Emily Angelo

EN-102
Research Paper
November 28, 2022
Impact Social Media Causes On Teenagers

As Elon Musk once said, “ I think there should be regulations on social media to the

degree that it negatively affects the public good.” In today’s day and age social media has

become a major part of our lives. In the last decade the power of social media has increased

drastically from what it was in the early 2000’s. It mostly has negatively impacted teenagers in

this generation more than it has in older generations. The main impact social media has had on

teenagers in the past 5 years has affected their mental health, and physical health.

In 2021, Christine M. Stabler, an author for Penn Medical, wrote an article entitled The

Effects of Social Media on Mental Health. She talks about within this article about the

addictiveness that social media has on teenagers that have grown up in the world of technology.

One of the main reasons social media is addictive is because you never know what you will see

when you open an app. The article stated that “the spontaneous results actually cause a feeling of

reward by releasing dopamine.” This is similar to when those who gamble play slot machines.

The part of our brains that always want to know what comes next from something is what

teenagers seek within social media. That is why every couple of minutes teenagers reopen the

same app they were just on because they have a sense of needing to know what else will appear.

To go along with the addictiveness, the feeling of missing out comes into play as well. Teenagers

feel like they can never take a break from social media because they will miss something that

everyone else has access too. Christine stated that “constant checking and scrolling can have a

detrimental effect on schoolwork and studying.” From this it can cause procrastination within

students, and causing them to get behind on school work.

app where users can post photos, videos, stories, reels, etc. Within this app followers as well as

non-followers can comment and like ones post. As of November 8th, 2022, the blog entitled

“The Small Business” released an article titled Instagram Mental Health Statistics: The Harsh

Reality. Their statistics show that “39.9 % of females and 28.3% of males between the ages of

16-24” consider Instagram to be their favorite social media app. I would like to mention that the

ages of 16-24 are around the times where an individual is going through highschool and then

college as well. Now there are many factors that come into play for mental health in teenagers,

but social media plays a huge role. During these ages of 16-24 you are trying to figure out the

life of an “adult”. In these years you are going through many stages in life that can be very

stressful, as well as exhausting which can overall impact your mental health. Yet, social media

does not help in that realm. In the article Instagram Mental Health Statistics: The Harsh Reality,

it states that “ frequent social media users have developed higher depression rates, negative body

image issues, social anxiety disorders” the list goes on and on, but the question is why does

social media cause all of these things?

To start, let's talk about negative body image issues. A well known famous female, Kim

Kardashian, is always showing off her hourglass figure on her social media accounts. Since her

account on Instagram has 334 Million followers it is assumed that many young females, and

teenagers follow her pages. Recently at the 2022 Met Gala Kim Kardashian wore the same dress

that Mairlyn Menroe wore 60 years ago that was at first not Kim’s size. Kim made it very public

for all her followers to see that she was as Women's Health Magazine stated “determined to lose

the weight within three weeks to fit into the dress.” Now, this is not about the fact that Kim

Kardashian lost the weight, it is in fact about the message she is delivering to younger females
that look up to her. She is showing them that they must be certain sizes, weights, and just to look

a certain way. It is influencers like herself that are portraying these messages in these teenagers'

brains that they are imperfect. With that comes body image issues that lead to eating disorders

which at any age is deadly to the body. Another social media app that does more harm than good

with body image issues is Tik Tok. Since Tik Tok is the new and upcoming social media app

there are alot of influencers on the app that post their everyday life. Most are not doing anything

harmful saying females should look a certain way, but in the teenage years you do a lot of

comparing yourself to others. This comes within individuals to learn to stop comparing

themselves to those they see on social media because everyone is different in their own way, and

everyone's bodies are created differently too.

