Mental Health and Social Media in Student Life: A Perspective

The majority of people across society spend the first 18 to 22 years of their lives going to school. Right from when we are young and impressionable to growing into mature adults, we evolve not just physically, but mentally and perhaps spiritually as we all journey through the school system throughout our developing years. It is these institutions where several youth are brought together by the purpose of education and serve as not only an intellectual space, but also a social playground. Given the rise of technology, mass communication devices, and social media, these social playing fields that school acts as a base for and social groups eventually extend beyond school, social media has enabled the community of students to become more close knit, causing isolated social groups to be more connected with their fellow students. However, while this all comes across as positive, it certainly is not a “sunshine and rainbows” type of situation. Social media also carries a dark side with it and negative social and mental implications can result. While progressing through the school system as a young developing person, it goes without saying that troubles can arise and students can be affected mentally as a result of internal and personal problems within the school system. Students experience overwhelming workloads, social pressure and stigma, disputes, stressful situations, fear of losing grades, as well as just regular old meager “run of the mill bullshit” that students also complain about that can take a toll on them. Many times these problems occur across the board to which it is no surprise that the top 3 diagnoses on university campuses are stress, anxiety, and depression. I believe that the fact that these are the top 3 diagnoses and that these result from various academic and social problems within school go to show that this is the biggest mental health challenge facing university students today. I shall also connect how social media plays a role in these mental health challenges.

Social media has a massive presence amongst students. 90% of 18–29 year olds are on social media and students use it up to 2 hours per day which exposes them to potentially more social conflicts and can also serve as a distraction from engaging in school work. When a student is subjected to an immense workload that he/she finds overwhelming to the point where he/she is rendered feeling useless, can’t get through it, and feelings of failure. These are common occurrences that can lead to stress, anxiety, and depression which I have seen and personally experienced myself. I am not going to self-diagnose but I have dealt with feelings of diminishing self-worth under the pressure of school and I have seen it with many of my peers as well. The process that occurs leads me to believe that it goes down like this: a student may fail to meet their personal schedule of being on task with assignments or projects either via procrastination or distraction from social media. The student who wants to avoid doing work and following orders finds ways to actively avoid it, like immersing themselves in social media for example, while holding the belief they can still complete the work on time only to realize they underestimate the situation and face the pressure of having to grind the work out. This can lead to rushed work that ends up being sloppy and/or doesn’t reach the full potential of the student. Once the student acknowledges that he/she is struggling to stay on task and underestimated the work, this then can lead to increased stress levels, the feeling of immense pressure, the fear of the clock ticking, increasing the amount of cigarettes smoked in a day, in extreme cases increased alcohol and drug use, increased caffeine intake, and more seriously, diminished senses of self-worth, self-reliance, feelings of failure, and higher levels of feelings of anxiety, anxiety of their future, anxiety of the status of their academic reputation. This of course does not apply to all students but some of the above applies to me and applies to other students I know. These can all culminate to cause a student to breakdown and be taken to a negative mental zone as a result of enormous amounts of stress and decreased motivation thus potentially leading to depression. And since social media becomes a big element of distraction, it contributes to these mental health effects.

Stressful amounts of school work is not the only factor into mental health challenges that plague university students these days. There’s also the regular social conflicts, pressures, stigmas, character defamations that regularly occur between individuals and social groups but is more prone to occur because of social media. How often does twitter beef occur amongst young people and students? Seems more than usual in my eyes. Returning to the discussion at hand, social media has boosted the likelihood of social pressures and negative mental health effects to occur. In studies that relate to this, there are 4 stressors caused by social media which are: highlight reels, social currency, fear of missing out (FOMO), and online harassment. Highlight reels have the power to affect confidence levels of students when they see people or fellow classmates for that matter doing “cooler” things than them, indicating that their lives are better than that of the student searching through his/her feed — which can also contribute to a diminished sense of self-worth. Social currency can also disrupt mental health of students. Students who actively engage with social media to create content, express themselves, establish their online personalities and presences on the various platforms, share personal projects they hold deep value for and want it to be seen, etc. is almost ruined when the don’t receive a desired amount of attention, views, likes, etc. This element of social currency can ultimately cause students passionate about their interests that want to share them to lose senses of value in them because when it does not get an adequate amount of attention, then that student might be tempted to delete the said project, thinking that it wasn’t worthwhile, thus draining passion. The next deals with FOMO, which can also be a source for negative feelings. It ties with the highlight reel in the sense that when a student notices something “cool” that occurred and weren’t there to experience it or think it’s better than their own perceived meager lives, it can cause feelings of sadness because they missed out on an opportunity. And finally, the one that speaks for itself, online harassment. It addition to these four main prospects of stress that stems from social media, the typical social media conflicts occur as well, for example, dealing with subtweets and tension with ex-girlfriends and ex-boyfriends, online arguments, etc.

There’s many factors that contribute to the mental health challenges of university students, but as we can see, social media does in fact play a part in these challenges. It’s always good to be mindful of social media use and it’s always important to tread carefully as a student.

#RTA902