The effects of social media to our teenagers🤔 and their mental health

Social media can affect teenagers in both positive and negative ways. Overall, it’s important to set limitations and communicate openly with teens about social media use.

—An estimated 63% of teenagers say they use social media every day, while 45% say they are on the internet “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center, which conducted a 2018 survey including interviews with 743 teenagers.

—YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat are the most common social media platforms for teens. And while research has found that social media can negatively impact teenagers, there are many positive effects, as well. Here’s what experts say about how social media is affecting teens.

—For starters, studies have suggested that some teenagers are losing sleep due to social media use at night, and some are more distracted from it during the school day. But there may be even further negative effects on mental health.

—”While we can’t say anything yet about direct causation, we are seeing strong negative correlations in a few areas,” says Neha Chaudhary, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “Teen social media use has been thought to be correlated with depression, anxiety, worsening self-esteem, and loneliness.
—More than half of those teens reported that the feeling was related to their bodies. Charmaraman says groups who were particularly vulnerable to this were women, those with large online peer networks, those who checked their social media frequently, and those who followed celebrities.

—Peer pressure for teenagers is nothing new. However, social media worsens this pressure in two ways, Chaudhary explains. First, teens on social media are more apt to say something negative or mean. Second, teens are exposed to and getting feedback or pressure from many more people than they would encounter in daily life.

—”Teens… have been comparing themselves more to their peers and have been deprioritizing healthy, in-person communication,” Chaudhary says. “What’s more is, from a mental health perspective, social media has introduced new risks: teens can now harm or be harmed by others online.”

💛Social media isn’t all bad
However, according to the Pew study, 31% of teens say that social media use has a “mostly positive” impact on their lives, while only 24% say “mostly negative.” The other 45% said that social media’s effect was neither positive nor negative.

💛The right amount of social media for your teen
Setting limitations can help your teen learn to use social media positively without suffering from the negative associations.

“Just like you wouldn’t give your child the keys to a car for the first time and let them drive away without any practice, you’ll need to be there to teach them how to use social media in a healthy way,” Charmaraman says. “Together, you can set rules and shared expectations that promote your teen’s autonomy while safeguarding them from risks.”
💛END…thanks for reading

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