Social Depression : The Positive Effects Of Social Media

“Every time I close my eyes, it’s like a dark paradise.” Quotes much like this one found on the popular social media site Tumblr are beautiful and sad at the same time. Young adults use sites like Tumblr to glorify their pain as a way to cope with it. Much of social media today is filled with stories of triumph and stories of loss all focused on one specific mental disorder: depression. Young adults today are becoming increasingly aware of theirs and other’s depressive states and are more willing to talk about it. The disease has become more accepted in today’s society. In conjunction with this trend, teenagers are being diagnosed with major depression more rapidly than in past decades. Depression is not as uncommon as it used to be. So, how

Matthew Ring, a young teenager, was struggling with many depressing and anxious thoughts.After hiding these feelings for some time, he finally gathered the courage to tell his parents. This only allowed his family to recognize his anxious and depressive tendencies.his parents faced the questions of how social media would affect Matthew. Would it help him, or only make things worse? With 92 percent of teens going online every day, according to the Paw Research Center, Matthew used Instagram, the second most common social network site, to reach out to his peers. There he found that many other teens also struggle with the same depressive and anxious thoughts as him. Through making his account focused around supporting others in a positive way, Matthew shows his now over 6000 followers his message of hope.

On December 26, 2017 an article made by Kaiser Health News was published on Newsela about how Social Media could have mental health benefits for people who use it. One day Anna, (Who asked to be Identified by a different name) broke up with her boyfriend at 1:30 a.m.. It was too late to call her therapist and too late to stop by her friend's house. She turned to Social Media to help her and asked  if there was anybody who she could call until she felt better. Almost immediately, she got support from her friends and they helped her feel better.

Firstly, there have been significant links between our online presence and other aspects of our mental health, which has inspired the subject matter of many recent research studies around the world. There are many psychological and physical factors that affect our mental well-being due to the impact of social media. Depression and Body Dysmorphia being the leading causes, due to the content the individuals are exposed to while online. Even though researchers coined the correlation between social media use and depression as complex. Data was collected from a sample of 340 first year college students, and the findings were that the increase use of Facebook have been associated with higher levels of loneliness. Also the extensive use of Facebook has been associated with higher rates of disordered eating and body image insecurity.

Becker, M. W., Alzahabi, R., & Hopwood, C. J. (2013). Media Multitasking Is Associated with Symptoms of Depression and Social Anxiety. Cyberpsychology, Behavior & Social Networking, 16(2), 132-135. doi:10.1089/cyber.2012.0291

Social media is described, by the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2015), as “forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)”. As few as 10 years ago the term social media was yet to be coined, but within that decade the use of these blogs, websites and sharing platforms has increased exponentially with no plateau in sight. From creating Instagram accounts for household pets, to sharing Halloween themed baking ideas over Pinterest, people today have access to social media outlets for almost everything. Today about 74% of people ages 18-65 use some form of a social networking site (Pew, 2014). Facebook takes the lead in social media usage with about 71% of those adults. LinkedIn and Pinterest are tied for second at 28% of users, 26% use Instagram, and Twitter falls last in the top 5 most used social medias with 23% of users (Pew, 2014). In September of 2013 the Pew Research Center measured that 90% of adults ages 18-29 used these social media outlets on a daily basis, which is an astonishing increase from the 9% that was measured in February 2005 (Pew, 2014). Due to the fact that young adults are increasingly involving themselves in these online platforms, it is very important to understand the long term and psychological effects (such as depression, social anxiety,

This persuasive paper is affective in leading the reader to believe the negative impacts of social media are on those that already have negative inclination; with proper monitoring and growth these new trends can grow into useful tools in psychotherapy. To understand why these are useful tools we must look at the impacts technology has on people today.

Social media has changed the way people communicate with each other and in turn, has affected our ability to empathize in both negative and positive ways. One of the most harmful consequences is the rise of cyber-bullying. Another negative issue has been the trend of trolling in comments sections of websites, chat rooms, and other online venues of communication. In spite of this, there have been constructive consequences due to social media such as the ability for family and friends to keep in touch on a regular basis. Because of social media, many people are finding support and resources to help them when they fall on hard times or experience tragedies like death and illness. Overall, social media is an exciting new world that changes as

