Mental Health and Wellbeing: Impact of Social Media on Teen Mental Health

Elizabeth Oladapo

“Social media has done more harm than good”, this is a very common debate topic everywhere around the world.
Every ‘Gen Z’ knows and cannot do without social media, most are always on a social media platform for hours in a day, but the question is do they benefit from this? Does social media make or mar them? Is it maximised the way it should?. These important questions that needs to be looked at.

Social media has made a great impact in our society in nearly every area of life. There are so many ways that we as students benefit from using social media, some of which are;

Communication: this is a very important area that social media has helped us to connect and stay in touch with our friends, families and general public at anytime and anywhere, we can talk to anyone we want just by locating them as long as they are on any social media platform.

Information: Social media has played a very important role in making information available and accessible, we are able to know what is going on in different places, or countries even though we are not physically present in that area at that particular time especially as students, important information are made available through social media, making it easier unlike before when the only way to pass information and announcement to students were billboards.

Marketing and business advertisement: Nowadays, many people do not have shops or stores to sell their goods, they sell online, advertising and promoting their business, students that juggle studies with business, there is usually no time and place to set up a store, so the best way to advertise and sell is through social media.

Job opportunities: Social media plays an important role in job opportunities especially for students providing different jobs across various industries, some of which are virtual assistants, social media manager, content creator, influencer/brand ambassadors, video editor for social media, to mention few. So many students earn from these varieties and support themselves without having to neglect their studies.

Self expression: Social media has given so many people especially teens a chance to express themselves, share their thoughts , creativity, interests and so many more with people. Social media basically lifts the restrictions and barriers that have been made. This improves teens mental health.
Learning: there is a lot to learn from social media, a lot of new things from various fields, important for teens intelligent quotient, IQ.

Networking: social media allows people to connect with professionals and industrial leaders, especially students so as to garner knowledge about their fields and other fields.

Although social media has a lot of benefits, as the saying goes ” every coin has two sides”, this means that most things in life has both advantages and disadvantages, social media is also not excluded, therefore even though it has a lot of benefits, there are also risks that come with it.

Invasion of privacy: Though social media serves as an amazing way to communicate and connect with people, it is often misused which can lead to exposure of personal information and breach of privacy. You see students getting a lot of messages from unknown numbers, having no clue how their contact information got to the person, this often than not leads to online stalking which can take a toll on a person’s mental health.

Cyber bullying and harassment: Nowadays, this is very common, a lot of people face abuse, bullying, even threats on these platforms, and these is very dangerous as fraudsters use this to lure people to give away money and personal data, many reputations also get damaged due to this. This however can lead to depression, low self esteem and other psychological deficiencies.

All the benefits and risks of social media have effects on teens both emotionally and psychologically. These risks can lead to low self esteem, making teens compare themselves to the ideal image of influencers that they find on social media, leading to body shaming themselves and feeling like they are not enough, pressure and fear of missing out eventually might lead to anxiety and depression. This is very unhealthy to teen’s mental health.

Addiction is also a crucial effect, excessive screen time can cause teens to be dependent on social media, focusing on the “online life” and neglecting “real life” activities, interests, and relationships.

Distorted reality: this is also very dangerous for teen’s psychological health as they use the online videos that they watch to set unrealistic standards and create unrealistic expectations and hence become disatisfied with their own life.

Cyber crime: this is a very recent and rapid disadvantage and misuse of social media. some teens nowadays make use of social media to commit different crimes, causing harm to people, however, they not only cause harm to people but to themselves as well , their mental and psychological state declines.

All in all, social media is a “place” where one can either be made or marred, develop or decline, as teens, we are to maximise the opportunities that it brings, and use not misuse social media, also proper measures should be put in place for the use of social media. Teens must be disciplined, able to deny theme of pleasure, reduce screen time and make use of the benefits that social media brings to improve their mental health.