Social Media; Your’e either in or out

Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram, all these names most people know. They are our world now, they are how we communicate with others. Social media wasn’t always around as most adults know, you used to have to call or email, I couldn’t imagine doing this but what if it is better? In this argumentative essay, I am going to be talking about the effects on mental health due to social media and why social media could be seen as an effective communication source but it is really just a barrier.

In the United States, more than 69% of adults and 81% of teens use social media(MGB). This means that a little over half the adult population and almost all teenagers are more susceptible to mental health illness. But before I talk about mental health issues I want to talk about FOMO; the fear of missing out. According to the MGB, FOMO is the starter for mental health issues on social media, especially for females. When you go online and see other people doing things that you weren’t invited to or lied about it can really affect your thoughts about yourself. I know the other side will say stuff like how you can’t be invited to everything and maybe not everyone will like you and that’s completely fine, but if we didn’t have social media at least people wouldn’t be able to see this or rub it into others faces to purposely make them upset. But let’s talk about the serious mental health conditions brought on by this,  like depression and anxiety. According to Etactics from the year 2005 to 2017 the number of adolescents reporting signs of major depression went up by 52% and suicide rates nearly raised by 150% and the self-harm rates for young girls tripled.  Anxiety increased by 25% due to FOMO. These facts and data should prove to you that maybe social media isn’t all that good for people and that it’s not safe to be on especially if you are young. 59% of kids are harassed or bullied online, how would you feel if your brother or sister was harassed and you never even knew? 

When you look up reasons why social media is good three main reasons come up, instant discussion, relationships and it is simply a low-cost alternative to going out. These all sound really good, being able to just send a snap to talk to someone you haven’t seen in a while or building relationships with people all around the world. This is seriously dangerous though, according to crisis prevention over 13% of teens find their relationships online, and nearly 38% get catfished or roped into a dangerous relationship. The next big problem is instant communication, when something happens it ends up all over the internet right after, but I don’t think this is good. People are entitled to their privacy, and if something super emotional happened to you, you wouldn’t want everyone talking about it online.

In conclusion the bads of social media out-way the good by a lot! Mental health has skyrocketed in the two thousands and social media is a key contributor to this, and if we can get rid of this and save a lot of kids from dealing with this then why wouldn’t we? But I do understand why we use social media and I am not going to deny I use it every day, I think if there was an option of getting rid of it, it would be hard but I would.

“Automotive Social Media Marketing” by socialautomotive is licensed under CC BY 2.0.