Dangers of Social Media By Arko

Social media is a crucial part of our life, on a daily basis, we spend an average of 3 to 4 hours on it. Imagine you’re on your laptop, and you are supposed to be working on school work, but you just go on facebook, just to see how many likes you got on that photo you just posted. There is a problem when you are addicted to social media. Social media has a few positive things about it, however, there are still many dangers that come from it. An obvious reason that makes the statement above true is the issue of cyberbullying and the dangers that come from it. Another piece of evidence is the teen's physical health that is affected when teenagers get addicted to social media. It can affect their sleep schedules and their own body as they can see themselves as too fat. It can also affect their mental health as they can feel things such as depression and another obvious reason is that social media can cause poor self-esteem. Facebook has caused so many teenagers to have depression that doctors created something called Facebook Depression. It can also have a negative effect on academic success. However there are still a few good things that come from social media, it can allow us to communicate with each other easily.

One of the dangers that come from social media is cyber bullying. It is not uncommon amongst teens to experience cyberbullying, the Kids Health Organisation found that 95% of teens have witnessed cyberbullying and 33% of teens are victims. Cyberbullying by itself is not the only problem, according to LiveScience.com cyber bullying can be linked to depression. However teenagers are not being safe on social media 52% percent of kids from the age of 8 to 16 have a social media account but only 32% of the parents are confident enough to let them have a social media account. Cyberbullying is the bullying that occurs online, according to Kids Health Organisation “Cyberbullying is the use of technology to harass, threaten, embarrass, or target another person. By definition, it occurs among young people. When an adult is involved, it may meet the definition of cyber-harassment or cyberstalk.” Cyber bullying is a crime that can have legal consequences and involve jail time. This means that almost all teens witness other people being harassed, threatened, embarrassed or targeted by another person on social media. It also means that the teenagers that are committing the crime can face jail time if caught. Cyberbullying can be linked to depression, it can be a cause for it. Cyberbullying is still a big problem in our society, and it should not be ignored.

As I mentioned cyberbullying is a cause for social media. “There are three main causes of depression that are linked to social media. Bullying, self-comparison and influencing self-worth,” said Brent L. Fletcher a mental health therapist. “Bullying can occur when ‘friends’ post means or derogatory statements about others or upload unflattering photos and make negative comments about them,” says Fletcher. This obviously can cause low self-esteem, which is also another cause for depression. This seems to coincide with secondary school years. One 13-year-old girl told a ChildLine counsellor: ‘I hate myself. When I look at other girls online posting photos of themselves it makes me feel really worthless and ugly.’ A 12-year-old girl said: ‘I feel like crying all the time. I’m constantly worried about what other people are thinking of me. I use social media sometimes but that just makes me more depressed as I hardly have any friends online and no one likes my posts/photos. Another reason is that people tend to compare themselves to others. Even celebrities, so people have to have the “perfect” body, people tend to compare themselves. Afterwards, they try to lose or gain weight to have a “perfect” body. This can also affect your body health obviously.

As I said people can compare themselves to others, they want to see how they pan out against others. They don’t want to come out looking weird or silly or different. Sometimes people want to even compare themselves to celebrities. They sometimes feel that they are too skinny or too fat compared to celebrities and models. This can affect your body, can cause eating disorders like Anorexia Nervosa. There is no single cause of body dissatisfaction or disordered eating. But, it is clear that media does indeed contribute and that exposure to and pressure exerted by media increase body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. Numerous experimental studies have linked exposure to the thin ideal in mass media to body dissatisfaction, internalisation of the thin ideal, and disordered eating among women. The effect of media on women’s body dissatisfaction, thin-ideal internalisation, and disordered eating appears to be stronger among young adults than children and adolescents. This may suggest that long-term exposure during childhood and adolescence lays the foundation for the negative effects of media during early adulthood. Pressure from mass media to be muscular also appears to be related to body dissatisfaction among men. This effect may be smaller than among women but it is still significant.Young men seem to be more negatively affected by the media images than adolescent boys are. This can all be caused when people who are addicted to social media, compare themselves, to lies. According to the BBC, almost all teens that use social media alter their photos. This can also link to self-comparisons to themselves. They don’t want to appear ugly or different looking. So, they photoshop their images so they aren’t treated badly.

However, these aren’t the only issues that come with social media, school is an important factor of our lives, and sets us up for the future. Social media can have a negative influence on academic success, especially if you are addicted to it. A study was done by the Miriam Hospital, researchers show a link between social media and academic performance among the freshmen in a study, which is the first of its kind. The study looked at students engaged in any form of media use including texting, music, the Internet and social networking. The study shows that an average freshmen woman spends 12 hours every day engaged in any form of media use. Students were asked to report an average time spent on any forms of media throughout the previous week. They were also asked to report their grades in the academics for the fall and spring semesters and their intellectual confidence, behaviour and troubles, the report said. As a result, researchers listed that cell phones, social networking, television and magazines had the severe impact on students' academic results for their fall semesters.

There are still many good things about social media, the obvious being it allows us to connect and socialise easier. Before social media, we had to wait for a long time to get replies. Even email was uncommon, so people used letters. This made progress extremely slow, while now with instant communication we can talk with people around the world, and get a reply instantly. However, while these positive aspects are present there are still negative aspects that are part of social media. As I mentioned earlier there are still dangers to teenagers and adults using social media, dangers such as cyberbullying and risks of depression.

The dangers of social media will always remain high as you know almost all teenagers witness cyberbullying online. So, social media has a few positive things about it, however, there are still many dangers that come from it. To conquer the negatives of social media, we have to take a step back, before social media people had very little risk of being bullied or depressed. Now I am not saying that we should never go on social media. It is important in our life, and we cannot deny the importance of it. But that doesn’t mean that we should constantly be on facebook or Instagram either. There should be times in our daily lives, where we put the phone down and be aware of our surroundings, so we can live in the moment because that moment won’t come back.

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