Social media and the effects on American adolescents

Introduction
Social media has grown in popularity, and many people around the world now use it everyday. People use social media to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos). Around 95% of young people between the ages of 13-17 use at least one social media platform, making it a major influence on young adolescents. While some authors claim that social media is to blame for the increase in anxiety and depression, most review papers report that the association between the two is weak or inconsistent.
Research
Social media may positively affect adolescents by promoting a feeling of inclusion, providing greater access to more friends, and enhancing romantic relationships. Social media allows people to communicate with other people using social media, no matter the distance between them. Some adolescents with social and emotional issues feel more included with social media and online activities. Social media can give people a sense of belonging which can lead to an increase in identity development. Adolescents that post pictures on social media can look back on their memories, and their positive emotions can be related to a sense of their true identity.
Adolescents who use social media tend to be more outgoing and interact more with others online and in person. According to Newport Academy, teens who spend more time on non-screen activities, such as sports, exercise, in-person social interaction, or any other in-person activities are less likely to report any mental issues, such as anxiety or depression. Social media provide adolescents within the United States the ability to connect with people from other countries. Being involved in social media typically improves communication skills, social connections, and technical skills. Furthermore, adolescents who are students can use social media to seek academic help. The appropriate usage of social media has developed favorable academic environments for both, the students and the teaching faculty, offering the potential benefits in the process of learning information.
According to research conducted by Dr. John Gilmour and his coauthors, social media exposure, specifically Facebook, has allowed the general population to have positive interactions and gain social support from their family and friends, which in turn benefits their overall well-being. Social support is defined as the extent to which an individual feels a sense of value and belongingness to a social group. Although several studies have found that general Facebook use has a negative impact on mental health, Facebook use has a variety of positive mental health outcomes when used to seek and provide social support. A total of 387 adolescents who were active on Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat completed a 2-minute survey six times per day. The researchers administered self-report questionnaires to gather these findings. Their results suggest that social networking sites make it easier for adolescents to communicate and share feelings and experiences because it is less threatening than face-to-face interactions. In addition, online communications were found to lead to closer, high-quality friendships among adolescents.
This outside source of technology addiction can impact dopamine receptors long term affecting attention span, critical thinking and problem solving.
In the article, "Unveiling the Dark Side of Social Networking Sites: Personal and Work-related Consequences of Social Networking Site Addiction" by Murad Moqbel and Ned Kock, they expand on Social Networking Sites (SNS), and the negative effects it causes among people have excessive use. Moqbel; et al. say that: "Although SNS addiction is not formally recognized as a diagnosis, it can be broadly defined as a psychological dependence on the use of SNSs that interferes with other important activities and yields negative consequences". The article discusses how excessive use of SNS causes people to perform poorly at work and how it causes distractions, like not doing their jobs correctly. This article is based on a survey of 276 corporate employees. The authors explain that: "However, excessive use of these SNSs may also promote negative outcomes, such as addiction, distraction, reduced positive emotions, low performance, and poor health". Since individuals posting on social media tend to only present the best version of themselves online, research has shown that this can cause adolescents to perceive others as more attractive than themselves.
Young adults also seem to experience higher symptoms of anxiety because of attempting to keep up with social media's warped beauty standards. Hawes et al. (2020) found that increased social media usage, along with trying to stay up-to-date with beauty and fashion trends, could be damaging to those who already struggle with body image issues. This study researched the relationship between social media use and maladjustment, focusing on appearance-related content and symptoms of anxiety. They had two hypotheses, one being that appearance-related (AR) social media preoccupation would correlate with more symptoms of depression and social anxiety, and the other being that AR social media preoccupation use intensifies the use of social media with appearance anxiety. Many policymakers have expressed concerns regarding the potential negative impact of social media on mental health because of its relation to suicidal thoughts and ideation. A study conducted by Dr. Chloe Berryman and her coauthors looked into the phenomenon called "vague booking," which refers to individuals intentionally wording their social media posts in a way that they believe will obtain concern from others. These posts may even function as a cry for help. These social comparisons and related feelings of jealousy, when made on social media platforms, can lead to the development of symptoms of depression in users. Depression is common also for children and adolescents who have been cyberbullied. According to Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance - United States, 2015, nationwide, 15.5% of students had been electronically bullied, counting being bullied through e-mail, chat rooms, instant messaging, websites, or texting, during the 12 months before the survey. Using 7 or more social media platforms has been correlated with a higher risk of anxiety and depression in adolescents.
