Is it your phone that causes these internal issues with your mind or is it what appears on the screen? Throughout the day, teenagers all over the world swipe and scroll through their phones and often end up feeling smaller and insecure. Teen mental health is already under stress, and social media is adding weight many young people just can’t carry.
In their report “Teens, Social Media and Mental Health,” Emily A. Vogels and Risa Gelles-Wotnick of Pew Research found that nearly half of U.S. teens now say social media has a “mostly negative” effect on people their age. They also report that 38 percent of teens say social media leaves them feeling overwhelmed by drama, 29 percent feel pressure to post content that gets likes, and about 23 percent admit what they see online makes them feel worse about their own lives. And teens are not the only ones who see the negativity in social media as the report found that 44 percent of parents are somewhat or very concerned about teen mental health and name social media as the biggest negative influence.
The digital world was seen as a space for connection and creativity, but for many teenagers, it has become a source of anxiety and self-doubt. The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory on social media and youth mental health warned that heavy social media use is linked to disrupted sleep, poor body image, and rising rates of depression. Teenagers spend hours scrolling, comparing themselves to social media’s ridiculous standard. For a generation already under pressure, the online world can feel like an endless performance. The evidence of harm is continuously rising as Jason M. Nagata, Christopher D. Otmar, and Joan Shim of the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) did a sample of 10000 9-10 year old children that show an increase in social media use are predicted to have greater depressive symptoms within one year later which suggests social media is a risk for the younger generation.
As a teenager, seeing these facts is alarming but not surprising. For as long as I can remember I have been looking at screens, and with the more advanced technology currently available, the amount of anxiety and stress I feel from being on social media everyday is concerning. Whether it’s Instagram or TikTok, the two platforms I am on most, or Snapchat and Youtube, the fear of being judged by and commented on by those who follow you or somehow see your post is overwhelming.
Social media is such an easy place to feel terrible about yourself and something needs to be done because social media is only going to get more advanced and the effect it’s had on me, doesn’t need to happen to the younger generation.
One of the simplest solutions might also be the hardest, which is to have parents actually talk with their teens about their online lives. This talk can’t be lecturing or spying, but more focused on asking what they see, who they talk to, and how it makes them feel. According to Maya Hernandez, Elana Pearl Ben-Joseph, Stephanie Reich and Linda Charmaraman of the National Library of Medicine, their studies show that when parents are involved with their children’s internet lives, problematic internet use severely decreases.
Conversations like these can teach teens to think critically about what they scroll through, which can prevent stress and anxiety as they remind them that they’re not alone in dealing with digital pressure. When parents show interest instead of anger, teens are more likely to open up and that may be the first real step toward change.
