I (Makayla) have been a student here at Tallwood High School for 4 years now. I have personally noticed the mental toll that social media has taken on my fellow students. Cell phones are so draining that the Virginia Beach City Public Schools had to make a law banning phones in school.
While social media offers connection, its algorithmic design and addictive nature often damage adolescent mental health, creating a ‘mental health minefield’ that drives anxiety, depression, and body image issues. Some believe this is an impact of the overuse of social media. According to a new report published by the Pew Research Center, nearly half of American teenagers say they are online ‘constantly’ despite concerns about the effects of social media and smartphones on their mental health”.
I am concerned about how much Tallwood teens use social media and how it impacts their mental health because it’s important. Everyday, teens are damaged by the use of social media. Just by the age 14, girls and boys’ well-being drops significantly. 14 is way too young to be affected so much by social media. They’ve barely even lived. After 14, girls’ mental health only declines.
This is research from the Education Policy Institute and The Prince’s Trust, which stated, well being and self-esteem were similar in all children of primary school age. Heavy social media use is often given big credit to young girls and their feelings of depression and hopelessness. Is that how we want the world to be in the near future? No.
“Those who feel worse may turn to social media for solace or community” Dr Amy Orben, research fellow at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, said of the research. It’s not a vacuum, it works both ways. It’s also known that the pandemic was a key factor in teens at Tallwood mental health, regarding social media. We experienced Covid-19 before we reached high school. That global pandemic ripped us apart.
It’s even known that participation in activities and sports will have fallen considerably due to school closures and lock downs, likely adversely affecting mental health and well being. Social media is often used as a coping mechanism in teens, but this only makes their mental status worse. Mental health awareness has only become popular recently. It is due to social media.
As evidenced in a recent Surgeon General’s Advisory, research shows that use of social media is one of the leading causes of mental health and social problems among teens in Tallwood, particularly among teen girls. Definitely in teen girls, it is common to see them struggle with things like self and body image.
I (Addyson) see it in the girls at Tallwood first hand. They walk into the bathroom and immediately look at themselves in the mirror with a frown on their face. This is often an outcome of their use of social media as well as the things they see and interact with online. Comparison is the thief of joy.
In 2023 the US Surgeon General published an advisory that highlighted the relationship between social media and youth mental health as an urgent public health crisis. Social media can also show self-harm acts and sexually explicit material. This leads to the normalization of both simply because it’s easily accessible to see online, therefore, taking away the purity of teenagers.
Social media influences our emotions without necessarily damaging overall mental health. The research states, screen time spent gaming or on social media does not cause mental health problems in teenagers, according to a large-scale study.
It was stated that social media can affect one’s feelings but not their mental health as a whole. According to the research, girls’ and boys’ social media use from year 8 to year 9 and from year 9 to year 10 had zero detrimental impact on their mental health the following year. Journal of Public Health stated, the scientists found that actively chatting on social media or passive scrolling feeds did not appear to drive mental health difficulties.
Social media can be so addicting. The former psychotherapist of a California woman suing Meta claiming a childhood addiction to the platforms damaged her mental health, testified on Tuesday that adolescent social media usage was a contributing factor. There was a civil trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court testing whether Big Tech can be held liable for the design of apps widely blamed for fueling a mental health crisis among young people.
During the trial, there were many facts to whether social media was a contributing factor to her mental health. According to her lawsuit, Kaley began using YouTube when she was 6 and Instagram at age 9, and says the platforms contributed to psychiatric disorders, including depression and body dysmorphia.
Social media is a choice. Tallwood students either use it, or they don’t. Going into it, most teens know, or they should know, that social media is known to cause people mental health issues. While even some big social media platforms are aware of the issues their apps are causing people. For social media to affect a teenager’s mental health, it simply is whether or not you let things get to you. So yes, social media can affect mental health, especially in teens.
This is why Tallwood should have a few weeks in the school year where they challenge students to reduce the use of technology as much as they can. Call it a tech free week. Let’s start small in changing this world. Our students here at Tallwood will take these experiences and use them with their children. Habits can break in one generation and end with just one family member. That is if you try.
