Social Media

The effects of social media impact everyone differently. Some teens are not impacted at all, some are diagnosed with mental health disorders, and worse case scenario, some take their own lives. According to the Huffington Post, suicide rates for girls ages 15 to 19 have doubled since 2007 and has increased 30 percent for boys. An article written by David Luxton posted by Am J Public Health

Social media can also lead to an unrealistic idea of life. Many people like to show off on social media, for example, showing off money or a new expensive car. When it comes to unrealistic ideas of living it could make people feel envious and jealous. Some people can become obsessed with taking selfies or overly “perfect” pictures, whether it be editing out imperfections or spending an hour trying to get the perfect picture. People can get anxiety from the fear of missing out. When people post about going put every weekend or about how perfect” their lives are, it can make people feel depressed. It can also show unrealistic body standards and lead to eating disorders. A website called National Eating Disorders (2016) has said, “Numerous correlational and experimental studies have linked exposure to the thin ideal in mass media to body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin ideal, and disordered eating among women”. For example, the social media website

Causes of suicide vary but as technology advances new causes are apparent. Social media plays a major role in causes of suicide. Technology allows cyber bullying to happen frequently and recur until something or someone stops it. Victims of bullying often think they have no way out of their situation or feel like there is no help. People with suicidal thoughts struggle either mentally, physically, or emotionally. “Three million children are absent from school each month due to bullying. Twenty percent of those bullied kids have suicidal thoughts” (Bullying and Suicide, 2016, p.1). Media’s such as snapchat, instagram, twitter, or facebook all provide factual information about previous cases of suicide. Cyberbullying is a serious problem especially among adolescent girls. Girls are more likely than boys to attempt suicide due to cyberbullying, because girls are struggling to find themselves as a person (Bichell, 2013, p. 3). Any form of negativity or put down affects them, and who they are trying to become.

 Detail 2: How the Internet/Social Media Has Had an Impact on Suicide in Young Adults

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.

In the article “Net Girls: The Internet, Facebook, and Body Image Concern in Adolescent Girls” Marika Tiggemann, Ph.D. and Amy Slater, Ph.D. (Clin Psych) questioned whether there is a connection between internet use and adolescent body image concern. These researchers also focused their study on one specific social networking site, Facebook.

(Attention Getter) Look around at your peers. Would you ever think about how many of them wish they were dead? When 17.7% of high school student in the U.S. say that they have seriously consider committing suicide (CDC, 2015), we need to seriously address why this is happening. The pressures of life at our age are very apparent. However, they are not so difficult that 4,135 teenagers a year should be committing suicide. The rate of teenage suicide has tripled since 1950, but why? Well, to answer that question, there is a large amount of evidence that the Internet and social media can influence suicide-related behavior.

Depression is another problem that those who use social networks often may experience when they worry too much about themselves and the ways they present themselves. Time Magazine once said that “girl have more body image and [eating disorder] than boy have.” For example, my sister is younger than me and she is so thin, because she not eating much in an effort to grow stronger. Through what I see with my sister, the body image of girls is the important to them especially during their adolescent years. A Researcher of the Brown University School of Public Health said that “the more user of the social network the more increase in depression.” Teenage girls who are often on the social networks and have experiences that include bullying and

Suicide and accidental death from self-harm were the third leading cause of mortality in adolescents aged 10- 19 years of age in 2015, resulting in 67,000 deaths (world health organization). Many cases have have been reported in the local news, online, and through use of social media websites such as: Facebook and snap chat. There have also been multiple cases of youths that have posted their suicide live online. This is clearly a cry for help, if only someone was there to provide some form of assistance, could these cases have been prevented? This is a very important crisis that affect families, communities, and health care professionals worldwide and therefore deserves to be further discussed.

Another potential problem associated with the use of a social media site is a rise in suicide

The author suggests that researcher is now beginning to study how social media and the attempt to commit suicide is related to social media. This article states that talking about suicide on social media could a cue that one seeks help. This article states that posting suicide acts are a fast growing trend. There is not enough extensive data to imply if harm derived from social media is helpful in suicidal attempts. The article does suggest that social media can be used as a method to decrease social media suicide attempts if social media user encourages the person in a positive

Another way social media can account for a large number of suicides is due to the comments on social media. Similar to what was mentioned before, social media can cause a severe lack of self-confidence or self-esteem. When an individual

Depression is another psychological toll that has been placed on young adults as an outcome of social media use. In fact “over a third (34%) of young people have felt depressed because of something they have seen on a social network site” [6]. Young people experience depression while looking at their peers’ social media profiles because of “the link between social networking and depression [which] is called the ‘social comparison’ theory” [5]. The social comparison theory asserts that individuals evaluate themselves by comparing themselves to their peers, using their peers as a benchmark to evaluate their own self worth [1]. These comparisons can be misleading when young adults look at their peers’ social networking profiles. One person may have 50 Facebook friends whom they personally know while their peer may have over 1,000 Facebook friends whom they randomly accept and request. When using the social comparison theory the peer with

One of the news in washing post “Rise in teen suicide, social media coincide; is there a link?” Sept 16, 2017, talks about why suicide in teen is going up every day. According to the news, a major reason behind the teen suicide is the social media and news headlines. Research says, that there is a link between increasing use of social media and teens mental health, and that can lead teens towards the suicide. Even though the study does not answer this question 100% it is suggested that teen suicide can be blamed on cyberbullying, and social media posts depicting “perfect” lives may be taking a toll on teens’ mental health (Lindsey Tanner, W. Post, Sept 2017). Caitlin Hearty, a 17-year-old Littleton, Colorado, the high school says “After hours of scrolling through Instagram feeds, I just feel worse

Many studies support the negative effects of screen media on adolescents. One of these studies was by researchers at American University. This study “found a link between social media use and negative body image…”(McDaniels). A survey conducted in London, by the Royal Society for Public Health, showed that young people who frequently use Instagram and Snapchat are likely to have body-image issues. These issues come about from the frequent viewing of heavily edited images on these social media apps. Pictures of people on these apps are edited as to make the photographed person look flawless, this leads the young brain to set unobtainable goals for itself. These unobtainable goals eventually lead to body-image and body confidence issues and in some cases other psychological problems as well, for example, depression. It is also mentioned in the same article that studies have shown that social media takes a mental and physical toll on some young people. “ It has