Abstract
Many adolescents today use social media for interactions, keeping in touch, and communicating with friends, family, and their favorite celebrities. These adolescents are always idle in most cases; thus, they have enough time spent on social media platforms and explore as much as possible. The excessive use of social media has been the primary cause of depression among most adolescents. However, there are instances where adolescents use social media more often but do not portray symptoms of depression which signifies that not all cases of excessive use of social media cause depression. Adolescents who don’t use social media are entirely likely to be mentally stable as they have nothing disturbing their minds.
Introduction
Social media has taken over the world today as social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and telegram have increased among youths and adults. Technological advance in the contemporary world has been the major contributor to the increased use of social media. Today, smartphones, tablets, and computers are easily accessible by people of all ages, thus facilitating easy access to social media platforms (Appel, Gerlach & Crusius 2016). The availability of cheap Wi-Fi and data bundles has also enabled easy access to social media platforms. Adolescents are among the group of people that use social media more often as the contents on social media always entertain them. Using social media frequently has adverse effects such as depression which is common among adolescents today.
Literature Review
Thesis
This paper focuses on examining the relationship between social media and depression in adolescents. The majority of adolescents today have access to smartphones, tablets, and computers, which enable them easily access social media any time they feel. These people are highly attracted to social media as most platforms today offer exceptional services that will attract anyone. Some of the services provided through social media platforms include; educative content such as documentaries on YouTube, entertaining content such as videos of a different variety on YouTube, and connecting people and offering them a platform to communicate such as chatting on WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter (Banjanin, Banjanin, Dimitrijevic & Pantic 2015). Social media can be addictive, and its frequent use may lead to several negative impacts.
The research assumes that adolescents using social media more often may lead to depression. Teenagers spending more time on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp may lead to increased dissatisfaction, isolation, inadequacy, and FOMO (Barry, Sidoti, Briggs, Reiter & Lindsey 2017). These feelings, in turn, may negatively influence the mood of these individuals and lead to symptoms of stress, anxiety, and finally, depression.
Definition of terms
Social media: A term that collectively refers to applications and websites that offer content-sharing, communication, interaction, collaboration, and community-based input services (Banjanin et al. 2015).
Social media: computer based technology that enables people to share information, thoughts, and ideas via virtual networks (Baker & Algorta 2016).
Depression: a medical condition that negatively affects an individual’s feelings, thoughts, and actions (American Psychiatric Association 2019).
Depression: a mood disorder that causes one to lack interest in life and constantly feel sad (Barry et al., 2017).
Research Questions
What is social media?
What is Depression?
Does using social media more often lead to depression?
What types of treatment or therapy are available for victims of depression resulting from frequent use of social media?
Social media
Social media refers to applications and websites that offer content-sharing, communication, interaction, collaboration, and community-based input services. People use social media to interact, connect and stay in touch with family, friends, and different communities or firms (Banjanin et al., 2015). Social media platforms are also used by businesses to promote and market their services and products. Mobile phones that support social media applications have made social media platforms easily accessible incredibly by adolescents. The number of adolescents using social media today is very high as compared to previous years where mobile phones were not easily accessible by adolescents. The commonly used social media platforms by these adolescents include Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp and Twitter. Frequent use of social media platforms is addictive. The majority of adolescents are addicted to social media as they always use these websites and applications more often due to their idle nature Barry et al 2017). This has led to increased cases of depression among adolescents with the main cause being high usage of social media.
Depression
Depression refers to a medical condition that negatively affects an individual’s feelings, thoughts and actions (American Psychiatric Association 2019). Using social media more often also causes depression. Technological advances that have promoted easy accessibility to phones that’s support social media applications has caused an increase in the number of adolescents using social media today. These adolescents are in most cases always idle, thus spending most of their time on social media. This has led to increased cases of depression associated with the use of social media. These adolescents commonly use Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter to connect, interact and stay in touch with their friends and celebrities. Spending much time on these social media platforms leads to increased cases of depression.
Social media and depression
Using social media more often results in feelings of dissatisfaction, isolation, inadequacy, and FOMO, where these feelings later turn into bad moods leading to symptoms of stress, anxiety, and finally depression. Depression has made some of these adolescents lose interest in life and later on committing suicide (American Psychiatric Association 2019). There is a need to monitor how frequently adolescents use social media so as to help reduce the increased cases of depression. Most parents today have neglected these teenagers and also given them access to smartphones, tablets, and computers with good internet connection which they use to access social media platforms.
Types of treatment or therapy available for victims of depression resulting from frequent use of social media
The major therapy for depression resulting from excessive use of social media include but are not limited to; psychodynamic therapy which focuses on helping a person fight negative behaviors that originate from previous experiences. In this case the therapy will help the depressed adolescent combat excessive use of social media. The second therapy available for the depressed victims is emotion-focused therapy which aims at creating awareness of the emotions of the victim and trying to regulate and resolve them. Finally cognitive-behavioral therapy can also be used to effectively help social media depressed adolescents recover. This therapy focuses on exploring the relationship between an individual’s behavior and feelings, thoughts (American Psychiatric Association 2019).
Symptoms
According to Asare (2015) some common symptoms of social media addiction include; frequent checking of the mobile phone for any notification on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram or any other social media platform, feeling uneasy in the vent where there is no internet connection/access or when the social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter is down. Barry et al (2017) also posits that adolescents that are addicted to social media often express negative effects to their school work because of the excessive use of social media such as checking on their social media applications instead of studying. Another symptom of social media addiction is using of social media when at occasions or activities such as eating, hanging out with family or friends or during a date with someone. On the other hand, Banjanin et al (2015) states that the physical symptoms of social media depression among teenagers include; isolation from other people such as family members, lack of sleep, feeling dissatisfied and feeling inadequacy.
