How Social Media Is Wrecking Our Youth.
It is safe to say that in present times social media has taken over the world. It has control over our brains, our bodies and our lives. If you ask most people who possess a smart phone they will undoubtedly all reveal to you that the first thing that they do every morning is unlock their phone and check their social media accounts.
Although social media was designed to bring people closer together, its constant availability on all our devices means that in actual fact, we have become distanced from the reality of our relationships and increasingly engaged in our online personas. We spend less time speaking to people face-to-face and more time Whatsapping or snapchatting them, cutting ourselves off from the real world.
On the surface, this change may not sound dangerous especially in the case of adults, but it is slowly becoming clear that social media’s power and control is changing the lives of young people today and becoming a real peril of our society.
Most people over the age of 30 will not understand what it is like to grow up with social media. However, this is the case for today’s youth. A recent report by the Office of National Statistics found that a staggering 91% of 16–24 year olds use the internet for social media purposes. This astronomical figure demonstrates just how crucial social media is in our current society and the scope of the risks it poses to our youth.
Children are pressured daily by their friends, the media and by themselves to maintain their social media status and face. The more they post, the more followers and likes they will gain and the “more popular” they will become. In fact, likes, follows and views have become a currency for young people, used to gain status and crucially, the opposite creates a bigger issue. This endless cycle creates the extreme problem of cyberbullying.
When a young person does not receive the recompense of a like or a comment for something that they have posted, they may remove it or question their popularity. Even worse, if they receive negative feedback, they are likely to experience bullying, become victims and even cause them to develop negative feeling towards themselves.
Almost every child has been affected by bulling in their life. Some more than others. However, with the popularity of social media, children nowadays make their lives public for everyone to see and make themselves vulnerable to a multitude of dangers. They open themselves up for active criticism visible to not only all of their friends, but to anybody with an internet connection.
Bullying and online scrutiny are not the only harms caused by social media. One unsuspecting evil of social media making itself increasingly known is the issue of mental health. An increased amount of academic research has found the concerning link between social media and mental health disorders.
Constant worrying about online profiles and personas leads to anxiety disorders and depression. Staring at the millions of images of photoshopped celebrities and influencers leads to eating disorders. Finally, the hours spent mindlessly scrolling, photographing, commenting and following leads to loss of sleep which is an extreme issue for young people who need sleep to aide with their development and wellbeing.
This harsh reality of the 21st century life can only make us question: ‘how much worse must it get before we acknowledge the issue and put a stop to it?’
It may seem like an insurmountable feat at first sight, but many solutions or ways of tackling the problems that social media poses have been proposed by researchers. We can control the hours young people spend online or encourage them to give up scrolling for a day or two a week. Media and technological developments are the future, so the school system needs to be updated to include lessons on the dangers that students will face every day and provide resources where they can find help.
The Royal Society for Public Health suggests that social media websites and apps take control of their influence.
As well as education reforms and a plea for additional research, they propose modifications to the social media websites whereby:
-Users are warned about potential photoshopping or digital enhancements to photos
-Users are made aware if they have spent too much time on the site.
-Users whose online activity suggests they may be suffering from mental health issues are offered discrete help and support.
Young people are our future, so instead of worrying about robots taking over the world, we should worry about our youth becoming the robots controlled by social media.
