Introduction
It is important to note that with the rise of the Internet and globalization, social media platforms have exploded in their popularity and use across all nations, ages, and other demographics. Social media is designed to mimic and enhance human connectivity by making communication instantaneous as well as enabling sharing options, such as images, audio, videos, or written text. Human development and well-being is an intricate and delicate process, which is designed and evolved to properly proceed in a specific environment. Social media disrupts such a healthy condition by expanding the range of socialization opportunities available for people causing harm in the form of mental health issues, with children and adolescents being the most vulnerable.
Social Media Effects Among Adolescents and Children
One should be aware that the negative impact of social media on people’s well-being is multifactorial and multifaceted, which implies that it is severely dangerous. The research found that “the dangers … include risks towards personal safety, identity theft, privacy concerns, access to disturbing and inappropriate material, social isolation, and … mental health concerns” (Dyer, 2018, p. 1). In the case of the latter, these include issues “such as depression, anxiety, and poor sleep. There is also a significant risk of children becoming targets of cyberbullying or sexting” (Dyer, 2018, p. 1). In other words, there is an array of problems caused by social media concerning people. These effects can be even more detrimental among younger children and teens, which is why people should be concerned about allowing a child to use these platforms. One should know that his or her involvement, supervision, and monitoring of the use of social media can greatly reduce these risks (Dyer, 2018). Thus, social media is critically dangerous for children and adolescents when given without proper and up-close control of dosage, exposure, and use.
Adolescents are one of the most vulnerable members of the population due to their sensitive developmental phase, and they are experiencing the negative brain-altering effects of social media the most. There’s “a strong association between the use of social media and depression in adolescents. The more depressed adolescents are, the more they use social media; the more they use social media, the more depressed they are” (Ghaemi, 2020, para. 3). In other words, interactions with social media and the Internet are not a one-way input because the described tools also affect the human brain. Teenagers are in their developmental stages, which means that their full development requires correct information and social context. However, social media ‘hacks’ the core social elements making them more exposed and vulnerable to a wide range of negative forces. For instance, social media filters can enhance one’s beauty to an unrealistic degree, which creates an illusion of unobtainable standards of beauty. The social approval elements of such platforms make adolescents vulnerable to shallow online provision of attention, and examples include likes, emojis, or even comments.
Social Media Effects On Adults
It is important to note that the impact of communication technology in terms of human brain alteration is not limited to adolescents because adults are vulnerable as well. When it comes to adults, social media can cause depression, anxiety, and a host of other mental health problems. A study states that “findings strongly suggest that limiting social media use to approximately 30 minutes per day may lead to significant improvement in well-being” (Hunt et al., 2018, p. 751). In other words, abstaining from or limiting the use of social media brings a lot of benefits to a person’s mental health, which indicates negative implications and effects of the information overload of these instruments. Another study shows that depending on “time spent, activity, investment, and addiction. All domains correlated with depression, anxiety, and psychological distress” (Keles et al., 2020, p. 79). Thus, a person must be conscious and aware of how much time one spends on social media to prevent depressive symptoms.
Social media negatively impacts adults by atrophying critical cognitive elements. Carr (2008) states that “our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged” (para. 9). For example, the emergence of cars made walking obsolete in addition to horse riding and bicycles, and many human inventions led to the elimination of physical labor elements in one’s daily life. However, such a change also led to a sharp decrease in the amount of physical activity, which caused new problems, such as a sedentary lifestyle, obesity, and a weakened heart. In response, humans realize that one needs to incorporate exercises to compensate for the loss. Similarly, communication technology and the Internet atrophied certain elements of cognitive function, such as attention, memory, and focus. However, no measures are taken to compensate for the described losses.
Conclusion
In conclusion, social media affects the human brain both in the developmental stage and the developed stage, which leads to a reciprocal reinforcement of the perpetual cycle of negative interdependence. The human brain changes when it repetitively uses social media. The current social context does not protect from the negative impacts of technology but rather reinforces it. In addition, the human brain reciprocally changes into a thought pattern resembling a computer, which facilitates further use.
References
Carr, N. (2022). Is Google making us stupid? The Atlantic.
Dyer, T. (2018). The effects of social media on children. Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management, 14, 1-16.
Ghaemi, N. (2020). Snapchat depression. Tufts Now.
Hunt, M. G., Marx, R., Lipson, C., & Young, J. (2018). No more FOMO: Limiting social media decreases loneliness and depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 37(10), 751–768.
Keles, B., & McCrae, N., & Grealish, A. (2020). A systematic review: The influence of social media on depression, anxiety and psychological distress in adolescents. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 25(1), 79-93.