Social media is affecting many teenagers’ mental health, giving them anxiety and depression. Many people see social media as “harmless,” but teenagers whose brains are still growing are getting affected by what social media is showing them. When teenagers are on social media they want to get with the trends. When they see trending clothing they beg their parents to get it for them. This is because they want to feel included in something.
Teenagers may not see it now, but they want social acceptance. So when they see kids their age that are skinny, with shiny undamaged hair, tan skin, and with a white straight smile they get self conscious. It won’t bother them at first, until they see someone who has the same body type getting called fat and ugly. They are slowly going to wonder if they are ugly too. Then once they get thoughts like, “Am i fat?” or, “Am i ugly?” Those thoughts slowly start getting to them.
You might not know this, but if you really think about something, or put something in your mind, your brain latches onto it and believes it. If something is said or done, often you will slowly catch on. Our brains are like sponges, they absorb all the negative and positive things in life. When you’re around negative people with negative thoughts, you start to act like those people. You start to act upon those negative thoughts.
Social media is setting up this impossible beauty standard. When these little kids are seeing this, they slowly become insecure. They start wearing less revealing clothing and stop acting like themselves. They would slowly start to think that they are what kids now say “chopped.” They will feel uncomfortable in their own bodies.
This would lead to depression or anxiety, maybe even both. When they walk around, they would feel like everyone is looking at them judging them. Then they get so anxious when being outside, they would just stop going out in general. They start to think everyone is against them and they would stop socializing with people outside of their friend group. They would think so much that they would start losing sleep.
Lack of sleep can cause depression. It does this because it disrupts your brain’s emotional regulation. This can cause verbal outbursts and aggression, which would cause you to yell at the people you love most. Then, eventually, you’d feel bad because you didn’t want to yell, you just wanted to get your point across.
When your emotional regulation is low, it could cause substance abuse, self harm, sexual behavior, and even sometimes physical aggression. Eventually you would start to become someone you don’t recognize. This would affect your mental health heavily because you never wanted to be like this. You just wanted social acceptance. Social media is one of the causes leading to depression and anxiety. So do not listen/ follow what you see on social media because the ending is not always sunshines and rainbows.
