By: Lauren Kottke & Ella Sutherland

*Note: This article was written at the end of the 2022/23 school year.

Social media has been consuming the lives and minds of teenagers and young adults. All of our friends have some type of social media platform and account. We use this as a way to see what each other is up to, keep in touch with distant friends, but mostly we get bored and we just scroll. Many times people we know, including us, have felt really down and our solution to these problems is to start scrolling on social media apps. This creates unhealthy habits and there are many problems with doing this.

In order to prevent social media from consuming teenagers the creators of social media platforms should restrict the amount of time teenagers can spend on social media.

The rise in mental illness within teenagers has skyrocketed since the rise in popularity of social media. COVID and the pandemic affected how often people used social media and the amount of time people went on these platforms and apps per day.

We were inside all day and we couldn’t go out and hang out with friends or go out to eat. We relied heavily on social media to keep us occupied and we resorted back to that when we were bored. Because we had access to this at the tap of a finger, we became lazy and we stopped doing creative things like crafts and projects, or even simple things like reading a book or journaling.

According to Statistica.com, a survey conducted between July and October 2020 revealed that 61 percent of Generation Z and Millennials were watching more videos on social media apps during the COVID-19 pandemic.

People spend too much time on social media per week which can lead to many negative things. There are many studies that show that being chronically online can affect your mental health and you can develop mental illnesses like depression and anxiety. Social media can also affect teenagers self esteem. When you see your friends posting together you might end up feeling very left out wondering why you weren’t invited.

Social media also sets very unrealistic beauty standards for teenagers, and when you see them and feel like you don’t look as pretty as the people that post edited photos, you start to feel terrible about how you feel.

“Those who find themselves in this category often make toxic comparisons between themselves and those they follow online, and they come face-to-face with society’s perceptions of perfectionism, which is never truly obtainable.” – Selecthealth.org

Social media can be dangerous. On social media when you post things for the public you can become a target for bullies, stalkers, or unsolicited pictures. There are many instances where people have felt uncomfortable online whether that be from creepy messages or pictures of yourself getting exposed, or even receiving inappropriate photos that were not wanted. This can make it very scary for teenagers, especially young girls online.

Onlinedegrees.unr.edu reported, “The Pew Research Center’s 2018 survey of U.S. teens determined that one in six teenagers have experienced at least one of six different forms of abusive behavior online:

• Name-calling (42%)
• Spreading false rumors (32%)
• Receiving unsolicited explicit images (25%)
• Having their activities and whereabouts tracked by someone other than a parent (21%)
• Someone making physical threats (16%)
• Having explicit images of them shared without their consent (7%)”

The creators of social media apps need to restrict and limit the amount of time that teenagers are allowed to spend on social media. The consequences of social media outweigh the rewards greatly and in the end, is not worth it for anyone. It is unsafe, it is mentally draining, and it is how we spend too much of our time.