Studies and Facts from across the Web
When Asking a Friend Is Just Not Enough
Self Help
About how social media affects you:
General addiction help:
Where Addiction meets Recovery: The surprising effects of Social Media
The average American spends just under 7 hours every day looking at some sort of screen. You’re contributing to that data right now. With just under the international average spent on smartphones (at 3 hours 28 minutes) and above average on desktops (3 hours 31 minutes), there’s a lot to be said about how that time is spent (“Screen Time Statistics”). Need to contact a coworker you never grabbed the number of? Want to avoid thinking about how you’re going to pay the bills? Social media is often the answer, as it provides everything from cozy communication to a break from life. Unfortunately, there’s massive downsides with this.
Body dysmorphia has a surprisingly high correlation with image-based media usage, such as Instagram and Snapchat. This correlation is hard to track, though, as a study conducted by Frontiers identified that 94.7% of students in a British school used Instagram, and had, on average, owned at least one social media account for 5 years (Zoromba et al.).
Depression and anxiety, though, are well known side effects from overuse of social media. And beyond that, addiction is an easy thing to gain. Even if there’s no addictive qualities in an action or object (truly addictive being substances like alcohol and hard drugs), anything our brain finds dopamine in can become addictive, which is why going a day without checking social media could be anxiety-inducing (“Non-Substance Addiction”).
These statistics inspired me to find solutions that will benefit everyone. Some well known ones are self-regulation via removing all devices from your premises for an hour before you want to sleep. Some that I propose are providing yourself with engaging, alternative options to using your devices, instead of focusing so much on “No, I can’t use this. I will restrain myself.” With my own experience, I have noticed this approach works much better.
Works Cited:
“Screen Time Statistics: Average in the US vs. Rest of the World.” Comparitech, 15 March 2023, https://www.comparitech.com/tv-streaming/screen-time-statistics/. Accessed 21 September 2023.
“What to Know About Non-Substance Addiction.” Straight Talk Counseling, 21 June 2021, https://www.straighttalkcounseling.org/post/what-to-know-about-non-substance-addiction. Accessed 6 October 2023.
Zoromba, Mohamed A., et al. “The association between social media use and body dysmorphic symptoms in young people.” Frontiers, 17 August 2023, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1231801/full#ref38. Accessed 20 September 2023.
Interview - 9/30/23
For this interview, I talked to Ms. Claire Patterson and asked for her perspective on today's state of social media and students. Patterson is the leader and sponsor of the Mental Health Matters club at my school. The club is massive and very active, and even hosted a 5k night run/walk as a fundraiser for mental health awareness and suicide prevention at our school. The interview took place via email to accommodate my own struggles with social anxiety and provide the most accurate notes on the interview.
I listed below what I learned from this interview.
The Student Body
Students today tend to struggle with initiating conversations due to anxieties with face-to-face talk, and this anxiety seems to have gotten worse in recent years. Because of how convenient social media has made our communication, it has overall degraded students’ ability to have meaningful conversations and complex discussions.
Good and Bad
Social media has made leaps and bounds to help people connect to others, especially in the areas of spreading information, positivity, and resources. Unfortunately, the drawbacks of cyberbullying, increased anxiety, unrealistic expectations, and sleep struggles can make the good simply not worth it for some. Fortunately, every good thing comes in moderation, and the same holds true with social media.
How much is too much?
Some ways to gauge how much you depend on your phone would be to gauge your emotional response to being unable to be with your phone for an hour or more. If you feel panic and racing thoughts such as, “What if someone calls? What if something happens?” While valid concerns, it may be cause for worry about addiction. This also works for observing the dependency of others, as Claire had noted that students who fuss about handing off phones tend to be the most likely to be chronically online.
Relieving Dependency
Some common, small ways to help relieve dependency are putting your phone in another room or generally outside your access at night or giving yourself interesting alternatives to scrolling, like coloring, playing minigames, or participating in other physically occupying hobbies.
New Generation
There are some hurdles to knowing when an adolescent has garnered enough experience to be able to properly handle the responsibilities that come with having full internet access, especially through the ease of a smartphone. Often, the best you can do is ensure that they have full and proper knowledge of the good and bad that comes with being on the internet, how to protect themselves from those who want to exploit them, and how to regulate their usage.
I extend my most gracious thanks to Ms. Patterson for entertaining my questions and helping move my project forward!