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Seth Sanders

English Composition II

Nate Hellmers

December 13, 2020

How does social media affect mental health and behavior?”

            Electronics are so influential and have become such a building block in modern societies.

This increase in availability has made electronics a necessity in today’s world. As electronics rise

in popularity, so does the growing concern parents and psychologists have for the well-being of

children across the world. With the developments of electronics came the birth of social media

and the internet. Many children today have never known a world without some access to

electronics or social media. These amazing advancements provide billions of users with endless

information and have made a way for people to connect to each other daily, without being face to

face. In this paper, I will discuss the research question, “How does social media affect mental

health and behavior?” By exploring reliable sources and experiences, I will explain some good

and bad consequences to this increase in modern day technology.  

This paper will be sectioned into several parts that include, the history of social media,

examples of the different types of social media, and the effects it can have on real life situations

and people, in America and other countries.  Within this paper, I will demonstrate many different

aspects and forms of Social media in hopes of broadening the readers viewpoint of its impact.

Throughout this paper, I will express the pros and cons of social media and show the reader how

social media is more than just zeros and ones floating across a network.
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History of Social media

To begin, I will go over some of the history of Social media. The technical beginning of

social media was on May 24 in 1844 (Maryville University). This beginning form of

communication was merely a few electronic dashes and dots that translated messages from place

to place by what we know as Morse code. Morse code was a very early form of communication

that is defined as “either of two codes consisting of variously spaced dots and dashes or long and

short sounds used for transmitting messages by audible or visual signals” (Merriam-Webster

Dictionary).  Individuals used this form of communication to communicate distressed calls and

other messages to people instead of talking.

There’s a lot of rooting history in the evolution of social media that is mainly sourced to

Advanced Research Projects Agency Network or ARPANET. According to the article “The

Evolution of Social Media: How Did It Begin, and Where Could It Go Next?”, the ARPANET

systems were used by four interconnected university scientists to share information, data and

research and was made by the United States Department of Defense. The next leap towards

modern day social media was a nationwide digital network known as NSFNET. This network,

launched by the National Science Foundation, allowed the first true social media to be launched

in 1997. The growth of the internet’s use in the 1980s and 1990s enabled many different social

media platforms to begin popping up and flourishing as an alternate way to talk to friends and

family, or even conduct business. 

An early example of this alternative way of communication was the short-lived social

media platform “Six degrees” (Maryville University). Six degrees was a profile uploading

service that was made in 1997 it was a way for people to reach out make new friends. In the late
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1990s, things like weblogs began to pick up speed and became a popular form of self-expression

on the internet. The growing popularity was thanks to the web service LiveJournal, which is a

community publishing platform that was “willfully blurring the lines between blogging and

social networking.” (LiveJournal) Things like LinkedIn were made for people who were looking

for more a professional platform or job listings. In today's modern age of Social media, platforms

like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Discord, TikTok and many more are dominating

with each platform averaging billions of users every

day.  

Maryville University

Examples of Social Media

Next, I will go over the definition and some examples of social media that will be

referenced again later in the essay. Merriam Webster dictionary describes social media as “forms

of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging)

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through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages,

and other content (such as videos)”. As mentioned above, some very familiar examples of social

media are apps like; Instagram, Facebook, Discord, TikTok, Reddit, etc. These apps connect

users around the world for a multitude of personal and business needs. 

Usually, each platform has its own appeal to it and each concept generally draws a consumer

towards it. For example, Discord is generally for people who play video games and want to chat

with their friends who also play video games. Instagram is mainly used for people who want to

show other people different aspects of their lives through pictures. Reddit is for people who want

to share their ideas with others, whether that be political or lighthearted. Facebook is very similar

to Instagram however, it appeals more to older consumers and you will find a wide range of

users on this site sharing messages, pictures and videos. Lastly, TikTok is targeted more towards

children and is often used alongside its sister app, “Musical.ly”, which was created as a lip-

syncing/ short comedy video app.   

Negative Effects of Social Media

“An estimated 9 of 10 people in the United States have cell phones'' (Alvarez), this means

that tons of people are likely to be exposed to social media every day. Technology usage rates

reported by Turkish Statistical Institute show that social media is one of the most popular

activities engaged in on the internet by 82.4% (Kırcaburun, Kokkinos, Demetrovics, Király,

Griffiths and Çolak). This access allows individuals to meet new people and even find potential

partners all at the touch of their fingers. Conversely, this increased access to social media also

leads people to run into some not so savory situations. 

Cyber bullying has become a huge issue that affects 20-40% of young people, and

countless adults. These online attacks have reached across countries throughout the world
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impacting people who may have never been in an online social community, as well as

individuals who have used social media for a decent amount of time (Kırcaburun, Kokkinos,

Demetrovics, Király, Griffiths and Çolak). Cyber bullying usually has to do with teens harassing

one another over the internet, either individually or in a group. In terms of online relationships,

cyber bullying can become very severe, especially if it's purely an online interaction.

The anonymity of the internet tends to provide individuals with a sense of courage they

may not normally possess. Because individuals are hidden behind a screen and keyboard they

often use this false sense of protection as a shield and pass to harass others. This

harassment/bullying can be as simple as posting mean comments, to extremes like telling

someone to commit suicide, or harm themselves. There have been several cases where

individuals have used social media to share intimate details about themselves or others, in

attempts to harm someone emotionally. Because people are so impressionable, these electronic

attacks can cause irreversible damage to individuals of all ages especially the younger

generation. Another effect that the internet can have on someone is Problematic Social Media

Use or PMSU. Examples of PMSU is: the inability to disconnect. Oftentimes, individuals find it

hard to disengage with the multiple social media outlets. Having a negative reaction to being

away from these online platforms, along with social media not always being the best and safest

means of communication due to cyberbullying, stalking and online addictions, lots of electronic

platforms have additional stigmas and trivializations against mental and psychical disorders. 