The ability to express thoughts and emotions is a unique characteristic that allows individuals to define themselves. Social media platforms provide the perfect opportunity for millennials to create their own identities and connect with one another. In this way, these platforms serve as a melting pot of ideas that fosters a diverse community of individual experiences. Social media is beneficial to the well-being of many young adults because it allows them to freely express their emotions and to reach out to the digital community whenever they encounter hardships. This is especially important during the transition between childhood and adulthood, in which adolescents are faced with stressful life changes; however, social media allows these

The popularity of social media giants such as Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are on the rise and so is our nation's overall poor mental health status (The State of Mental Health in America). Studies have shown that there is a direct link between our social media obsession and our poor mental health (Walton). Social media can lead to feelings of comparison, jealousy and even delusional behavior. Another effect that social media has on our mental health is that it often leads to feelings of sadness and loneliness. Lastly, social media addiction is one of the many things that affects our mental health. Studies show that social media is often the cause of poor mental health, it can cause comparison, jealousy, loneliness and lastly addiction.

Depression is a very real mental health issue that has only recently been taken under the realm of psychosocial research. Like other diseases, depression affects an individual’s day to day activities and their interpersonal behavior. Contrary to most popular belief, depression isn’t a condition that a person can just “snap out of” and resume his/her normal life. This disease can have very dangerous implications in an individual’s productivity by limiting their willingness to enter social situations, quality of life, and even their mechanisms to cope with depression.In studies regarding “public conceptions of mental illnesses”, many people regarded physical stressors such as alcohol and abuse as causes as opposed to genetic ones. Another research study has found that social withdrawal and depression can form a feedback loop. Social media can prove to be a double-edged sword in this situation in that it can provide an outlet of help but also make the individual more open to cyberbullying. Finally, another research piece that I utilized included an important finding that depressed individuals are more sensitized to positive and negative social interactions rather than the expected reaction of only responding to negative reactions.

To determine what impact social media has on our psychological wellbeing it is important to define such terms. Social media are platforms that enable a person to share, create, converse and alter user-generated content using websites and applications (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). Defining psychological wellbeing, however, is problematic and there are many contradicting perspectives (Dodge, Daly, Hayton, & Sanders, 2012). For this essay, what will be taken as key features of psychological wellbeing are “self-acceptance, positive relationships with other people, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth” (Ryff, 1995, p.99). This essay will describe and evaluate the extent to which social media is bad for our psychological wellbeing. Firstly, by considering the use of social media in education and the impact it has on academic performance; followed by discussing the link between symptoms of mental disorders and social media. It will conclude that excessive use of social media is damaging to our psychological wellbeing. However, it is hard to establish a causal relationship due to the methods used to carry out research in this area and for the reason that it is likely a number of factors influence our wellbeing and our use of social media.

Social media seems to be one of the many hot topics of discussion recently, and consequently many people have the false sense of security that they have a profound knowledge on how it affects the health of the teenage population. A sedentary lifestyle, decreased sleep, as well as other physical health conditions seem to come to mind when one links health and social media. However, there is a much bigger problem that can go unnoticed because it can be impossible to see: the impact it has on mental and emotional health. These branches of health are just as important, and even arguably more important than physical health is. Social media can be utilized to connect with distant friends and express oneself; however, teenagers should refrain from the overuse of social media due to its detrimental effects on their mental and emotional health.

In 2012, 12% of teen girls and 4% of teen males said that they experienced a major depression outburst within the past six months. Depression is the most common chronic illness and many people are accused as victimizing themselves (Wade). Those who turn to social media for support usually do not find it but are instead treated as a freak or as a person looking for attention (A2z). With 200,000 depression blogs it is hard to log on to Tumblr and not see signs of depression and self-harm on your dashboard. Instead of living in the moment, the blogs dread on things in the past and rarely show any sign of happiness in the life of the creator. On the other hand, Tumblr has realized the harm that the blogs pose to those suffering and have created anti-suicide blogs where bloggers can write to the creator and attempt to get help. Still, the anti-suicide blogs would not be necessary if the showing of the depression images were not glorified in the first place (Dewey).

This paper closely examines the effects of social media and its positive support on day-to-day lives. The negative, “dark side” of social media and networking sites is also covered. It pays close attention to the many different positive and negative trends that are found in the social support of the media webpages. An investigation and analysis of various studies that relate to this topic are also included in this paper. The similarities, differences and even ways to perform better on social networking sites will be looked into. It will also look into how to people use social media to maintain and grow/build relationships. Many studies have shown positive correlations in health communication with support from others using the social media networks.