Statusofmind social media and young people's mental health and wellbeing

Argumentative Essay

26 November 2018

The Hidden Issues of Social Media on Teens

Since the introduction of social media in the 21st century, hidden complications are slowly taking over the youth of today. Social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube have dominated many aspects of teen’s lives. Teenagers constant use of social media over face to face interactions produces negative physical and mental health problems that need to be addressed. With the availability of technology and the internet, the problem is more relevant than ever before. While prevention measures were added recently after graphic events, social media companies should do more and invest in providing a safe haven free from damaging effects. While social media websites provide many great positive effects, the hidden complications on teens that arose from social media must be tackled with stricter regulations from social networking companies and governments alike.

The unhealthy effects of social media on teens is more relevant than ever before. With technology and the internet becoming easily accessible over the past few years, a large percentage of teens now have access to a smartphone/internet. According to Monica Anderson of The Pew Research Center, a survey conducted on U.S teens indicate “95% of teens now say they have or have access to a smartphone” with an increase from 73% from 2015. In the same article, 45% of teens use the internet “almost constantly” while 44% uses the internet several times during a single day (Fig. 1). In a previous 2015 survey, only 24% uses the internet constantly while 56% uses the internet several times during a single day. With the increase number of teens who uses the internet rising over past few years, more teens are prone to the damaging effects of social media including disgusting videos or photos posted on websites such as Facebook and YouTube.

Fig 1. Graph from Pew Research Center showing increase number of teens using the internet constantly

Teens are more prone to see harmful images or videos than you may think. On Easter day of 2017, 74-year-old Robert Godwin Sr. was brutally shot and killed on a live streamed video posted on Facebook. According to David Glance, the director of University of Western Australia Centre for Software Practice, the original video had been watched at least 1.6 million times before it was taken down by Facebook 3 hours later. Unfortunately, the video had been downloaded and copies of the live streamed murder had been shared and circulates the internet. The murder of Robert Godwin Sr. shows how easily graphic video could be accessible to teens on a social media website. It also showed the failure of Facebook’s response to take down the video quickly. In another case on December 31, 2017, Logan Paul a successful social media personality with 15.7 million subscribers on YouTube at the time, posted a graphic video of a “dead body hanging from a tree in a Japanese forest known as a destination for suicides” (Wakabayashi). He included close up shots of the deceased person and made jokes to lighten the mode. After a couple days, Mr. Paul removed the video from his channel after criticism for posting a graphic video to his mainly young audience. Logan Paul had violated YouTube’s policies, but YouTube had failed to act quickly and to delete the video themselves. After about two weeks, YouTube had finally cut business ties with Logan Paul removing him from “top advertising ranks.” As social media grows, more teens are easily able to access graphic videos. The failure of social media companies to take down graphic content quickly, harms minors who should not be viewing these images.

The introduction of social media brought a new way to communicate with others quickly in a unprecedent way. However, over the years the negative effects of social media become more apparent and mental health issues rise among teenagers. In Rachel Ehmke article, “How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers,” she cited a survey conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health that asked 14-24 year olds in the United Kingdom “how social media platforms impacted their health and wellbeing.” The survey results among the applicants found that major social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat all lead to increased mental health issues. They found that depression, poor body image, loneliness and anxiety had expanded since the introduction of social media. Acceptance among a teenagers' peers is important for many. In the same article, they show that kids today are getting real-time “polling data on how much people like them or their appearance” using tools provided by social media platforms such as likes and comments. In the same study conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health, Instagram a popular photo sharing social media platform was ranked lowest in body image. To be accepted among their peers, teens will often spend hours fine tuning their online identities. Teenage girls take hundreds of photos hoping to find the best one to post while teenage boys compete for attention. Many photoshop their photos to look better and only post the highlights of their lives. As a result, many photos on Instagram contribute to poor body image by creating a unrealistic appearance. Social media companies need to introduce tools into their platforms that reduce the increase rise of mental health problems.

Critics of my proposal may say that social media companies had already introduce tools to combat these problems after these situations. After the controversies on Facebook and YouTube, they introduced and refined new rules to prevent damaging content from reaching a minor. They also have a dedicated team to look at posts with certain keywords or images. While the new rules had been effective in reducing the amount of harmful posts from reaching teens, there is more that could be done. Facebook and YouTube still don’t have an effective way to prevent horrendous acts to be live streamed on their platforms. They also occasionally can miss harmful posts when they don’t include red flagged keywords. Companies also need to work on their response time to quickly take down a graphic post to reduce the number of people who view the post and to prevent copies from spreading. They also had yet to introduce tools into their platforms to reduce the rise of mental health issues on teenagers. Governments also need to introduce laws to deliver harsher punishments to people who post graphic content on social media. They also need to regulate social media companies to enforce laws and have a ideal standard.

Social media platforms revolutionized the way people communicate but still needs work to be done in order to stop the harmful effects on teenagers. Rules needs to be introduced to greatly reduce the number of graphic videos such as the live streamed murder of Robert Godwin Sr. and the Logan Paul suicide forest video. While social media platforms introduced new rules to prevent graphic content from being shown, there is still work that is needed to be done. Companies need to work on their response time to quickly take down graphic content and enforce their rules equally among their users. They also need to introduce tools available to teens to reduce the mental health impact social media websites contributed to. Social media platforms and governments alike need to introduce laws to prevent the hidden complications of social media on teens. Social media is not going anywhere. It will be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future and with 95% of teens having access to a smartphone, it is more important than ever for stricter rules.

Works Cited

Anderson, Monica, and Jingjing Jiang. “Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 19 Sept. 2018, www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/.

Ehmke, Rachel. “How Using Social Media Affects Teenagers” Child Mind Institute, www.childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-affects-teenagers/.

Glance, David, and UWA Centre for Software Practice. “As Live Streaming Murder Becomes the New Normal Online, Can Social Media Be Saved?” The Conversation, 10 July 2018, theconversation.com/as-live-streaming-murder-becomes-the-new-normal-online-can-social-media-be-saved-76371.

Pew Research Center, “45% of teens say they’re online almost constantly.” 29 May 2018, http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/pi_2018-05-31_teenstech_0-05/.

Royal Society for Public Health. “#StatusOfMind: Social media and young people's mental health and wellbeing.” 2018, p.23, http://www.infocoponline.es/pdf/SOCIALMEDIA-MENTALHEALTH.pdf.

Wakabayashi, Daisuke. “YouTube Drops Online Star Logan Paul From Premium Advertising.” The New York Times, 11 Jan. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/technology/logan-paul-youtube.html.