifying
In the article “ Teenage Social Media Butterflies May Not Be Such A Bad Idea “ by Melissa Healy, social media isn’t as bad as you think. According to Amori Yee Mikami teenages are using social media to communicate with their friends and not strangers . Some adolescents count their parents as their friends on social networking sites. According to a L.A. psychology professor kaveri Subrahmanyam says children on and offline have the same relationship on social networking sites and in reality . Another thing Subrahmanyam said was that teens use social media in wayś that don't harm their well being. Some teens that struggle with depression or other type of behavior are most likely to be bully or harass, and also take online risks such as sexting
Kardaras, Nicolas. "Generation Z: Online and at Risk?." Scientific American Mind, vol. 27, no. 5, Sep/Oct 2016, pp. 64-9. MasterFILE Premier. Kardars discuss generation z use of social media affecting them negatively. He opens his article with a story of Heidi who becomes addicted to social media when her school issues her a Chromebook. Before Heidi is issued the laptop, she was a sweet innocent girl and after having it for a semester she became someone her parents could not recognize. He states that social media is a “perfect storm” for humans because having a social connection key to “happiness and health”. Having the ability to always use social media leads to hyper texting the illusion of a real connection making it hard for teens to have face to face conversations, making a teens become “glow kid[s]“, someone who is raised on mostly digital social interactions. Facebook depression” can result in the teen to have lower grades and behavior problems in teens. He concludes his article with facts proving that Facebook can become addictive in some people. This source helps support my thesis that Facebook affects teens mental health.
According to the article entitled “ The Good and Bad of Social Media” by Jason Howie, “ They have looked particularly at its effects on human emotion and relationship. Some studies show that using social media can cause depression.” The usage of the media doesn't just slow you down but can slowly shut your real life down. Therefore social media ends up hitting you from left to right or any possible way it has. The mindset of always wanting to be on it can destroy your life routines, makes you put up with things you shouldn’t put up with. Sometimes, people end up getting bullying and killed for some unnecessary things they do on the media. Furthermore, Howie writes “ We expect more from technology and less from one another. More and more, we desire technologies that provide a false idea of a relationship.” We depend on the media to give us the answers instead of asking our surroundings and communicating with them. We always believe what media tells us and whether it's false or not, we use it believing it's better than our own knowledge. Our privacy isn’t privacy because media after media we end up in a random page which can get our information in just one
According to Dr. Douglas Kenrick, University of Arizona’s Social Psychology lecturer, Facebook is not bad but the usage of it is what paints an ugly picture. In the article above, emotional aspects seem to be most affected when one uses Facebook in comparing oneself with their peers, friends or relatives. Posts by the defined group outline the seven ways mentioned which are termed bad since it leads to mental health dysfunctions. The use of Facebook to follow others updates leads to a number of psychological hazards such as; gives one a feeling that their life is not neat as of others, one develops envy towards friends achievements, Facebook keeps touch with people who hurt before, it can disenfranchise marriage in the event of stalking. The emotional friction developed through the wrong use often leads to depression. If one can avoid using Facebook in a manner that they will not follow other people’s posts then they are less likely to get stressed up about others and to a great extent avoid mental complications such as depression. According to the study about 80% percent who use Facebook in following others updates with a lot of
The more we use social media, the less happy we seem to be. Many people would agree that social media leads to isolation, depression, and anxiety. Social Media impacts people in many ways; some are good, but some are very bad. Using social media to communicate is extremely convenient, unfortunately, more people are developing social anxiety because we are learning to comunicate through a screen from a young age. Also, seeing people posting about all the good in their lives can lead you to compare yourself to others. Most importantly, increased exposure of bullying through the internet contributes to high risk of depression. Generally, social media has more bad effects on our mental health than good ones.
First, social media, especially Facebook, are very addicted. People would say drug or alcohol is more addicted than social media or social media addiction is not big problems, but it is not true. There is a report of the social media addiction by University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. A team from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business recently conducted an experiment involving 205 people in Wurtzburg, Germany to analyze the addictive properties of social media and other devices. Participants in the week-long study were polled via BlackBerry smartphones seven times per day and asked to report when they experienced a desire within the past 30
Addictions may seem like simple pleasures at first. Unfortunately, that's the trap with any addiction. It starts out at a pleasurable interest. Gradually, it can turn into something that's life-altering and all-consuming. Not only can it alter your own life, it can ruin your family life. When it comes to addiction, most people think about the most popular ones like drug and alcohol addictions. However, there are many addictions that fly under the radar.