The dictionary defines stigmatize as, “to describe or identify in opprobrious terms”

(Merriam-Webster), which is another way of saying reacting negatively towards a group of

people for something they can’t control or enjoy doing. Things like depression and being

obsessed with any specific type of franchise can cause individuals to be negatively stigmatized.
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Patrick Robinson, Daniel Turk, Sagar Jilka and Matteo Cella, performed an evaluation to

measure the stigma surrounding certain disorders. They used the social media platform Twitter to

investigate the stigmatizing and trivializing of different physical and mental conditions and

performing this evaluation on such a big platform such as Twitter was bound to get some

resourceful results. They used an automated software to gather tweets about five mental

conditions and five physical conditions every 72 hours over a 50-day time frame. Each topic was

categorized and evaluated randomly. 

A total of 1,059,258 tweets were collected and 1300 results per condition were counted

and analyzed. Overall, mental health was more trivialized and stigmatized than psychical

conditions with mental health being 12.9% stigmatized and 14.3% trivialized. Even though

mental health had higher percentages, psychical health was still 8.1% stigmatized and 6.8%

trivialized. These findings show that mental and psychical conditions are commonly stigmatized

and trivialized on social media, with things like schizophrenia being the most stigmatized and

obsessive-compulsive disorder media being the most trivialized.  

The consequences of social media are sort of hit or miss, and it effects people around

the world. Various studies show that social media can have a range of effects on someone’s

mental health; very positive, negative, or even no effect whatsoever. (Sujarwoto,

Tampubolon, Pierewan). They found that most American university students who use

Facebook excessively are more likely to experience feelings of intense loneliness. They used a

dummy variable of adults that spend time on phones to use social media. The control variable

was a person’s life situations like marital status, age, gender, etc. They concluded that social

media has a negative effect on developed and developing countries, which is the same

conclusion that other studies came too.

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Good Effects of Social Media

Social Media is a double-edged sword, with the lots of bad comes the lots of good. Social

media presents a chance for scientists and researchers to learn more about the general public

just by posting a poll or survey online. Lindsey Dewa and Mary Lavelle conducted a qualitative

study, to explore the acceptability that young adults would have with using social media and

other alternatives to track their mental health. For this analysis, they interview sixteens

participants with four main themes; dealing with mental health symptoms, signs of mental health

deterioration, technology concerns and technological applications to identify worsening mental health.

Social media was an acceptable and feasible way to detect mental health deterioration. This led to the

conclusion that social media and wearable devices could help track the deterioration in young in order

to avoid delay in accessing mental health (Lindsey Dewa and Mary Lavelle).

Conclusion

After my extensive research, I believe that social media is a crutch to society.

Although it may come with lots of good like the ability to reach out to people and easier

access to certain communities, it also brings a lot of negative along with it. Things like

cyberbullying, stigma and trivialization and the general negative effects that it has on people

across the world outweigh the good. Although I believe that social media is not the best thing

for the world, I have to agree that I am in support of the things it’s doing to help destigmatize

mental health and physical issues and also the ways its trying to monitor mental health in

general.
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Notes

1. The definitions of the social media platforms are summarized versions of the

community agreed purposes of said platform.

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Works Cited

'IH8U': Confronting Cyberbullying and Exploring the Use of Cybertools in Teen Dating

Relationships. By: Alvarez, Antonia R.G., Journal of Clinical Psychology, 00219762,

Nov2012, Vol. 68, Issue 11

Young adults’ perceptions of using wearables, social media and other technologies to detect

worsening mental health: A qualitative study. By: Dewa, Lindsay H., Lavelle, Mary,

Pickles, Katy, Kalorkoti, Caroline, Jaques, Jack, Pappa, Sofia, Aylin, Paul, PLoS ONE,

19326203, 9/18/2019, Vol. 14, Issue 9

Problematic Online Behaviors among Adolescents and Emerging Adults: Associations between

Cyberbullying Perpetration, Problematic Social Media Use, and Psychosocial

Factors. By: Kırcaburun, Kagan, Kokkinos, Constantinos M., Demetrovics, Zsolt, Király,

Orsolya, Griffiths, Mark D., Çolak, Tuğba Seda, International Journal of Mental Health

& Addiction, 15571874, Aug2019, Vol. 17, Issue 4

“The Evolution of Social Media: How Did It Begin and Where Could It Go Next?” Maryville

Online, 2 June 2020, online.maryville.edu/blog/evolution-social-media/.

“Morse code.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster,

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Morse%20code. Accessed 12 Dec. 2020.

Measuring attitudes towards mental health using social media: investigating stigma and
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Trivialization, by: Robinson, Patrick, Turk, Daniel, Jilka, Sagar, Cella, Matteo, Social

Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology, 09337954, Jan2019, Vol. 54, Issue 1

MODERATING MENTAL HEALTH. By: smith, s. e., Bitch Magazine: Feminist Response to

Pop Culture, 15245314, Winter2020, Issue 85

“Social media.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster,

https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/social%20media. Accessed 12 Dec.

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A Tool to Help or Harm? Online Social Media Use and Adult Mental Health in Indonesia.

By: Sujarwoto, Sujarwoto, Tampubolon, Gindo, Pierewan, Adi Cilik, International

Journal of Mental Health & Addiction, 15571874, Aug2019, Vol. 17, Issue 4