Question: What impacts has social media had on youth? Both positive and negative. What can we do to reduce negative impacts? 

 

Answer: First, when we are talking about “social media,” remember that it is not one-size-fits-all! Social media platforms differ in their design; whether you’re looking to share pictures from your daily life, chat in groups, or participate in trending videos, each platform offers a unique experience. Everyone responds to social media differently, so the pros and cons we describe below are going to vary from teen to teen. The most important thing is reflecting on what types of positive or negative influences social media has on you. 

Positive experiences on social media include access to communities, social support, and learning new information: 

  • Social Connection: Teens frequently say that social media helps keep them connected to friends and family.  
  • Identity, Self-Expression, and Self-Affirmation: Social media platforms can allow you to share your interests and activities, through text, videos, and images. This type of personal sharing on social media, especially as an authentic form of self-expression, can help teens better understand who they are. An experimental study provided evidence that young adults who view their social media profile to self-affirm note that their profiles help them understand more of who they are, which subsequently increases their self-esteem. 
  • Affirmation of Gender or Sexuality: For young people who are gender and sexually diverse, social media can be used as a safe space to be your authentic self without stigma and as a medium for gaining social support. Being able to express your true self online also helps you to learn through each other’s stories and find validation through shared experiences. 
  • Interest-Driven Exploration: As you develop more independence, social media can be a space to discover new ideas and knowledge. This is particularly helpful for finding health-related information you may not otherwise have access to. 
  • Empowerment and Civic engagement: In a 2018 survey, about two-thirds of teens said they used social media to learn about different points of view or show their support for causes. Social media is a way for you to engage in activism around topics of interest to you, from climate change to gun violence prevention, and connect with an online community. 

Negative experiences on social media usually involve comparing oneself to others, seeing negative content, unwanted contact and harassment, or displacing other experiences: 

  • Mental Health and Wellbeing: The connection between social media and mental health is complicated. The relationship can go both ways: some symptoms of poor mental health, like feelings of sadness or isolation, might drive you to use social media more, which in turn shapes how you engage with content online. Also, it may not affect you the same way it affects others using social media: some people report that their daily social media use correlates with worse well-being, while others don’t share that same takeaway. Finally, social media’s effects on well-being will depend on the balance of negative and positive interactions and content that you experience on these platforms, as described below. 
  • Cyberbullying: Almost half of adolescents have experienced cyberbullying, harassment, or aggressive behavior online. Studies have reported that being a target of cyberbullying is associated with negative outcomes such as an increase in substance use, as well as worsened mental health symptoms, school performance and life satisfaction. Teens with LGBTQ+ and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color) identities are more likely to be bullied or harassed online. 
  • Body Image and Disordered Eating: Social comparison, or determining your own worth based on how you believe you compare to others, is common on social media, especially on image-based platforms. Profiles that focus on disordered eating, “thinspiration,” fitness, or plastic surgery can be recommended to users and influence norms and values around beauty. Editing selfies using filters, cropping, or editing one’s appearance is associated with negative self-esteem and how teens like you might think about your appearance. 
  • Harmful Content such as pornography, child sexual abuse material, self-harm depictions, violence, or accounts selling illegal substances can be found on social media, despite platforms’ best efforts to remove these posts.  
  • Unwanted Contact from strangers, marketers, or trolls has been reported by teens, more commonly females than males. 
  • Sleep can be negatively impacted if you postpone bedtime so that you can continue to use social media for entertainment. Phone use may also lead to psychological, emotional, or physiological arousal; activities that demand a person’s full attention, whether digital or not, can increase heart rate, delay sleep onset, and decrease REM sleep. Experts have analyzed and reported social motivations that teens believe affect their bedtime digital media use: these include fear of missing out, feeling social accountability to engage in groups & conversations regardless of the time of day, and feeling guilty when not following the norm of responding to messages immediately. 
  • Digital Stress is a term used to describe stress resulting from frequent use of digital information technology, which is caused by constant access to a wide array of social content, fear of missing out, and anxiety about approval. Teens report feeling pressure to always be available to another person via technology and respond quickly to messages, and therefore not getting time for solitude.  

What you can do: 

  1. Pay attention to when and how you are using social media, how it makes you feel, and what it might be crowding out.  
  2. Curate your feed so that it gives you more positive experiences. This includes changing who you follow, muting users who are stressing you out, and blocking users who are toxic, fake, or rude. Report any content that you find harmful. 
  3. Work with your friend group to create boundaries around when you’ll be on social media, and when you won’t (such as overnight).  
  4. Talk to other people you trust about your social media experiences. This allows you to share the good stuff you are seeing, and problem-solve when social media is feeling more negative.  
  5. Join movements that advocate for healthy social media designs that try to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives.  
References 

 

Age: 10-17 

Topics: Youth, Social Media, Positive and Negative Impacts, Benefits and Harms 

Role: Youth 

   

Last Updated

04/12/2024

Source

American Academy of Pediatrics