Social Media Is Bad for Your Health
But the riddle persists: if these ubiquitous platforms are so destructive, particularly for young people, why does almost no one quit them?
Photo: Anna Shvets, Pexels
The late 2000s marked a monumental shift in generational behaviours, socialization and emotional states. The Journal of Abnormal Psychology reports that between 2009 and 2017, rates of depression amongst teenagers 14 to 17 years old increased more than 60 percent. The CDC reports that rates of suicide amongst teens and young adults jumped 57 percent between 2007 and 2016. Yet another study has revealed that self-harm hospitalizations in the United States almost doubled between 2010 and 2016. With numbers such as these, it is evident that we are facing a worrisome mental-health trend.
Jean M. Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University, was at first puzzled at the dramatic shift in the emotional states of teens and young adults. “The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs,” she observed, “and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear. In all my analyses of generational data—some reaching back to the 1930s—I had never seen anything like it.”
After digging in deeper, Twenge realized that the biggest shift between the Millennial generation and the new “iGeneration” (born 1995 to 2012) is how they view the world. Rather than observing the physical world through their own eyes, teenagers are now learning, socializing, discovering and interacting via blue lighted screens. Researchers have found that the “iGeneration” spends 40 percent less time than older cohorts getting together with their friends in person, and a lot more time alone staring at their smartphones, tablets and laptops. As Twenge commented, “The more I pored over yearly surveys of teen attitudes and behaviors ... the clearer it became that theirs is a generation shaped by the smartphone and by the concomitant rise of social media.”
Children are now learning how to swipe on their iPads well before they enter kindergarten, and the effects are becoming increasingly clear. Teens who spend three hours or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to evince a risk factor for suicide—i.e. suicide ideation, plans, self-harm or a history of hospitalization.
Social media in particular appears to be catalyzing this crisis—many studies have demonstrated the harmful effects it can have on one’s mental health. But if social media platforms are so bad for us, why does almost no one quit them?
One reason is that the effects of social media are felt gradually—we don’t recognize the subtle and incremental deterioration of our mental health when using them. Thus, the effects of social media can go unrecognized in our daily lives, particularly since the handy devices on which they reside are promoted as efficient, entertaining, convenient and essential to a sense of belonging in our increasingly high-tech world.
It is not overstating the case to suggest that the invention of the smartphone has profoundly distorted the public lives of people born without a prior (non-digital) experience of the world. Starting in childhood, many social-media users simply mature into their own online personas—participating ever more deeply in a collective experience of online consumption, with every click, swipe, and buzz. The idea of living without smartphones, social media, video games, and other electronic diversions seems absurd even to the new generation of anti-social teens.
Relatedly, apps such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat are designed to capture their users’ attention for as long as possible. We may think of these platforms as free because we do not have to spend any money in order to create and post content. However, what these platforms are really buying from users is their time and ultimately their loyalty. Users’ feeds are based on unique algorithms that get “better” the longer one uses it—and they are designed to determine what will catch and keep your attention. A British study has found that 45 percent of adults feel restless when they are unable to access their social-media networking sites or texting apps. This has given rise to Phantom Vibration Syndrome (PVS), in which users believe they hear their phones vibrating even when they are not.
Like any other growth industry, social-media platforms are specifically made to keep consumers coming back. Little wonder that an estimated 5-10 percent of Americans today meet the criteria for social-media addiction. Notifications about likes, reposts, comments, etc. are designed to draw users in and thus to serve as a positive feedback loop that activates reward centers in the brain. The number of likes and comments on one’s posts become proxies for statements of approval, popularity, and attractiveness—ultimately feeding into one’s self worth and identity. Because adolescents are at risk for “limited capacity for self-regulation and susceptibility to peer pressure,” they are consequently more susceptible to the addictive effects of social media. It is therefore ironic that young people who often sign up for social media in order to feel included and connected with their peers end up having to navigate feelings of loneliness and isolation.
Social media has also exacerbated the well-documented Western ad-based culture of unattainable beauty, especially for women. This may be one of the reasons why depression, anxiety and self-harm have risen more dramatically for girls than boys.
