Miriam Mendez Writing for the Sciences Informative Report

Answered: Your Most Burning Questions About How SOCIAL MEDIA IS DANGEROUS!

Social media has been around for almost two decades; MySpace was first introduced in 2004. Ever since then, the social media spectrum has expanded and more and more social media apps have been coming out. From MySpace, to Facebook, to Instagram, to Snapchat, to Musically, which is now known as TikTok, social media has been wired into our everyday lives and routines. At least most not all usually spend their free time laughing at the hilarious TikToks. As well as, finding out what the newest obsession on Twitter has tweeted. It is all just fun dance routines or funny memes but what most don’t know is the mental, physical and emotional toll it can have on society today.

Scrolling through Instagram and seeing a beautiful, skinny, perfectly fit model flaughting at a beach in Hawaii can be tough for most people who see that “perfect” model as a threat. Most even feel insecure, questioning themselves and hating the way their body looks because it does not look like the “perfect” girl in the picture. Why am I putting, perfect, in quotations? You’ll find out soon enough. There are different components as to how social media can affect those mentally. One of the aspects are, filters. Yes, taking selfies with the filters can be fun but it can also alter someone’s image and make them feel less of themselves and will make one doubt their own beauty; thus creating a false illusion. For example, a filter can make someone’s nose look a different way or change the color of someone’s eyes. Seeing the “perfect” picture on the screen can make others feel insecure and think that they have to look this way to feel beautiful. In reality, everyone is beautiful in their own way. FOMO or fear of missing out is another way

social media can affect someone menatlly. Fear of missing out can be defined as seeing your friend doing a tik tok dance video with one of your mutual friends and thinking to yourself that you might have missed out on an inside joke or even doubt the friendship the both of you have. One little video on social media can make a person overthink, bigtime. Constant scrolling and going in between apps can lead to the decline of the studies and school work. While you’re scrolling through instagram, your deadline on a paper due at 11:59pm is getting closer and you have nothing to write. The distraction can lead to major procrastination, less retention of information (less grasp on information), and higher levels of stress. Other feelings that can occur are exclusion, anxiety, and loneliness; this ties back to the FOMO aspect of social media affecting society mentally. Apps, such as instagram, facebook, and twitter can have a negative effect on confidence and self esteem. For instance, whether it’s posting a picture, tweeting, or uploading a status, you’d think you would get loads of likes, comments or shares. However, what happens when you don’t get as much as you thought you would? That can lower your self esteem and can leave you feeling depressed or have anxiety about why your posts aren’t doing well as the next. It is all about competition, the game of getting more likes than the next person. Life should not be about whose content can gain more popularity. Some are even driven to post prerogative pictures because that’s what they see is getting the most attention. The “perfect” model you see on instagram can be suffering from a sort of mental illness so she can stay the size she is. The insecure girl sitting behind her phone sulking on the fact that she does not look like the picture perfect girl can also gain a mental illness driving her to force herself not to eat. Not only can social media bring out the worst in somebody mentally, but also can harm someone physically. (Stabler)

Social media use has been linked to poor health among society since the early 2000s. A study was made on college students at the University at Buffalo. Study shows that participants who excessively use social media were found to have higher C-reactive protein. C-reactive protein or CRP is a biological marker of chronic inflammation that predicts illnesses like diabetes, certain cancers, and other cardiovascular diseases. (Gambini). In simpler words, students who were using social media ridiculously showed signs that they had CRP which can predict some illnesses that can harm the body in many ways. Other ways social media can be detrimental is it can lead to headaches, back and chest pains, as well as frequent visits to the doctors and health centers for treatments. (Gambini). In this study, researchers recruited about 251 undergrad students between the ages of 18 and 24. Questionnaires as well as blood samples were collected and the usage of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram were recorded. David Lee, PhD, assistant professor of communication of the UB College of Arts and sciences stated “We were able to establish a correlation between the amount of social media use and these physical health indicators… the more somatic symptoms they experienced and visits to the doctor… they showed higher levels of chronic inflammation”. Chronic inflammation is when your body continues sending inflammatory cells even when there is no outside danger. In closing, Lee expresses there is more work to be done but does believe social media use may have a link to important physical health outcomes.

Lastly, social media has an effect emotionally as well as psychologically. In an online article it is stated that social media affects different brain functions. It’s said to contain many combinations of stimuli that can trigger different reactions, thus social media’s effects on the brain appear in many different ways. For instance “when social media users receive positive feedback (likes), their brains fire off dopamine receptors, which is facilitated in part by the

ventral tegmental area (VTA)”. (“The Psychology of Social Media”) It was also explained that “researchers found that parts of the brain that deal with emotional and sensory processing reacted noticeably when participants felt excluded” (“The Psychology of Social Media”). This can be in relation to FOMO, the fear of missing out, as previously mentioned. At times, as humans we could have psychological reasoning for posting on social media such as, physiological needs, esteem, safety, love/belonging, and self-actualization. All of those aspects tie down to how someone might feel obligated to post to feel that sense of being included or post because someone wanted them to or even just to post someone got a new house or job or etc. Social media can also shape one’s identity. It is declared “social media networks has given a ‘rise to interreality’, a new social space, more malleable and dynamic than preceding social networks”. (“The Psychology of Social Media”). People can alter their identities to conceal their real ones and use the virtual ones, change the way others perceive them, also, use social media tools to expand their own social connections. To illustrate, there is a popular TV show called “Catfish”. The plot of the show is about online relationships, however the two partners haven’t met and the hosts of Catfish are contacted so that way the person can meet the other. Let’s say, 25 year old Tami from Texas thinks she is in an online 3 year relationship with the 32 year old singer/dancer Chris Brown because it “seems” like the person she has on Facebook is the real Chris Brown. However, with the help of the TV show hosts, she ends up meeting this person who is believed to be Breezy and it is revealed Chris Brown was really a 25 year old man from Louisiana with identity issues. Which takes part in how social media can negatively affect the lives of someone based on everything that was mentioned before. Social media can really be used to control someone’s life and it can either make or break everything.

To conclude, I want to end this essay by saying “social media is a dangerous place to seek affirmation, acceptance, identity, and security” – Cornelius Lindsey. Social media has a mental, physical and emotional consequence on somebody’s life, whether they’re adults or adolescents. One should be careful on how much they should spend on these platforms or even what they do on them.

Works Cited
Gambini, Bert. “Social media use tied to poor physical health.” ScienceDaily, 24 January 2022,

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/01/220124103917.htm. Accessed 10 March

2022.
“The Psychology of Social Media.” King University Online, 19 September 2019,

https://online.king.edu/news/psychology-of-social-media/. Accessed 10 March 2022. Stabler, Christine M. “The Effects of Social Media on Mental Health – Penn Medicine Lancaster

General Health.” Lancaster General Health, 1 September 2021, https://lancastergeneralhealth.org/health-hub-home/2021/september/the-effects-of-social- media-on-mental-health. Accessed 10 March 2022.