Abstract
Social media technology was developed to improve communication and research by making them more efficient. Studies show that most young adults spend most of their time having their cell phones, making them more prone to depression, anxiety, and stress. Today among many young adults, there is extreme observable accessibility of behavioral phenomena’ deformations derived from different tendencies, given that they allow most social media users to come up with groups that are consistent with homogeneous content that primarily consists of varying dependence types that are not mainly aware of the facts. Social media technology will continue advancing and is here to stay forever. Governments have to teach their netizens about the safety of their smartphones and how they can responsibly use them by having a clear definition of the boundaries they should observe when using their social media platforms responsibly. Despite the benefits linked to social media invention, the negativities have taken over, especially because social media usage is addictive and causes sleep disruptions and loneliness, making it hard for most people to maintain conversation face to face. Experts in technology and mental health should explain the importance of people having moderate conversations on their smartphones and social media platforms.
Introduction
The use of social media has become common with easy access to smartphones and other devices that can be connected to the internet. Studies have shown that there is a great link between the use of social media on the issues of mental health that have increased, affecting most users (Berryman et al., 2018). The research study will focus on individuals aged 18-65 years to understand better how social media use is linked to increased mental health cases such as depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and loneliness. Social media is linked to the promotion of life inadequacy and appearance.
Smartphones and other devices that can adopt the new technology help individuals remain socially active by providing social media and many apps, for example, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Smartphones have helped improve the lives of individuals as human connectivity remains closer and more affordable. Smartphones have helped build close relationships for there to be happiness, mostly even where there are long-distance relationships. People cannot forge online connections through smartphones and computers (Berryman et al., 2018). Studies show that most of these young adults spend most of their time having their cell phones, making them more prone to depression, anxiety, and stress.
As studies have shown among young adults, the excessive use of smartphones has increased the risk of problems related to mental health. Loneliness among these individuals has been linked to increased depression (Robinson et al., 2019). Most of these young people have issues with their sleep, thus ending up with anxiety problems causing increased suicide risk. The social media invention was with positive thinking whereby its main aim was to connect people in the world despite their location. The creation of social media apps was to help individuals to have a close and better connection with their loved ones more often.
Problem Statement
The issue of social media and its impact on mental health requires addressing to help reduce mental health cases and follow through to come up with a solution on how social media usage can be to create a more positive impact.
Purpose of the Research
There are short-term and long-term advantages that will be considered to help improve the use of social media among the different age groups to remain sane and avoid the wastage of resources, especially in the treatment of mental illnesses. There will be the need to explain the positive impact of social media and if various users widely use them. Considering social media technology was developed to improve communication and research by making them more efficient by saving time. Because they are easy to carry, students can carry out their research in the fastest way possible. Some of the topics that will be broadly evaluated are how the usage of smartphones has increased immoral activities, caused health issues, and poor vision. Also, the essay will explain more about social media usage and the effects on teenagers and adults, and the contribution of applications’ problematic usage.
Research Question
What is the impact of social media on mental health among people aged 18-65?
Research Methodology
The research methodology applicable to the essay will be broad as preliminary research is undertaken. There will be observations, interviews, and data experimentation to enable data collection.
Observation
Observational data will be captured by observing the behavior and activities of teenagers between 14-18 years in Spain. There will be open-ended surveys and sensors to help with recording information in real-time to collect observational data.
Experimentation
The experimental data will be collected through an active intervention to help with the production and change measurement to create a difference if, in any case, any variables are altered. The experimental data will help build a relationship with the target group for me to understand their social media usage patterns better. The methodology will answer the question of how the different age groups think the usage of smartphones has changed how people conduct their activities in their given space through the use of smartphones to access social media. There will be a recording of the experiments and encounters when collecting data among the different age groups in detail to help give a solution that will be impactful.
Interviews
Face-to-face interviews will help better understand how social media affects the target group’s mental health.
Literature Review
Most social media users use the internet and mobile technology, with research showing that older teenagers, especially girls, spend most of their time on the social sites available on their smartphones (Abi-Jaoude et al., 2020). Teenage girls find social networking sites as places where they can reinforce their friendships that are already pre-existing. At the same time, for the guys, the network provides an opportunity for them to conduct their flirting activities and make new friends. It can be noted that future business relations will be influenced by the new business relationships adopted through new methods of connections that the social media users on their social platforms are forming. Notably, technology expansion through social media creates undesirable behavior among young adults, and it is primarily uncontrollable.
Through smartphones, the new technologies have established various new networks through the technological, social networks, and exposure that previously did not occur as it is massive today. A short time ago, the use of social media caused the development of specific characteristics. For example, withdrawal and isolation have been considered disorders that could mostly end up causing users to get involved in taking toxic substances and undesirable behaviors being exhibited (Robinson et al., 2019). Today among many young adults, there is extreme observable accessibility of behavioral phenomena’ deformations derived from different tendencies, given that they allow most social media users to come up with groups that are consistent with homogeneous content that primarily consists of varying dependence types that are not mainly aware of the facts.
As smartphones and computers continue becoming more technologically generalized, some countries, such as Spain, have been identified as one of the leading European smart computers and phone market penetrations. From the different results collected, it is evident that between the excessive usage of social media by teenagers and the cognitive avoidance coping the approximation of behavior and their frequent and occasional use, other differences exist between the different sexes (Glazzard & Stones, 2019). All the coping strategies towards the problem that mainly affects girls make the age of interaction and usage of mobile phones variable, especially in young adults between 18-30 years, who are the most frequent users. However, it is essential to note that young adults are more vulnerable than those aged between31-65 are the most venerable towards the development of excessive social media usage even with those confronting the problem using an approximation do not use it in excess.
