Benefits of social media

Impact of social media and screen-use on young people’s health

Fourteenth Report of Session 2017–19
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/social-media-and-mental-health.htm

‘A joint response from the charities YoungMinds and The Children’s Society, based on their own
engagement with 1,000 young people aged 11–25 years, reported that social media helped “to
foster and sustain relationships”, with 62% of respondents agreeing that “social media had a positive
impact on their relationship with their friends”.’

‘Our survey of over 3,000 pupils aged between 6 and 19 years showed that “following friends’
updates” was the main reason 27% of respondents used social media’

Research conducted with 1,060 teenagers in the USA, and highlighted by Professor Przybylski and
colleagues, found that 57% of those aged 13 to 17 had made a new friend online, while 68% said
they had “received social support by using [social media] technologies in tough or challenging
times”.

This latter point came through in work conducted in the UK by the Royal Society for Public Health
(RSPH), with “nearly seven in 10 teens” reporting that they had received “support on social media
during tough or challenging times”.

Social Media and Mental Health -

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmsctech/822/822.pdf

‘While virtual interaction on social media doesn’t have the same psychological benefits as face-to-
face contact, there are still many positive ways in which it can help you stay connected and support
your wellbeing.

Social media enables you to:

 Communicate and stay up to date with family and friends around the world.

 Find new friends and communities; network with other people who share similar
interests or ambitions.

 Join or promote worthwhile causes; raise awareness on important issues.

 Seek or offer emotional support during tough times.

 Find vital social connection if you live in a remote area, for example, or have limited
independence, social anxiety, or are part of a marginalised group.

 Find an outlet for your creativity and self-expression.

 Discover (with care) sources of valuable information and learning.’

Cyber bullying

https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/family-safety/cyberbullying-statistics/

Key Takeaways:

 38 percent of people experience cyberbullying on social media platforms daily.

 Foreign national students experience more cyberbullying than their locally-born
counterparts.
 Cyberbullying is the number one concern for school staff.
 25 percent of students who are cyberbullied turn to self-harm to cope. 

 Educational pressure
https://kansas.kvc.org/2020/11/10/how-does-academic-stress-affect-mental-health-in-the-age-of-
digital-learning/

Research shows that academic stress leads to less well-being and an increased likelihood of
developing anxiety or depression. Additionally, students who have academic stress tend to do poorly
in school

we need to stop making mental illness look cool on social media

The trend of falsely portraying anxiety and depression threatens the already fragile well-being of
more young people than ever before.

V
A quick search of #depressed on Instagram brings up over 12 million posts. Interspersed between
black and white photos and gifs of crying cartoons are pictures of pretty girls smoking and the
occasional sadboi-with-tattoo overlaid with text like "Help me" and "I want to go far away …
forever."
These romanticized depictions of mental illness are what mental health professional Aditi Verma
calls “beautiful suffering”: a meme-ified version of mental illness that reduces anxiety and
depression to a temporary feeling capable of being depicted through dark edits and simplified text.

With a 71 percent increase in mental illness diagnoses in adults aged 18-25 during the last 10 years,
the trend of falsely portraying the mentally ill experience threatens the already fragile well-being of
more young people than ever before.

 it can keep people with mental illness from feeling valid in their personal experience. “Answers we
seek from a professional become answers we seek online,” said Verma. “Misinformation of mental
health can lead those astray from gaining real awareness of their conflict they're experiencing within
themselves.”