The affect of Social Media on teen's mental health.

Jul 23, 2020

Undoubtedly, social networking plays a vital role in broadening teen ’s social connections and helping them learn valuable technical skills. But what impact is all of this social networking having on young minds? Most reports indicate that the impact can be significant.

Not only are teen’s developing brains vulnerable to so much time online, but because they often have difficulty self - regulating their screen time, their risks can increase. Additionally, they are more susceptible to peer pressure, cyber bullying and sexting - all activities involving digital communication - making navigating the online social world treacherous at times.

Social media interactions of teens emerging as major cause, teens are lacking emotional intelligence and having low emotional quotient, which results in high emotional sensitivity as they more freely express their emotions in the form of posts and stories. They can highly relate themselves and their condition to the current trends emerging on various platforms of social media.

Teens are highly subject to depression now a days because, they are habitual of expressing their thoughts over these networks but coming out as an introvert offline. Unable to speak out as specifically as they feel in front of their parents, peers, friends making them submerge in their depressive thoughts even more, because least interactions and exchange of thoughts with parents and closed ones and more interactions with people online make them unable to build an empathetic relationship with their closed ones.

Teens in the current scenario are highly subject to go through several mental and emotional problems like depression, anxiety, jealousy, envy, sleep deprivation, lack of patience, frustration, mood swings, problems of least self love and self worth, more self conscious and connection issues.

Teens often feel emotionally invested in their social media accounts. Not only do they feel pressure to respond quickly online, but they also feel pressure to have perfect photos and well - written posts, all of which can cause a great deal of anxiety.

Sometimes teens spend so many hours on social media that they begin to lose valuable sleep. Consequently, this sleep loss can lead to moodiness, a drop in grades and overeating, as well as problems like frustration and irritation.

Social media is emerging as a great cause of lack of patience and restlessness in teens, as they keep on checking the likes and comments on their recent uploaded posts, and when they are unable to get the desired response from people on their posts and stories, making them some more depressed, restless and having feelings of less self love and self worth. While social media is a great way of keep in touch with friends and family, it also is not the same as face-to-face communication. Many teens spends so much time online checking statuses and likes that they forget to interact with the people right in front of them.

Unfortunately, what teens often do not realize is that people tend to only post their “highlight reel” on social media and often keep the mundane or difficult experiences off the internet. As a result, another person’s life may look perfect online, but offline they have struggles just like anyone else .