Something I believe that is part of the negative impact of social media on teengers is the

amount of time they spend online. According to Common Sense Media, teenagers that are

between the ages of 13-18 use on average nine hours of social media a day. If you were to factor

in the fact that we on average should be getting eight hours of sleep, and then add in the fact that

most teenagers are spending nine more hours of their day on social media that leaves only seven

more hours of the day that is not spent online. That is a very small amount of time that is not

spent on social media. Common Sense Media conducted a study amongst females and males of

the ages 13-18 to see exactly how their nine hours on social media are divided between

applications. From this study it showed that many males and females spend about 76% of their

time listening to music while doing homework. Which is also proven to help students

concentrate when doing studies. Along with this they spend about 60% of their time using

messaging apps, as well as 50% of their time on social networking sites such as Instagram,

Facebook, Tik Tok, Snapchat, etc. Something that is so harmful in our 2022 world today is the
fact that digital devices are becoming much more popular within young ages. Already social

media is harmful to teens, but introducing these devices at a younger age will soon become even

more harmful than what teenagers are experiencing.

Lastly, I would like to discuss what an average teenager thinks when using social media.

As most know it is a teenage thing to post everything they are doing, seeing, experiencing, etc. It

started with using filters on photos, sending videos everywhere, and now posting stories for

followers to view. One of the main reasons social media is “addicting” to the teens is because of

the interaction they get from their viewers. With the interaction from their viewers this causes

them to compare themselves to others to see how many likes or comments they get within a post.

With that comes the “I am not like them… why does she get so many likes and I don't” phrases

which are toxic to the teenage brain. According to Statista, in 2020 a research was conducted to

see how many teenage females looked at the amount of likes and comments that had on each

post on the social media app Instagram. The study showed “78% of them tried to hide or change

their appearance due to the lack of interaction they got from their followers.” Along with this

“43% of these females have deleted a post because of the low numbers of interaction they

received.” From reading about this study it truly shows how much social media affects the

teenage brain. It is so powerful that it causes individuals to delete their posts because of them

comparing themselves to others online.

Since it is 2022 and social media is not going anywhere anytime soon I think it is time to

consider some healthy habits in our everyday lives. Cone Health released an article on seven

ways to be healthy while using social media in August of 2022. The first step would be to be

mindful of what you are doing online. This includes not just scrolling online for the fun of it.

Instead be alert to show you are feeling, thinking, and seeing online. Along with this step it is
important to limit yourself to how much time you spend online. If it is too much of an adjustment

to cut it out altogether it would be a good idea to set a timer that will let you know what such

time has passed, and to get off of social media. Another key step Cone Health suggested was to

follow people/pages that bring you peace and joy. It is a huge difference when you are

surrounded by positive things in your life instead of negative things. It will not only help you in

your everyday basis, but also help with your mental health regarding social media. Something

else that is important is to limit your time online before you go to bed. The bluelight our screens

give off harm our brain when trying to get our bodies to relax. It is crucial that our bodies get a

good night's rest so that it can recharge, and enhance our moods. Last but not least is to live in

the moment. If you are with family, friends, etc it is nice to live in the moment and not be so

caught up in alerting others of what you are doing. It is easier said than done, but it will make

you appreciate the memories more than being so locked in on uploading a post, or recording a

video to show your followers.

Going back to what Elton Must once said, social media is hurting the public good. It is

hurting teenagers more than affecting them positively. If one is experiencing being more

anxious, depressed, and self criticizing themselves then it is important to take a break from being

on social media, and prioritize their well being.

“Instagram Mental Health Statistics 2022: The Harsh Reality.” The Small Business Blog,
25 Nov. 2022, https://thesmallbusinessblog.net/instagram-mental-health-statistics/.

“Kim Kardashian Knew People Would 'Hate' Seeing Her in Marilyn Monroe's Dress.”
Women's Health, 10 Nov. 2022, https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a39896757/kim-
kardashian-met-gala-diet/.

Published by Statista Research Department, and May 12. “Girls in Brazil: Self-Esteem
and Social Media 2020.” Statista, 12 May 2022,
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1231874/self-esteem-social-media-girls-brazil/.

Teens Use an Average of Nine Hours of Media per Day While Tweens Use Six Hours,
https://www.stompoutbullying.org/blog/teens-use-average-nine-hours-media-day-while-tweens-
use-six-hours.

7 Healthy Habits for Social Media | Cone Health.