Macdonald 1

Kieran Macdonald

English 122

Mrs. Marshall

June 7, 2020

Social Media’s Effects on Mental Health

Social Media Essay

opportunities, we are practically dominated by technology. This age of information that we find

ourselves in has given us new ways to interact with others and the world around us. There is no

bigger category for people to interact with each other than social media. Social media has

dominated the younger generation with the many different functions and opportunities. Although

social media can be a fun way of interacting with friends and have an unlimited amount of new

activities that the user can participate in, it can also unintentionally harm the person viewing it.

Social media can be dangerous to a person’s mental health because of stress, addiction, and

online harassment.

This essay will explore the effects that may occur due to long time exposure to social

media on one’s devices. It will go through different subjects that have many similarities to each

other, all of them concerning social media. The essay will conclude with acknowledgement to

the opposite of the argument and with the citations of my resources.

This paragraph focuses on stress and how social media causes it and who it affects most,

on an age level. The most active demographic on social media sites, like Facebook, are also the

same demographic according to the America Psychological Association that are the most

stressed in the world – 18 to 29 years old (Khoros). “Stress might come from maintaining a large

network of Facebook friends, feeling jealous of their well-documented and well-appointed lives,

the demands of replying to text messages, the addictive allure of photos of fantastic crafts on

Pinterest, having to keep up with status updates on Twitter, and the “fear of missing out” on

activities in the lives of friends and family” (Hampton. 9). The root of stress usually stems from

the person’s overwhelming desire to be “kept in the loop” to not miss out on any trends or viral

subjects. Another study found on EBSCO did an experiment on social media-related stress in

college students who were emerging adults and found that the “Results revealed that social

media is indirectly related to mental health problems when emerging adults have difficulty with

emotion regulation and perceived stress.” The process of stressful thinking may be a compulsion

that transforms into habit and from there, an addiction.

Take a moment to consider the cost of addiction and how it can affect both the mind and

the body of the person constantly viewing social media. Most teenager anxiety can be attributed

to their social interactions and digital addiction (Tomoniko 4-11). Although it would be fair to

say that social media addiction only affects the mental health of the user, it can also affect the

body through the mind of the user or repeated feelings given off from the devices that a person

uses to view their social media. Larry D. Rosen, who has a Ph.D. in psychology of technology,

describes a physical feeling call Phantom Pocket Vibration syndrome. “If you keep your phone

in your pocket, you sometimes (maybe even often) feel a vibration in the skin adjacent to your

pocket and pull out your mobile phone, assuming it is a text or some sort of notification, only to
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discover that it was a phantom vibration. Or, if you keep your phone in a purse or satchel, you

imagine that you heard it vibrating, or even ringing, only to discover that it was a false alarm”

(Rosen). Basically, after a certain amount of time of having your phone in your pocket or purse,

you will sometimes feel vibrations coming from that area without your phone going off. One

thing that may hinder the process of curing one’s addiction is the feeling of withdrawal after a

certain amount of time away from social media. Bailey Parnell describes the feeling of

withdrawal in the first couple of minutes of her ted talk “Is social media hurting your mental

health?” in which she says that it took four days to be comfortable without her phone and within

those four days she constantly reached for her phone even though it wasn’t with her. She also

suffered from Phantom Pocket vibration syndrome, showing that you do not need social media or

even your phone to be negatively affected by social media.

It is of critical importance to look at the most severe danger when it comes to using social

media. Most people attending school have had some degree of education or information given

about the subject of online harassment whether it be student or teacher, along with the potential

health risks it has on the recipient of the harassment. To give an idea of how bad this is, in the

article “Bullying and Cyberbullying” (EBSCO), “Victims as young as 8 have taken their lives

after being persecuted by mean-spirited rumors and personal attacks posted on social media

sites.” Due to the wide range of people active on social media, cyberbullies can weaponize sites

to attack you both online and in the real world, possibly making cyberbullying more dangerous

than in-person bullying. For a detailed look into how cyber harassment can affect others one

need only read the story of Tyler Clementi on the organization’s website bearing his name - The

Tyler Clementi Foundation. To summarize, Tyler Clementi was going to come out as gay, his

roommate livestreamed him in an intimate act with another guy; he was ridiculed on twitter, and
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on September 22, 2010 he killed himself by jumping off the George Washington bridge. He was

only eighteen years old. We should be aware that cyberbullying doesn’t always result in death

(though we should understand the possibility of that), it also causes many different mental and

emotional issues as outlined in the article “Cyberbullying Linked With Range of Mental Health

Effects” - “Those who were victims of cyberbullying were more depressed, they were more

irritable and angry, and they were more likely to not feel like themselves than those who were

not victims of cyberbullying” (Psychiatry & Behavioral Health Learning Network). Internet

harassment is no laughing matter and should be dealt with seriously and appropriately.

Although what has been presented may seem like social media is dangerous and should

be avoided at all cost, negative experiences do not happen to everyone. In fact, for some people

the opposite may happen. Many people are having a very positive experience online. It has

helped people through this pandemic by making sure they can still be in touch with one another,

even when they cannot meet in person. The purpose of this essay is to recommend that caution

be exercised when going into social media. For the last 10 years, technology has revolutionized

what it means to be online and to broadcast, with new opportunities and new businesses arising

from it. In this new era of information, there are more ways than ever to interact with the world

around us. One of the biggest is through social media, where information travels fast and keeps

us all in the loop. It is also a place where one can interact with friends and family, along with

those with whom one might want as friends. Social media has a lot of great qualities that it

almost masks the dangers it could impose on someone both directly and indirectly. Used

improperly, social media can be very dangerous to a person’s mental health leading to things like

stress, addiction, and cyber harassment.

Citations
Hampton, Keith, et al. “Psychological Stress and Social Media Use.” Pew Research Center:
Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research Center, 31 Dec. 2019,
www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/01/15/psychological-stress-and-social-media-use-2/.
Khoros | Digital. “The 2020 Social Media Demographics Guide.” Khoros, 31 Mar. 2020,
khoros.com/resources/social-media-demographics-guide
American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association,
www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2012/generations.
Tomoniko, and Sylvie. “Anxiety at Teenagers' Fingertips.” BU Journal of Graduate Studies in
Education, Brandon University. 270 18th Street, Brandon, Manitoba R7A6A9. Tel: 204-727-
9616; e-Mail: [email protected]; Web Site: Https://Www.brandonu.ca/Master-
Education/Journal/, 30 Nov. 2018, eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1230220. (EBSCO)
Rosen, Larry. “Phantom Pocket Vibration Syndrome.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 7
May 2013, www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/rewired-the-psychology-
technology/201305/phantom-pocket-vibration-syndrome.
Talks, TEDx. “Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health? | Bailey Parnell | TEDxRyersonU.”
YouTube, YouTube, 22 June 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czg_9C7gw0o.
“Bullying and Cyberbullying.” CQ Researcher by CQ Press,
library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2018020200&type=hitlist&num=0.
(EBSCO)
Tyler Clementi's Story • Tyler Clementi Foundation.” Tyler Clementi Foundation, 15 Jan. 2020,
tylerclementi.org/tylers-story/.
“Cyberbullying Linked With Range of Mental Health Effects.” Psychiatry & Behavioral Health
Learning Network, 21 May 2017, www.psychcongress.com/article/cyberbullying-linked-range-
mental-health-effects.