The twenty-first century is the era of social media, and it significantly influences the life, health, and values of everyone involved. People are now used to having online conversations and building relationships through social media. These radical changes impact mental health due to the new attitudes a person gets when social networking becomes a vast part of their life. The research will specify this factor and raise the question of whether the daily use of social media severely impacts mental health. If the analysis reveals issues that worsen mental health conditions, demand in finding ways of preventing the consequences will appear. Social media is multiple online applications people use for sharing their life, experiences, opinions, emotions, and getting feedback from others. Under mental health conditions, the research implies an individual’s well-being related to their emotional, psychological, and social behaviors. The severe impact on mental health includes such problems as depression, anxiety, anti-social behavior, and decreasing willingness to build relationships.
The research question is as follows: “Does daily use of social media severely impact an individual’s mental health?”. It is crucial to answering it as the amount of time spent on social media increases, and each person’s mental health is still the essential factor of society’s well-being. Moreover, the virus-caused lockdown turned social media into the main communication channel, and the investigation of its impact on mental health is even more worthy this year.
There are many contrary facts around the relationship between the objectives of the research. Scientific studies claim that time spent on social media has no influence on depression or anxiety among adolescents and adults (Coyne et al.). However, people say that the more time they spend in online conversations, the less they want to communicate in person, and such a tendency is devastating for society. The current discussion of the research topic seeks balance as the impact of social media might be severe for well-being, but limiting this network usage might, in its turn, affect the modern lifestyle. The lack of human interactions can destroy social institutions, change people’s values, and slow down scientific and technological progress. Thus, it is urgent to define and understand how exactly social media impacts an individual’s mental health and prevent possible severe consequences.
The background information for the research includes many personal experiences of people with mental health issues and a general review of average social media users’ attitudes. There are many terms and concepts to define during the research, such as social media consumption, online conversation types, and different mental illnesses. It is also important to choose the criteria for which social media use consequences will be counted as severe and vice-versa. Besides, proven research methods will be used, such as interviews, data collection, and observation.
As the topic is urgent and widely known among modern society, many studies have been conducted within the last decade. Thus, for this research, peer-reviewed articles, social analysis, and interviews with people experienced in mental health issues will be used as sources. It will be crucial to choose data from different disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, humanities, medicine, and technology. This approach will make an investigation more valuable as it will include multiple points of view on social media’s impact on mental health.
Work Cited
Coyne, Sarah M., et al. “Does Time Spent Using Social Media Impact Mental Health?: An Eight-Year Longitudinal Study.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 104, 2020, 106160. Web.