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The world of social media has completely enveloped our modern world in a tornado of posts, followers, and likes. While it is amazing how effectively these new platforms have revolutionized communication between teens and even groups of adults, social media has also brought about a barrage of mental health problems afflicting young adults across the world. 

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On platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, you can express yourself by sharing videos, posting content, and leaving comments. You can also connect with like-minded users via direct messaging, or you can follow their accounts and hashtags. Even through these forms of “expression” and “community”, the damaging effects of social media usage are surprisingly high. According to a 2019 CNN health article, “US teens spend an average of more than seven hours per day on screen media for entertainment, and tweens spend nearly five hours — and that doesn’t include time spent using screens for school and homework”. Two years later, that statistic has most likely grown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, trapping more adolescents in their own, time-consuming addiction.

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Sometimes social media can show you positive things: a cute dog, an uplifting message, a new album cover, something you want to share and repost. Other times, though, it can expose you to just the opposite: a cute shirt that only fits someone skinny, a model who’s taller and smiles prettier than you do, a friend who bashes their followers for not reposting a specific type of content. By reflecting the different aspects of both you and your desires, social media highlights the differences between who you are and who you want to be — richer, smaller, bigger, prettier, anything you are insecure about, social media will parade. The moment you see such posts, something inside of you is triggered. You become upset, jealous, unhappy, and you realize that the positive feed you subscribed to actually highlights your shortcomings. You begin to think of all the ways you can conform to society's superficial perception of perfection. 

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These detrimental effects aren't something to be taken lightly, because they are genuinely harmful. In fact, a New York Post article reports that “according to new data from the University of New South Wales and Macquarie University, as little as half an hour a day spent trawling Instagram can make women fixate negatively on their weight and appearance”. Anyone around you can be dealing with mental health issues because of social media — the problem is, would you know if they were suffering? Or are you too focused on the perception of yourself as well to help another? I wanted to find answers to these questions, so I interviewed two freshmen at Sonora, who have been greatly affected by social media and would like to share their stories. They have asked to remain anonymous.  

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When did you first download social media?

Student 1: When I was in 6th grade.

Student 2:  6th grade 

What media bases do you use now? 

Student 1: I now use Tiktok and Snapchat.

Student 2:  Instagram, Tiktok, and Snapchat

What specific thing on social media has affected your mental health? 

Student 1: Pictures and videos of other people with unrealistic and unattainable bodies have affected my mental health since I got the app.

Student 2: Seeing people be “perfect” and fitting into the world's “beauty standards”. 

How were you affected by this? 

Student 1: I developed a restrictive and bulimic eating disorder around the beginning of 7th grade.

Student 2: I developed a disorder called body dysmorphia. It’s a mental disorder that doesn't let you look at yourself without seeing your flaws. Like, to you, someone may look super skinny, but to them when they look in the mirror they perceive themselves as big. It can lead to depression and anxiety. 

Do you still struggle with this? Are you still struggling because of social media?

Student 1: Yes, I am still struggling with this and it has been in my life for about 1 ½- 2 years.

Student 2: I like to say I don't still struggle with this, but now and then I let my worriedness about my looks get the best of me. 

Did you expect this outcome when you first got social media?

Student 1: I didn’t even know that this was a possibility when I first got social media, and I got a lot of information about them from people who actively made jokes about them and ended up teaching me a lot more than I ever needed to know. 

Student 2: To be honest, I didn't even expect this outcome, I was so happy when my parents finally let me get media-based apps. I've realized that because I was so happy, I didn't listen to any of the warnings I was told. 

If you could go back in time, would you stop yourself from getting a media-based app? Explain.

Student 1: I think that the presence of social media in my life was almost inevitable. Social media has become so embedded in society that even schools use social media as a form of communication with their students. I wouldn’t have been able to completely stop myself from getting it but maybe slow down the process so that I would have the ability to understand that the things I wanted to attain through an eating disorder aren’t attainable and would never be able to happen for me.

Student 2: Truthfully, I wouldn't. You may be thinking, “Why wouldn't you? You developed a disorder because of it?” The reason is, although some of the perfect pictures and perfect people made me jealous and feel I wasn't good enough, I learned so much about myself. I was educated on political subjects and my perspective of life changed. I wouldn’t stop myself because if I did I wouldn't be who I am today.

What would you tell others to expect from apps like Instagram, Tiktok, and other platforms?

Student 1: I would tell others to expect to see things that they cannot attain like a certain body or amount of money and prepare themselves to be heavily influenced by them.

Student 2: I would tell others to expect their confidence and mental stability to go down. I didn't have a care in the world about my appearance before social media, now I do. Expect to see people you want to be and look like, expect to be jealous. Just know all of it is like a big competition. Everyone is fighting over the top spot of who's better, who's prettier, who's richer. All of it is a big game, yet no one even knows they’re playing. 

 

Anything you would like to add?

Student 1: I am now worried that the world of social media in which we live will affect my younger sibling the way that it has me and damage their self-esteem and lifelong health the way that it has mine. A warning sign for me was when I began to not be able to shower standing up for fear of passing out so I had to sit on the shower floor to wash my hair.  This and when I learned that if I continued on this way I may not be able to have children I decided that I was going to make a great attempt to pull myself out of the hole that I had dug, but I have found that this is harder than it sounds.

Student 2: All I would like to say is if you think you're the only one dealing with a disorder from social media, you're not. There are so many people out there who are dealing with the same thing as you. Another thing is, I always say “beauty doesn't matter, it's all personality”, “love yourself”, “I'm such a confident person”. All of those are examples of the lies I spread every day trying to make myself and others feel better but yet to me, none of that is true. Yeah, beauty may come from personality, but in the media's perspective, none of that is true. You may be the prettiest girl in the world but I guarantee you something on social media will make you believe you're not. I say I'm confident but yet when I walk around I hold my stomach in. I come home just to look in the mirror and label myself as something I'm not. The word “ugly” can tear someone down, it tears me down every day.  The media has made me believe I'm not good enough for anyone, because I'm too big or I don't have a perfect nose and big lips. Just because I don't fit into the beauty standard, I'm labeled as ugly. You may think I'm perfect, but to me, I'll never truly be pretty enough.

 

The people interviewed above are not rare occurrences in far off places, they are Sonora students, people that you pass in the halls and exchange friendly pleasantries with every day. And as the idiom goes: Where there's smoke there is fire. If these two people, who are only a small portion of the school’s demographic, are greatly struggling with mental disorders provoked by social media, there must be so many more around you that share this pain. Knowing that someone around you who may seem perfect on the outside, is struggling with so much on the inside is a sad truth in our modern-day society. 

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Social media and its current culture of obsessive, superficial beauty standards have given so many young adults reasons to become insecure in their bodies. Perhaps you yourself have mental issues that are affecting your day-to-day life in ways that the people around you cannot see. Please know that you are not alone.

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Maybe some of you can agree to these things, or you may even have your own story. We've come to a realization that, although social media can be a place where to have fun, it is oftentimes a source to destroy your mental health. No matter who you are, what you believe in, and how happy you are, you may struggle with a mental illness that social media exacerbates. I will always believe that the media affects your mental health — usually not for the better. So please, check up on your friends; you never know who's been negatively affected by social media.

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