A 2012 study on the “Frog-Pond Effect” found that women’s “aesthetic judgement” of themselves was based on how attractive others around them are. In this experiment, researchers told participants to sit at a table that held a computer monitor and a mirror. On the monitor, these women viewed pictures of “attractive professional models” and then afterwards saw a variety of photos of themselves that had been altered using Photoshop. Some of the latter were slightly more attractive and some of them slightly less attractive than their true selves. The women were instructed to pick out the “true image” of themselves from the false ones. After viewing photos of professional models, women consistently selected photos of themselves that were more unattractive than their true selves. Conversely, when researchers showed people “unattractive” faces, people tended to view their own image more favourably.
A related problem with social media is that users are bombarded with false representations of friends, family and strangers that highlight only the best aspects of their lives. Photos are doctored, only the “best angles” are chosen, and the mundane experiences of individuals are promoted as exciting and glamorous. Feelings of inferiority and isolation are intensified when users perceive that everyone else’s life is so much better than their own. Attractiveness wins one followers, likes, and ultimately adoration—with the inevitable consequence that young people compare themselves obsessively to unattainable standards of glamour and popularity.
To reiterate, the promulgation of unrealistic beauty standards is not new. Television, magazines, movies and other “dream factory” popular media have been trading on consumers’ inferiority complexes for decades. What is different today is how pervasive social media has become in users’ daily routines. We constantly check our phones at work, in between classes, during our lunch breaks. Social media feeds are often the first thing we see in the morning and the last thing we view before bed. Thus for young girls in particular, constant comparison to the personas represented on social media magnifies the “frog pond effect,” inevitably lowering their own self-esteem.
Researchers are also concerned about social media exacerbating self-obsession in young people. Many studies have confirmed that social networking sites increase levels of narcissism, one side-effect of which is an increasing tendency among users to share intimate aspects of their daily lives with the entire online world. Traditional notions of discretion and privacy are in retreat, as more and more teenagers come of age confronted by the constant anxiety of self-presentation. Little wonder that we now see trends like “vaguebooking,” in which people upload unclear but alarming posts in order to attract empathy online. Teenagers especially are known to post “cries for help” on social media in order to reinforce acceptance and belonging, and to elicit expressions of concern from others.
So what is to be done?
As a charter member of the “iGeneration,” I do not believe that social media is inherently evil. Networking sites can serve as productive and fulfilling cultural conduits—for example, by reuniting family members and old friends. Indeed, as our lived experience under pandemic lockdowns has demonstrated, online media has served as an essential simulacrum of real-world communication and companionship. I have no wish to persuade anyone to abandon social media—cold-turkey, as it were—except to note, crucially, that all devices have off switches and all apps can be disabled. When the mental-health impacts of the social-media obsessions I have described above become truly critical, getting users out of harm’s way is an obvious first step.
In the meanwhile, it behooves all of us—especially as we emerge from the isolation of the pandemic—to reimagine the social world as one in which it is possible to navigate without abject dependence on social media.
Here’s one suggestion: If you don’t need it, don’t bring it. Go on walks, go for bike rides, go to the store, movie theater, dinner, etc., without yielding to the temptation to check your phone. Learn how to unplug from the virtual world, and focus on what is actually happening in front of you.
Here’s another: Be picky about the content you post to your social media sites. Choose content that inspires, motivates, or educates you—or simply puts a smile on your face.
In the digital age it is easier than ever to assign blame to technology for the problems in our lives. Social media has become the bête noire of Western humanism—and for good reason, given the data on various plarforms’ impact on the mental health of adolescents and others. Yet social media has become a widely accepted phenomena worldwide, and despite mounting concerns about its ill-effects, there is no indication that it will be going anywhere any time soon.
What is needed, therefore, is the vision and resolve for users to act both individually and collectively to deploy social media for socially productive ends. These include capturing moments and sharing them with loved ones, and bringing people together digitally when in-person options are not available.
In a word, we need to jam the social-media platforms—irrespective of the cynical intentions of their creators. The critical question is how to reassert our own prerogatives and shift our priorities.
For young people, the online world has subsumed the rhythms of everyday life, and displaced traditional processes of socialization, connection and growth. Yet even in this world, the most valuable resources ordinary people can cede to corporate media are their time, their attention and, ultimately, their loyalty.
And as in the past, all three must be earned.