Today, more than ever, the world is connected to one another. Whether down the street or across continents, one’s personal information and social life is readily available. With so much of a person’s life available for the world to see, many young adults seem to suffer from issues of depression and lower self-worth than other previous generations. According to a study by Morrison & Gore, in which researchers used items from the Beck Depression Inventory and IA Test to determine a correlation between depression and excessive internet usage. With an estimated 75% of online adults using social media, as referenced in Pew Internet Research findings, does this level of connectivity and accessibility have an adverse effect on those who use it most? In the Pew research, minorities (those who identify themselves as non-white or, at times, non-heterosexual) accounted for the majority of social users. However, not all social media is used equally. In fact, African-Americans and Hispanics were notably more likely than their Caucasian counterparts to use the photo sharing application, Instagram. (Brenner, pg.6). With such an influential, minority presence on these social media sites, the concept of congnitive well-being, or life satisfaction, is brought into question. (Kross, pg.1). Cognitive well-being can be anlyized by beginning a discussion on usage and if this higher usage can create a sort of addictive, and detrimental, habit in minorities. Due to prior comparative studies and various other studies, we are left questioning if social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, have a correlating effect on the emotional and mental well-being on its users, specifically, those who identify with minority groups. Based off of my rese... ... middle of paper ... ... $20 and were entered into a raffle to receive an iPad2 for participating” (Kross et. al, p. 2, ) Data analysis The data can be analyzed in a number of ways that will not be time consuming, as it will be data gathered and coded from a relatively low-item survey. Because the survey will be either in person or online, I predict that my team will be looking explicitly for correlation of life happiness and emotional health, as well as social media use in minorities. I predict that our coding of results as well as our limitations (save for the 15-years that the study was conducted) may be similar to what results were found in the childhood and social withdrawal study. The Katz et. al. study found “that the current study used latent variable modeling to establish a latent social withdrawal construct defined by four indicators of social withdrawal” (Katz, et. al., 1229, ).
The artist JR once said, “The more social media we have, the more we think we're connecting, yet we are really disconnecting from each other.” The truth behind his quote describes the way social media affects society negatively, taking away what it was actually intended for. Social media has the power to do positive things, but it may actually be a negative concept as well with dependence, shaming, and mental health as the main issues being concerned. Social media dependence has become an ongoing problem, forcing mental illnesses to come into the question with our generation slowly and unintentionally relying on technology and social media for their
Many of our youth turn to social media to vent about any and every issue that is going on and it is not always positive. Dr. Nakagawa described in her article “The Use of Social Media in Teaching Race” how social media might open people to detest discourse or perspectives of White matchless quality. Numerous individuals fail to be racially educated meaning that they lack having the education and knowledge to talk about race, deconstruct and challenge occurrences of bigotry, and interface and work with others to deliver disparities in connection to race. The internet gives numerous chances to utilizing social/new media to produce content and points of view that are generally lost from more extensive societal exchanges about
2. Previous Research: There is a debate as to whether Internet use has a positive or negative impact in our social lives. One study found that for 40% of the college students in their sample, the Internet had been instrumental in the formation of new friendships. Moreover, 7% of their sample had used the Internet to find a romantic partner. The participants in the study claimed that one of the main benefits of communicating through the Internet was reduced social anxiety and shyness (Knox, 2001). In another study, there was evidence that lonely individuals were more likely to use email and the Internet in order to stay connected with others—in theory, giving them a healthier social life—however, evidence showed that heavy use had a negative social impact (Morahan-Martin, 2003). Finally, another study found that individuals comfortable or regularly involved in social gatherings reported more positive effects from Internet use than shy individuals less involved in their community (Kraut, 2002).
Social media is like a virus, you can’t stop people from going online. Depression itself has no remedy, people just have to balance it by therapy and medication. There is no solution to the growing rates of social media connecting to depression, but there has been many studies that proves it to be true. Counseling psychologist, Katey Baruth claims that “participants who did not believe their friendships were of great quality or value on social media sites were also found to be at much greater risk for the development of depressive symptoms”. She explains how social media users believes that social interactions are not valuable which is likely for them to experience the depressive symptoms. It goes back to personal perception, people can choose to use social media to connect with others or they can put themselves down. Of course, many older generations will probably disagree with this assertion that people can’t just choose how they feel. Older generations will blame social media itself, how everything is complicated because it’s easier to find resources and it decreases our social interaction. Marche mentions Moira Burke, a graduate student at the Human-Computer Institute at Carnegie Mellon who studied Facebook users, she believes that, “People whose friends write to them semi-publicly on Facebook experience decreases in loneliness… [Versus] scanning your friends’ status updates and updating the world on your own activities via your wall… correlates to feelings of disconnectedness”. She clarifies that choosing how to communicate online can affect the individual’s mood. It’s a tool for people to choose for socializing or just expressing their
According to Tufts University social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks (www.tufts.edu). Current research indicates that there is a connection between increased social media use and deteriorated mental health. Unfortunately, young adults, the most active social media users, have a predominantly high risk for developing mental health issues, making this connection particularly concerning. Many lives may change to fit the mold of social media, and it may be consuming to the extent that one would miss out on real life scenarios in their immediate surroundings. It turns
In the article “Could lots of time spent on Social be tied to depression? “, author Alan Mozes have talked about a recent research which was done to find relationship between social media and depression. The study had 1,800 men and women ages range between 19 to 32 years old participated. The main question for this finding was, is greater involvement of social media linked to depression or is it depressed people who are drag to social media? Dr. Brian Patrick have suggested three types of results which are expected from the study one of the strongest possibilities is that people who have depressive symptoms tend to use social media more often because they don’t feel the energy to engage with new people. The second possibility is that increased usage in social media use can lead into depressive thoughts. The last possibility is in which depressed people turned towards social media to make the depression worsen. This is a study based on association between social media and depression not cause and effect. Researcher’s had created a questioner that asked the participants the amount of time spent on popular social media such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest ,Vine and Linkedln. From this research it was found that on average participant checked in social media 20 times each week for over an hour a day, and 1/4th participants were appeared at high risk for depression. Along with this researchers have found that those people who are on social media the most are 2.7 times more likely to be depressed compared to people who are on social media least. In the conclusion of the findings Dr. Patrick have said that these finding do not suggest that every person who engage more time on s...
