Write an article Youngster have fallen a prey to social media.
Answers
The most well-known downside of social media is the addiction it creates. Constantly checking the news feed of the different social media sites becomes an addictive habit. Experts think that some features such as ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ activate the reward centre in the brain. This reward circuitry is highly sensitive during adolescence and may partly explain why teenagers are more into social media than adults. These features further influence our moods. Being social creatures, we value interaction and connection, both of which determine how we think of ourselves. This drives a lot of our behaviour on a day-to-day basis, which is centred around social media.
Youngsters addicted to social media end up spending hours, each day, watching videos, photos, and other content posted in the accounts they follow. This addiction disrupts other activities, such as school work, sports, study, and other productive routines. They end up wasting a substantial amount of time, every day, resulting in poor grades in school. Some heavy users of social media admit to checking their feeds as many as 100 times a day, and sometimes, during school hours too. Some of the kids also realise that they are wasting a lot of time on social media, which affects their mood negatively. It also builds in them a defeatist attitude.
Psychologists have long observed bad effects of social media on the mental health of children. One finding suggests that children spending more than three hours a day on social media are twice as likely to suffer from poor mental health. Their immersion in a virtual world delays their emotional and social development. The effects on teens is much stronger. One report by the IZA Institute of Labour Economics suggests that spending only an hour a day on social media can make a teen miserable. It could be due to the influence of social comparisons, cyber bullying, and decreased person to person interactions.
Using Facebook is also known to lead to a decline in the subjective well-being of youngsters. The more they use Facebook, the more they feel dissatisfied with their lives, in general. Teens are also observed to be suffering from “Facebook depression” after spending too much time on it or other social networking sites. Some also become anxious and moody, as they see that the lives of their friends are better than their’s, even though they may know that their representation is idealised. However, vulnerable teens are more prone to this than their confident counterparts.
Screen relationships also detract real-life relationships and social skills in children and teenagers. This happens because they grow up without learning how to read non-verbal cues and facial gestures of people. Social interaction is critical to developing the skills needed to understand other people’s moods and emotions. Hence, children growing up interacting mostly with social media may turn out non-empathetic and also become poor at communicating verbally and non-verbally.
While some teenagers get affected by the pressure of having to react to posts of their friends or respond to messages, others fear not being in the social loop, which is called FOMO (fear of missing out). Teens obsessively check their media feeds for updates by friends, as they don’t want to miss out on jokes, activities, parties and gossip. FOMO is also known to lead to depression and anxiety, while being a major contributor to teenagers’ heavy use of social media.
Obsession with the self and posting endless updates and selfies on social media is increases narcissism in youngsters. Their moods depend heavily on how appreciated their photos are on social media and they go into anxiety when they don’t get the attention they expect. Having their own pages makes kids more self-centred. Some vulnerable children would then live under the notion that everything revolves around them. This is a precursor to dysfunctional emotional conditions, later in their life, and a lack of empathy for others.
Selfies turned into the most popular thing with the advent of camera phones. Taking selfies every hour and posting it on social media is strongly linked to narcissism, and can trigger obsessions with one’s looks. Some selfie addicts have been known to do dangerous things, such as scale skyscrapers, pose with wild animals or weapons, or stand close to moving vehicles, such as trains to get a “cool” selfie, which has ended fatally. Risky behaviour is also observed in teens, as they participate in mass social media challenges that involve engaging in absurd or dangerous activities while filming themselves.
Facebook and other social media platforms have had a negative effect on the brains of youngsters. It sets their brains to a state similar to a child that gets attracted to bright colours and buzzing noises, while having a short attention span. It is no surprise this happens, as it barely takes any concentration or thought process to browse on social networking sites.