One important aspect that is a huge factor in how teens react to media is the social learning theory. In Banduras experiment, "Bobo Dolls experiment on Social Learning," demonstrates how kids learn from social environments. In his experiment he has kids observe adults being exceedingly kind to the bobo dolls, when left in the room with just the kid and the bobo doll, the kids treated it nicely just as the adult did. In contrast that when the kids observed the adults punching and hurting the bobo doll, children did the same when alone with the bobo doll. As teens learn from their peers or idols online, they tend to duplicate that behavior just like the kids did with the bobo dolls in Bandura's experiment. If teens are viewing people with a social media platform online demonstrating certain inappropriate behaviors, they may learn from this and recreate the behavior.
Social media can significantly influence body image concerns in female adolescents. Young women who are easily influenced by the images of others on social media may hold themselves to an unrealistic standard for their bodies because of the prevalence of digital image alteration. Social media can be a gateway to Body dysmorphic disorder. Dana Johns, MD, a plastic surgeon at the University of Utah Health says, "Selfie' or is essentially the new age social media upgrade to a long-standing disorder." According to the APA, these unrealistic beauty standards are detrimental to the developing mind and can cause serious mental health issues.
Engaging with social media platforms two hours before falling asleep can affect sleep quality, and a longer duration of digital media use is associated with reduced total sleep time. The phenomena of "Facebook depression" is a condition which comes to surface when young adults have a higher usage of Facebook and tend to manifest the actual symptoms of depression. Youths who frequently use social media increase their risk of depression by 27 percent, while those who dedicate themselves to outdoor activities don't have that much risk. Sleep deprivation may also be another common factor in teens. According to the Mayo Clinic, a 2016 study that was conducted on more than 450 teens found that greater social media use, nighttime social media use, and emotional investment in social media, such as feeling upset when prevented from logging on, were each linked with worse sleep quality that could increase the levels of anxiety and depression.
In the article, "Adolescent Social Media Use and Mental Health from Adolescent and Parent Perspectives" by Christopher T. Barry, Chloe L. Sidoti, Shanelle M. Briggs, Shari R. Reiter, and Rebecca A. Lindsey, there is a sample survey conducted with 226 participants (113 parent-adolescent days) from throughout the United States, with adolescents (55 males, 51 females, 7 unreported) ranging from ages 14 to 17. In this study, both adolescents and parents provide social media use of adolescents' social networks. The hypothesis question of this survey is: "Are parent-reported symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, conduct problems (i.e. symptoms of Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder ), depression, and anxiety related to the reported number of adolescents' social media accounts and the frequency with which adolescents report checking their social media accounts?" Something very important that the authors of this survey say is that: "The present study represents an area of ever-growing importance, as approximately 24% of U.S. teens report being online ‘almost constantly’ with much of that time being spent on social media applications". By using social media excessively they begin to compare themselves and create complexities and insecurities. Adolescents who use social media for more than 3 hours a day could suffer from insomnia or other mental disorders such as low self-esteem. The study shows that young people aged 12-15 tend to use their phones between 3 and 6 hours a day, although many of them spend the entire 6 hours. The authors believe that the use of social media could be limited and there could be more guidance to young people on this topic, as well as more research should be done on limiting social media.
Policymaking
Although a large aspect of policymaking is creating or changing laws, this is not always the case. Policymaking can also include other types of established standards, for example, parents’ rules or policies restricting their child's social media exposure. Since social media is easily accessible to nearly everyone, there are few laws regarding adolescents’ exposure to social media. However, there is substantial evidence that parents’ policies regarding the time their child spends on social media has an impact on their child's mental health.
One particular study, conducted by Dr. Jasmine Fardouly and her coauthors, involved a sample of 528 preadolescent social media users between the ages of 10 and 12 and one of their parents. Both children and their parents completed online surveys. Here we can see a large number of young people between 18 and 24 years old use social networks. The survey also served to see the levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness of the participants. The authors explain that: "Both loneliness and depressive symptoms declined in the experimental group".
Conclusion
In conclusion, there is a social problem with social networks and their excessive use. This social problem affects everyone, but it affects young Americans the most. If there are no measures or laws, this problem will continue to grow. Something that would help combat this problem is to create limits on the time spent on social media, and this is something as individuals we could do. Little by little, we will help this problem reach the ears of our governments and new measures or laws may be passed that limit time on social media. Due to the excessive use of social media, young people create different mental problems and high levels of depression, loneliness, anxiety, and. This affects them in their daily lives, limits them to doing things they normally do, and affects their academic or work performance. It is in our hands to educate our young people and raise awareness about this social problem so that they are not affected and have strengthened mental health. The purpose of this wiki post was to show information about the effects caused by excessive use of social media on young people and to demonstrate possible solutions to it.

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