Discussion
Stress and Depression
Most social media addicts prefer sending messages to calling can lead to developing tendonitis, which causes them to feel pain in their necks, backs, and hands due to the poor posture they expose themselves to. Excessive social media uses results in musculoskeletal disorders and arthritis on the thumbs and forearms (Glazzard & Stones, 2019). Because of the disorders, individuals can have stress because they are tempted to spend the whole day texting and talking instead of engaging themselves in more productive things. The various research conducted shows that smartphone technology has had individuals who spend most of their time using their smartphones be more prone to depression, anxiety, and stress. This thus makes them be at risk of having mental health problems.
Sleep Loss
As has been shown in research, most young adults keep their smartphones near where they sleep in order for them to remain reachable all the time and answer calls and texts as fast as possible (Robinson et al., 2019). Because of this behavior, they become more likely to suffer from sleep interruption because they predominantly suffer from increased tiredness. Lack of enough sleep makes it possible for individuals to cause accidents as they drive as they may sleep off, especially when driving for long distances. Young adults, unlike older adults, are also highly linked to being the population that attends to social media while driving, which is dangerous since they are more likely to be distracted. The use of phones while on the roads should be a strict no.
Anxiety
Social media usage due to the replying of text as their primary communication mode and checking whether they are gaining popularity can cause increased anxiety. Texting can be linked to being quantifiable instantly but mainly produces anxiety. It is normal having elation and joy after receiving a reply from a friend, but if there is no response or delayed response can cause worry and disappointment. The addiction to social media mostly becomes an obsession that causes increased anxiety by creating an illusion that one has received even when none is causing them to have a frequent check on their phones.
Cyberbullying and False Prestige
Studies on the target population have shown that around ten percent of social media users have been cyberbullied through different social media platforms. Another small percentage also has, through their smartphones, cyber-bullied someone (Glazzard & Stones, 2019). Cyberbullying from surveys makes individuals feel will and sad even to attend school. At the same time, individuals who have been cyberbullied are exposed to being at higher risk of developing mental disorders and problems linked to their psychology, such as depression, high rates of anxiety, and difficulties falling asleep. Unlike physical bullying, cyberbullying among individuals is not easy to identify.
The connectivity of social apps to smartphones and computers will continue to grow, making the smartphone a centralized system that can be used in the bottlenecks brokerage (Glazzard & Stones, 2019). Because the internet growth continues, more people will need to have huge investments in the latest technologies and the amount of spending on the maintenance of servers that help keep the population connected to the internet.
Results
Graph showing the link between social media and depression
The impact of social media usage and its effects is well discussed. It is important to note that social media technology will continue advancing and is here to stay forever. Governments have to teach their netizens about the safety of their smartphones how they can responsibly use them by having a clear definition of the boundaries they should observe when using their social media platforms responsibly (Abi-Jaoude et al., 2020). The boundaries should be agreed upon to avoid adverse effects on mental health. Some of the ways that individuals using social media can be controlled are by negotiating with psychiatrists on the amount of time they should use social media and the amount of money spent on their long usage of the smartphone. As older adults, it is important to explain the need for their impulse curbing of instant text replying.
While driving, they need to understand why they should have their smartphones off and why they should have notifications off while going to sleep for them to have a well-maintained sleep schedule to avoid developing anxiety problems (Abi-Jaoude et al., 2020). Experts in technology and mental health should explain the importance of people having moderate conversations on their smartphones and social media platforms. It can help them reduce the adverse, ill effects of the pronged usage of their phones by encouraging them to limit their conversation to not more than 40 minutes a day. Individuals should be encouraged to install apps that can help them with their coordination of keeping track of their daily phone usage.
A monthly plan option should be given to them as most monthly plan options have regulated text messages and call minutes. Therefore, they can be advocated to help track how often they send messages and to what numbers communicate too often on stories regarding social media gossip (Abi-Jaoude et al., 2020). Also, individuals should ensure that they spend some of their time doing physical activities, for example, walking and running, and they should be encouraged to leave their phones behind.
Conclusion
Suppose there is not much care is taken on mental health. In that case, the problems linked to social media usage will continue increasing, which translates to increased mental illnesses that will cause much more resources to be spent on treating mental illnesses and the experience of a high number of young adults taking their own lives due to cyberbullying. Despite the benefits linked to social media invention, the negativities have taken over, especially because social media usage is addictive and causes sleep disruptions and loneliness, making it hard for most people to maintain conversation face to face.
The positive impact social media inventions had been aimed to hold on society should be maintained. It was for a good course of keeping people connected to their loved ones with the increased globalization by making the invention of devices such as smartphones easy to carry and having applications developed to keep people connected and strengthen their communications with those they care about. The governments should take it as their initiative to educate the public on how more screen time affects their psychology and explain more about the effects caused to the brain by social media usage.
References
Abi-Jaoude, E., Naylor, K. T., & Pignatiello, A. (2020). Smartphones, social media use and youth mental health. Cmaj, 192(6), E136-E141.
Berryman, C., Ferguson, C. J., & Negy, C. (2018). Social media use and mental health among young adults. Psychiatric quarterly, 89(2), 307-314.
Glazzard, J., & Stones, S. (2019). Social media and young people’s mental health. Selected Topics in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 7.
Robinson, P., Turk, D., Jilka, S., & Cella, M. (2019). Measuring attitudes towards mental health using social media: investigating stigma and trivialisation. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 54(1), 51-58.
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