Social Media is a Cause of Increasing Depression Among the Youth
Discussion Text
People are social creatures who need to interact with others. Since this pandemic outbreak we can not do physical interaction with people which in some people’s case it might be really stressful. In this way, social media has become the answer, the number of global users on social media has increased. According to research from Datareportal Global Overview Report, social media users number has increased with the total of users being almost 4.2 billion by the start of 2021 (https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-global-overview-report).
Youth is one of the biggest users of social media, in their ages youth need to socialize and keep in touch with their friends but due to this pandemic they can not do that. Social media plays a role in connecting youth with their peers in these situations. But there is a problem, these days youth tend to spend more of their time on social media. Thereupon, people start questioning, “is this good for them? Is social media a cause of increasing depression among the youth?”. Some people might agree or they might disagree, so it is important to look at both sides of the argument whether social media is a cause of increasing depression among the youth or not.
There are several reasons why social media is a cause of increasing depression among the youth. First, social media creates FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). According to Lukasz and Elma (2018:541–549) the research that was conducted in 2017 shows 20% of young respondents show several FOMO symptoms, whereas another 30% belong at risk of being addicted to the internet. On social media people share things about their lives, hangout, patrying, sharing about their achievement, and many more. All these things can cause FOMO, it will lead us to think that everyone is having fun with their lives and make us feel left behind.
Another reason is social comparison in social media. Caroline Miller pointed out her argument on her article publish on Child Mind Institute that claims social comparison has a lot of downside for youth such as, causing low self-esteem, envyness, judgemental thought of themselves, and so on (https://childmind.org/article/is-social-media-use-causing-depression/amp/). Example, the teenage girl sees some post of their friend on social media who looks really pretty, she starts comparing herself with that person, judging herself and losing her confidence. If youth keep comparing themselves, further it will lead them to depression. Considering they are still in a stage where they are trying to explore and discover their identity, if they keep comparing they might find it hard to discover their true self. Supporting evidence for this view point comes from Clarissa Silva who conducted in depth-interviews with some people. She stated that 60% of people using social media reported that it has impacted their self-esteem in negative way (https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58ade038e4b0d818c4f0a4e4/amp).
The last but not least Caroline Miller also claims that another reason is social media can be distracting, disrupting their sleep, exposing them to bullying, rumor spreading, unrealistic views of other people’s lives and peer pressure among youth (https://childmind.org/article/is-social-media-use-causing-depression/amp/). Youth sometimes can not control their consumption on social media. Especially in this pandemic, most of the youth feel lonely and they choose to spend their time on social media to distract their mind. Unfortunately, they spend too much time on social media, constantly check social media, being distracted from school stuff, procrastinating their task, and have a bad sleep schedule. Then, what is the correlation with increasing depression?
Let’s break down this argument, when youth are intensively disrupted by social media it causes the lower of their performance and have the lower grades. These things can lead to stress and depression, especially for some youth that take grades as something that really matters. Further, the intensive use of social media makes youth have a bad sleep schedule which is not good for their physical and mental health.
But then on the other side, social media also has a lot of advantages for youth. Parvathy and Suchithra (2015:34) conclude that social media has the positive impact of social media on youth, it helps youth to build their social relationship, networking, accelerates the effectiveness of sharing knowledge, information and also it helps youth with their studies and research work. Furthermore, Parvathy and Suchithra (2015:34) also claim that social media can improve the creativity of youth.
As a case in point, youth can use social media as a platform to build their personal branding. They can share their knowledge about something they are passionate about and connect with people that are in the same field with them. Nowadays, social media already has a lot of features that are really helpful. Youth can maximize these features to improve their creativity, for instance making a slow motion video effect and upload it on Instagram TV.
After examining both arguments and everything considered, it may be concluded that social media has both negative and positive effects for youth. Is social media a cause of increasing depression among the youth? In my perspective, yes. Social media can cause youth depression, anxiety, FOMO, and lower self-esteem. Youth should not spend too much time on social media. It is okay for youth to have and use social media accounts but they need to set their limits. It needs to be noted that we adults and especially parents need to keep a more careful eye on youth, we have to be a guide for youth. We can guide them on how to use social media wisely, giving them simple attention like asking them about their life or school. By doing that we can prevent the negative impact of social media on youth.
References:
Kemp, Simon. (2021, January 27). Digital 2021: Global Overview Report. Data Reportal. Available at: https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-global-overview-report. Accessed on 31 May 2021.
Miller, Carolline. Does Social Media Cause Depression?. Child Mind Institute. Available at: https://childmind.org/article/is-social-media-use-causing-depression/amp/. Accessed on 31 May 2021.
Silvia, Clarisa. (2017, February 22). Social Media’s Impact on Self-Esteem. Huffpost. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/social-medias-impact-on-self-esteem_b_58ade038e4b0d818c4f0a4e4. Accessed on 31 May 2021.
Tomczyk, Ł., & Selmanagic-Lizde, E. (2018). Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) among youth in Bosnia and Herzegovina — Scale and selected mechanisms. Children and Youth Services Review, 88, 541–549. Accessed on 1 June 2021.
Parvathy, J., & Suchithra, R. (2015). Impact of usage of social networking sites on youth. International Journal of Computer Applications, 129(3), 33–34. Accessed on 1 June 2021.
