Is There a Correlation Between Mental Health Issues in Teens and Social Media?
In today’s world, it has become increasingly common for teenagers to include social media as a part of their daily routine. They check their feeds and profiles without even thinking about it like it is second nature to them. Based on recent studies, in 2024 around 93% of teenagers are social media users and use the platforms on a daily basis. With these high number of young users on these platforms, the effects are not always positive.
Social media has caused an increase in mental health issues in these teenagers. “According to a research study of American teens ages 12–15, those who used social media over three hours each day faced twice the risk of having negative mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety symptoms.” These young social media users are developing issues such as anxiety and depression due to their high usage of social media platforms. Why is this increase occurring and how is it related to social media?
Teens mindlessly scroll on social media all day, everyday. This mindless scrolling can distract from other tasks they should be completing such as homework, eating or sleeping. This lack of focus on other activities and tasks can lead to further issues. Lack of sleep or eating can cause depression, insomnia or self-harm. Social media causing distractions from daily tasks is one of the causes of these mental health issues.
Another major cause of mental health issues developing in teens due to social media usage is comparison. Teenagers are at the time in their life when their body is different and they are going through emotional and hormonal changes. As they scroll on social media feeds, they see these “perfect” models living the perfect life. They compare the life they have and the way they are looking to what they are seeing on social media. This can cause mental health issues to develop.
The main issue developed from comparison on social media is body image issues. Teens, especially teenage girls, compare themselves to what they see online and start to develop body image issues as well as self esteem issues. They begin to feel they are not enough because they do not look like what they are seeing online. It has been studied that teens and young adults who reduce their social media usage by 50% for a few weeks, see a significant improvement in their mental impression of their body.
This concept of comparison is often the root of these mental health issues caused by social media usage. These teens compare the way they look, how they act, their lifestyle, and pretty much everything they can. This comparison can not only cause body image issues and self esteem issues, but also anxiety and depression. Teens may begin to feel they are not enough since they are not living like the people they see online.
As a teenager on social media, I can see first hand how these mental health issues can be developed from using social media. In my personal social media usage, I see girls with the perfect face, perfect, body, and perfect life. I get jealous of what I am seeing begin to look down on myself. My social media usage has also caused a development of anxiety. I find myself becoming anxious about little things like who I should invite somewhere in case someone else sees it on social media and gets mad they were not invited.
Our increased use of social media affects our overall well-being. We have become dependent on social media in our lives, especially as a form of entertainment. In my research I found the Goldilocks Hypothesis. Goldilocks Hypothesis: the idea that both too much and too little time spent on social media can harm mental health. This idea that social media has an effect on us whether is it used too often, or not often enough is very interesting to me.
I can see how this Goldilocks Hypothesis can be accurate. When people around me, or myself, spend too much time on a social media platform, our mental health is at stake, as I have previously described. On the opposing side, when teens do not spend any time on social media they can tend to feel left out causing other mental health issues.
Social media can quickly become an extremely unhealthy habit that teens can develop. A fun, simple hobby can easily turn into a a threat to the individual’s health and well-being. This should not be the case. Social media was not created with the intent to be harmful to its users. How has social media gotten to this point? Why has nothing been done to stop this? How can we put an end to the detrimental effects of social media?