Statistics
According to Barry et al (2017) 65% of adolescents today have access to social media. 58% of these adolescents who have access to social media use mobile phones to access social media applications. This shows how a good number of adolescents are using social media today, and the majority use mobile phones to access social media platforms. This explains why there are increased cases of depression resulting from use of social media among adolescents. Technological advances have also contributed to the increased use of social media as today mobile phones that support social media applications are very common, and also there is good internet connection almost everywhere which makes it easy for these adolescents to access social media platforms.
American Psychiatric Association. (2019) states posits that depression cases associated with excessive use of social media among adolescents rose from approximately 5200 in 2017 to approximately 8700 in 2018. This is a drastic increase which reveals how the use of social media is increasing daily among the adolescents.
Analysis of Journal Articles
According to Appel et al (2016) using social media more often leads to depression among adolescents due to feeling lonely, dissatisfied, and inadequacy. The research included 35 adolescents from different parts of the country. The participants were introduced to social media and given mobile phones with good internet connection for a period of one year. Observations revealed a change in character among all the participants.
Research reveals that adolescents who use social media less frequently are not likely to be depressed as compared to those who use social media more frequently (Best, Manktelow & Taylor 2014). This research included 60 adolescents where 30 of them were made to use social media frequently and 30 of them were made to use social media less frequently. At the end of the experiment, the 30 participants who used social media more frequently had severe signs of depression as compared to those who used social media less frequently.
` Adolescents who do not use social media are mentally stable are at low risks of being depressed as a result of feeling lonely, dissatisfied and inadequacy (Appel et al 2016). This research involved 20 participants who were made to stay away from social media for a period of one year. There was no any change in their behavior as they maintained their lifestyles, interacting freely and not making comparisons with other adolescents.
Carr & Hayes (2015) found out that using social media more often by adolescents does not automatically cause depression as there are cases of people who use social media frequently but have no signs and symptoms of depression. The participants of this study both male and female adolescents were made to use social media more often for a period of one year. Symptoms of Depression was observed among the participants where some of them had moderate to no symptoms of depression.
American Psychiatric Association (2019) found out that social media is the major cause of depression among adolescents as it accounts for 60% of depression cases among adolescents. This data was obtained from the number of reported depression cases among adolescents from 2015 to 2018.
Conclusion
Participants
The journals articles analyzed about comprised of distinct participants to ensure that reliable data is obtained. The participants were exposed to different conditions for different tests where some were exposed to frequent use of social media with the intention of determining the effects of using social media more often while others were exposed to less frequent use of social media to determine the effect of using social media less frequently.
Results of the Study
The study found out that excessive use of social media leads to depression among adolescents. Adolescents who use social media more often are likely to suffer from symptoms of depression as compared to those who use social media less frequently. The study also revealed that adolescents who do not use social media completely are in most cases identified to mental stable as they have nothing to disturb their mental health. On the other hand, the research revealed that there is a likelihood of one not suffering from depression despite using social media more often. A high number of adolescents suffering from depression are said to have acquired the condition from excessive use of social media.
Discussion
Technological advances that have promoted easy accessibility to phones that’s support social media applications has caused an increase in the number of adolescents using social media today. These adolescents are in most cases always idle, thus spending most of their time on social media. This has led to increased cases of depression associated with the use of social media. These adolescents commonly use Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter to connect, interact and stay in touch with their friends and celebrities. Spending much time on these social media platforms leads to increased cases of depression.
Using social media more often results in feelings of dissatisfaction, isolation, inadequacy, and FOMO, where these feelings later turn into bad moods leading to symptoms of stress, anxiety, and finally depression. Depression has made some of these adolescents lose interest in life and later on committing suicide. Theirs is a need to monitor how frequently adolescents use social media so as to help reduce the increased cases of depression. Most parents today have neglected these teenagers and also given them access to smartphones, tablets, and computers with good internet connection which they use to access social media platforms.
References
American Psychiatric Association (2019). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Appel, H., Gerlach, A. L., & Crusius, J. (2016). The interplay between Facebook use, social comparison, envy, and depression. Current Opinion in Psychology, 9, 44–49.
Asare, M. (2015). Sedentary behaviour and mental health in children and adolescents: A meta- analysis. Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior, 3, 259.
Baker, D. A., & Algorta, G. P. (2016). The relationship between online social networking and Depression: A systematic review of quantitative studies. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 19(11), 638–648.
Banjanin, N., Banjanin, N., Dimitrijevic, I., & Pantic, I. (2015). Relationship between internet use and Depression: Focus on physiological mood oscillations, social networking and online addictive behavior. Computers in Human Behavior, 43, 308–312.
Barry, C. T., Sidoti, C. L., Briggs, S. M., Reiter, S. R., & Lindsey, R. A. (2017). Adolescent social media use and mental health from adolescent and parent perspectives. Journal of Adolescence, 61, 1–11.
Best, P., Manktelow, R., & Taylor, B. (2014). Online communication, social media and adolescent wellbeing: A systematic narrative review. Children and Youth Services Review, 41, 27–36.
Carr, C. T., & Hayes, R. A. (2015). Social media: defining, developing, and divining. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 23(1), 46–65.