Internet addiction is harmful psychologically. Imagine being a young child and all you want to do is post on social media or see what’s going on, you see nothing wrong but that’s complete opposite of what a psychologist sees. In the article, “The Bad, the Ugly, and the Good of kids Use of Social Media,” it states, “Review of research from the past decade has found that adolescents who demonstrated internet addiction scored higher for obsessive-compulsive behavior, depression, generalized and social anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, introversion, and other behaviors,”. Imagine being so young and testing for all these mental disorders because of an addiction to social media. As an adolescent, you have a
There are pros and cons with our new found social media way of life and how it affects our generation of teenagers. When looking at our daily routines having our social media tell a story of where we have been and what we have done. It lets us be ourselves and lets us post our accomplishments for the world to see, however, there is a flipside to this. Letting people online know what your location is and “checking in” wherever you leave the house leaves yourself vulnerable for unwanted people to find you. More and more you see teenagers who display signs of mental health like anxiety and depression triggered by what they follow on social media. They use social media as a way to judge their lives and how they look at themselves. There has been studies that even suggest that teenagers who use facebook can actually make you feel more lonely and even show signs of depression. Sometimes instead of getting outdoors or interacting
Social media is extremely addictive as it provides immediate and satisfying rewards (through the release of hormones) with very little effort. Your brain automatically begins to crave it more and more as you desire these chemical stimulations. Sounds like a drug right? Some studies even show that around 5%-10% of users find it difficult to control the amount of time they spent online and literally cannot log off. So although social media stimulates our brain and sends chemicals that make us feel great - it’s harmful to our real life relationships and distances us from the connections we have around us, often times becoming a distraction to young people which can deter them from their schoolwork and affect their ability to interact with people face to face.
The face of this century is wrapped around social media. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are the three most commonly used of social media websites. Mainly to share personal information or perhaps even view what one person is doing by simply uploading a video. There have been many scenarios and debates on whether social media is consuming our daily lives in a negative or positive way. Although the three of these apps are very popular, Twitter has been in the lead with their users by sharing over 500 million tweets per day. Even though those statistics may sound cool, Twitter has also been known to be the main cause of cyberbullying, relationship problems, and teen depression. Is it really that bad?
Social media is one of the fastest growing enterprises in the world (Jacobs, 2016). With the emergence of social media platforms, the nature of communication changed drastically. Research has found that 28% of people can't get out of bed in the morning before checking their Social Media profiles (Cash, Rae, Steele, Winkler, 2012). And, two billion people worldwide reported as avid social media users (Statista, 2017). Research has found that adolescents and young adults are the most well-represented population online, with over 95% accessing social media daily (Yonker et al, 2015). Young people are the first in this generation to have had access to social media through their entire adolescent years. They are "the earliest adopters and heaviest users of the newest Internet communication technologies such as social media" (Yonker et al., 2015). In fact, 81% of adolescents report that they use social media and 67% report using it at least once a day (Yonker et al., 2015).
Our lives seem to be more and more consumed by technology as great advances in this area have continue to be made, especially when it comes to social media. Many researchers have begun to notice that depending on how much time individuals spend on these social media sites, they can negatively affect their daily lifestyle in very significant ways. For example, social networking has become a huge distraction for students and it can affect their grades depending on how often they check their various accounts while doing class work. Researchers have also come to find out that social media can contribute to the development of psychological symptoms
Today’s youth generation, has a strong attachment to the online world. Many adolescents spend most of their time online versus offline. Therefore, one can consider these adolescents as a social network addict, a person who spends a fair amount of time on one or many social platforms. Throughout the three articles, “Social Networking Addiction: An Overview of Preliminary Findings” by Mark Griffiths, “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship” by Nicole B. Ellison and “Taking Risky Opportunities in Youthful Content Creation: Teenagers’ use of Social Networking Sites for Intimacy, Privacy, and Self-expression” by Sonia Livingstone, show how this addiction has changed people’s communication among people. While there are
Many studies been conducted in the recent past has shown that this kind of addiction has negative aspects to many levels of health, mental and psychological as well. The term Fomo or "fear of missing out" it's really common these days. It basically means that fear of missing out something like checking emails or Facebook, can lead to miss out on something great, or you're interested in. An article that posted on Huffington Post, by Gabriel Mizrahi. Mizrahi has found a research that has done by scientists who are interested in this term. Researchers found that: "...lower levels of need satisfaction, general mood, and overall life satisfaction related to seeking out social media engagement only insofar as they related to higher