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are only a few of the most common words used in today’s language among children, teens and adults. Such words can be described as popular terms related to what many of us know as social media. In today’s culture, many teenagers rely so heavily on the usage of social media that issues once thought to be revolutionary are now taking place offline and online. In fact, several cases of mental addictions, depression and even suicide have all stemmed from the initial usage of sites such as Facebook, which are otherwise socially accepted as a simple means of communicating with “friends.” While social media does have its advantages, it can also be held responsible for several negative events in the lives of today’s teenagers.
“I didn't know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time –Betty White (“Betty White Quotes,” 2014, para. 1).” This quote can be interpreted to fit with several of the social media avenues that many people spend their time on. Day in and day out people post, tweet, share, and pin countless times throughout the world. These different forms of communication were first created for an easier way for people to connect with others. Yet now, so much time is spent on these social sites that it has warped the interactive part and is causing more damage than good. Many are growing a desire and are living for the amount of “likes” they can receive on a post or how many re-tweets they can generate. Instead of going to these outlets to participate in a partial portion of their social lives, people are filling that time with the technological aspect of communication. As White said, this can become an inordinate amount of wasted time and can ultimately grow into further damaging circumstances. These different social media channels can cause emotional harm through disparaging the relationship between friends, conjuring of a narcissistic personality, and the retrogradation of ones self-esteem.
The University of Salford in the UK did a study last year on social media’s effects on self-esteem and anxiety, and reported that 50% of their 298 participants said that their “use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter makes their lives worse”. (Medical Daily) The study also reported that participants said ...
How the social networking influents young people’s psychological well-being? Since the World Wide Web appeared in the world in the year of 1991, the internet has significantly changed people’s life on almost every level. Especially when the social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, became popular during the last decade, people’s lifestyles have greatly changed by this form of communication, which consequently brings many psychological effects on the young people. As the result, according to the recent researches, the teenagers and the young adults in this era are bearing many mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and addiction, due to the social
Social media is so popular that according to a recent article published by forbes.com, “72% of American adults are currently using social media sites; that figure has gone up 800% in just 8 years”(Olenski). Social networking was originally created to simply reconnect people with old high school pals, but in recent years it has evolved into a completely different operation. When social media first originated it was also intended for adult usage, which has in recent years expanded into the usage of all ages. Social media can create a negative affect on lives because it has been proven to be a dangerous addiction, for it takes away interpersonal relationships that are essential in life, and it has been proven to prevent people from being productive in life.
One of the most concerning effects of social media is depression. When teens create an online identity, they are often displaying an unauthentic self. This “other” self is often what the person wants to be like. Having to jump from the online self to the real self can often lead to depression. In an article in the Huffington Post, Dr. Jim Taylor calls this Facebook depression. The American Academy of Pediatrics states that “Researchers have proposed a new phenomenon called “Facebook depression,” defined as depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression.” (802). Facebook and other social media outlets create an almost high school-like environment outside of school where the teen has to strive for acceptance as well. Dr. Moreno tells the New York Times that ...
Furthermore, browsing sites such as Facebook may lead to low morale, as people begin to measure their self-worth with the amount of “likes” they receive. Ironically, although social media sites boast their ability to connect people, they mainly separate society even more as people become isolated behind their screens. Social media is damaging to a person’s life because it can lower self-esteem, isolate people from real relationships, and cause privacy concerns as marketers, employers, and school officials can view information posted online.
m. and Ellison, N. B., 2008). The use of social media has great impact on people’s daily lives. According to Pew Research reports, social media has affected work, politics, communications, communities, people’s level of stress, and people also use it as a way on getting information on certain things such as healthcare, dating, and parenting information. From the following article, the use of social media and its reasons are age differences, gender differences, socio-economic differences, racial and etnic similarities, and community
Social networking sites like Facebook can have both negative and positive effects. Facebook can leave us feeling like we are not good enough if we don’t have enough likes on our pictures or if we do not have a certain amount of friends. While on the other hand it can make us feel empowered and worthy when we have a significant amount of likes on our picture and thousands of friends on Facebook. The following two articles argue whether or not social networking sites like Facebook, have a negative or positive effect on one’s overall well-being. As the old saying goes, there are always two sides to everything.