Social media has revolutionized the communication and interaction of people all over the globe. Teenagers of the current generation utilize these social tools to connect with new people worldwide and explore their cultures, traditions, and share their lifestyle. There are tons of benefits of social media through which the young generation can enjoy chatting with different people online. Apart from all the social advantages, there are still some significant drawbacks and psychological effects that have substantially impacted social media users for many years. There is a profound linkage between social media with the mental psychology of young minds because these minds are fresh, and they can be molded into any other pattern, either good or bad. Today we will explore five main psychological and mental health problems that our youth face due to the usage of social media regularly.
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Shahin Alam
Low Self-esteem
Most people usually like to post healthy and happy stuff on the internet and execute their luxury lifestyle, which leaves an awful impact on the people who are deprived of such a lifestyle. It will eventually cause a sense of inferiority complex in the minds of such young ones and can cause low self-esteem issues. These teenagers feel unhappy about themselves, causing their mental state to alter to the next level. Whenever such adolescents see someone posting stuff they don't afford, every post influences them, and they may fall prey to a mental problem called depression. Chronic usage of social media can leave a negative impact on self-esteem due to upward social comparisons. According to a study, it has been recorded that people using Facebook more frequently are more prone to conditions like low self-esteem than people who use Facebook less.
Cyberbullying
One of the most popular ways through which young adults are getting depressed is cyberbullying. What if someone starts blackmailing or bullying you or yourself using your stuff? This would undoubtedly be a very disgusting moment. According to a latest research, it is inferred that cyberbullying has a tremendous psychological impact on the victims. These kinds of victims have one of the following symptoms.
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Loneliness
- Suicidal thoughts
- Stomachache
- Loss of appetite
Insomnia or lack of sleep
Sleeplessness is a significant cause of mental stress. Most adolescents spend most of their time scrolling social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
After intense use of social media, teenagers lack their sleep, and technology itself engages a person and does not let him sleep. There is a special blue light in smartphones that directly corresponds with the neurons and lessens the amount of hormone called melatonin, a sleep-inducing hormone. Due to the deprivation of sleep, teenagers usually encounter many physical and psychological issues, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse and attention seeking behavior.
Depression and anxiety
Due to social media, we all are connected in a unique and diverse pattern. Every single person who utilizes social tools updates their status regularly. In this pattern, everybody stays updated about the lives of their friends every hour, which creates a sense of hyper connection.
Shahin Alam
This hyper-connectivity can make teenagers feel alone, and in the rush of such stuff, they started feeling depressed. Another reason for stress is the lack of attention they get from social media. Whenever such adolescents post any picture or update their status, they expect many comments and interactions on such posts. Still, when they don't get much compassion, they feel depressed and tragic. The lack of attention can cause children to fade away from their excitement. Such kind of adolescent feel a terrible insult when they don't get such kind of attention and this thing eventually cause severe depression or anxiety where in the middle of hyper connection teenagers feels themselves alone because they think nobody loves or like them.
Jealousy and Envy
We all aware of the fact most people use social media to execute the best of themselves to fascinate others. But some people, instead of feeling happy about others they started getting jealous. There are certain levels of this envy. People post experiences of their life that most people don't or can't afford to go. Consequently, teenagers who are watching all such stuff on social media started thinking that they live a perfect and incredible life instead of their life, which results in depression, loneliness and anger, and, most importantly, jealousy and enviousness.
Communication gap
We all know that the majority of teenagers have made their social networks through online social media. They usually talk with their online friends through text messages. It has a great set back which these teenagers don't realize. There is a hell of a difference between text to text conversation and face to face conversation. When a person texts another person, there is no clue of the impression of how he is feeling right now and what kind of expression he has on his face while texting, so we can't say anything real about them. Most of the online relationships end just because of these their communication gap and lack of physical intimacy.
Final words
After inferring so many impacts of social media on teenagers, it is suggested that parents should keep an eye on these growing minds. There is a limit to social media usage because an excess of everything is bad and may lead to distraction and devastation. Families should interact physically with their kids and involve them in different activities to divert them from social media and such kind of online tools which can distract their minds.
