Audrey Giles
Dr. Lucas
Eng 1103 19
17 November 2021
The Toxic Effects of Social Media that go Unnoticed by Teens
Social media is a rapidly growing business in today’s society. Almost everyone uses it only as a way to connect with family and friends in the digital world. For older adults, social media is sometimes new and confusing which limits their usage; also, since older adults did not grow up with it, but rather were introduced to it later in their life, various social media platforms appear either too geared toward the young, or have no relevance to the lives of senior citizens. For these people, social media is utilized for FaceTime and zoom groups
However, for the younger generations, social media is part of their everyday life because they were born into the digital world where social media was already flourishing. Screens and tablets were vehicles in early education and, outside of the classroom, technology was used for everything from shopping to babysitting bored children. Teens are inundated and become obsessed with technology because nowadays the idea of social media is introduced early on in their social life as well as in their education. Children in elementary school have phones and by middle school, students are already wearing the iwatch as a bragging device. As a consequence, today’s youth is exposed far too early. Using apps like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok often start out as a fun activity for teens to share content for friends to view, but it doesn’t take long for social media to become toxic for a teen and the teen is often made aware of its pitfalls too late. For some users of social media it only takes one rude comment or negative experience to completely change their self image and self esteem; that, unfortunately, often does not encourage users to delete their account. The addiction becomes all-encompassing and dangerous. It is common for teens to experience cyberbullying or develop mental illnesses from social media and, despite these known hazards, it is such a norm for teens that it is nearly impossible to just log out and stop using it. While these problems have been relevant for a while, only recently has the negative side of social media became a topic of conversation.And, despite the conversation of the toxic sides of social media becoming more relevant and more prevalent, teens are so immune to the toxic side, it is often impossible for them to recognize when it has become a toxic part of their own life.
In the early years of social media, users were able to share their life updates through platforms like Facebook and Myspace; these were some of the earliest forms of social media and were relatively harmless before things like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. These newer apps, which are now the most used by teens, are now considered to be the most toxic.
As the digital world became more advanced, so did the social media world. When Instagram emerged, it brought a new dimension to social media, allowing users to post pictures and videos that followers could interact with by liking or commenting on the post. These new aspects of social media started out as just another fun way to share your life like people did during the early years of Facebook, but as more people began using these platforms it opened the door to make it toxic for young teens who are vulnerable and insecure because there was no monitoring of what people can comment on. Often, comments are unkind and salacious. Along with Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok are social media platforms that are just another part of most teens’ daily activities; since these apps have become an obsession in such teens’ lives, it is hard to step back and see what life could be like without them. For example, Snapchat, a major source of communication for teens, focuses on simple pictures and messaging, while tik tok is proven to be addicting for teens because it is short videos that are put through an algorithm to ensure users are being shown videos that will interest them. Having all these apps can quickly consume hours a day for teens because they develop a need to keep up on their “socials” or receive license to procrastinate doing productive things like homework or live interactions.Instead, scrolling through the apps monopolizes their time and draws them into the dark world of unreality.
While social media most often is said to have a negative effect on teens mental health it also can negatively affect their physical health. Instead of spending time after school going outside and doing something physical, teens choose to sit down and scroll through social media to see what they missed during the day. In some cases, teens sneak peeks at their phones while in class. Due to the fact that teens don’t know a world without social media for most it is hard to recognize how their life is being impacted until it gets serious. In an article written by Greta Buda, she shares information about PSMU; Problematic Social Media Usage. When talking about PSMU she says that along with that can come social media addiction and social media disorder. Buda says that when a teen is no longer able to control their use of social media they are addicted and likely to develop symptoms similar to an actual drug addict who will experience withdrawals and personality changes due to their addiction. Buda concludes her article by saying that through her research she can hypothesize that teens who experience PSMU result with less physical activity, poor sleep quality, and an overall lower life satisfaction and ill health.
All of these social media platforms are taking over teens’ lives one day at a time without them realizing it. Rather than having an in- person conversation with a friend about what they did last weekend, today’s teens can simply just look back on their Instagram page and see what they posted, where they were and who they were with. Face- to-face communication is at risk because of the fact that teens are more comfortable communicating with each other through social media rather than putting their phones down and having a real conversation.Naturally, these antisocial habits grew logarithmically when the pandemic forced most activities to go remote, though the habits and obsessions existed long before covid. From the perspective of someone who does not use social media, it would be easy to see the problem here,but for teens who grew up sharing their lives online and communicating through apps, there is no recognition of problematic addiction.
Another main part of Buda’s research that talks about social media is the role gender plays with this topic. She shares that teenage girls are often more affected by PSMU and the negative effects of social media. While boys have more problems with the addiction to video games both on their phone and on video gaming councils, they often don’t struggle with the self esteem effects of social media. However, the negative effect on teenage girls is monumental. In Bouda’s research, she proves that one main aspect teenage girls struggle with is related to their sleeping habits and or struggles. Teenage girls spend hours a night scrolling through social media rather than getting the necessary sleep they need to be productive the next day. In addition to the lack of sleep, their physical activity decreases because of the addiction. These are all aspects of the negative effects of social media that teens do not see. Girls who are addicted to social media are used to staying up late scrolling through things like Instagram so they do not see the problem in it. In addition to their lack of academic and interpersonal interaction, they do not see the problem with sitting inside and scrolling through their phone for hours instead of getting up and doing some kind of physical activity.
The problems that can arise from social media alarm most of society because what once started out as a fun way of online communication has now amounted to a dangerous addiction with negative effects on users. The majority of teens have a difficult time discerning when social media has become toxic because it has always been a part of their life. If a social media user were able to step back and look at it from an outsider’s perspective, he/she would see it is not healthy to edit photos of yourself to match beauty standards, leave hurtful comments on others posts, spend hours a day using the social media apps and letting what social media says change your values and way of life.
As the concept of how toxic social media can be becomes more relevant, people are jumping in to do research and be a part of the conversation. In an article written by Bridget McHugh, she shares her learnings of the topic. Her article talks about the “dark side” of social media, explaining that teens who overuse it experience things like depression, anxiety, aggression and social isolation. As stated in the article, all of these mental illnesses can be directly linked to social media usage among teens. A question brought up by many researchers is, “Do teens experiencing these things realize what is going on?” Sadly, they often do not understand these feelings emanate because of the overuse of social media so they struggle everyday but don’t understand why.
It would be nearly impossible to remove teens from social media due to the large role it plays in their lives. Everything revolves around how many followers you have, how many likes a post gets, who your best friend on snapchat is and who comments on your pictures. All of these things are examples of online communication slowly replacing in- person communication. In order to help teens who are suffering from these negative effects it is important for outside sources like parents, educators and even friends to help counsel addicted teens on strategies for recognizing toxic behaviors since most teens are unable to see the problem.
Trying to help teens spot these hazards of social media is difficult because support systems like parents don’t fully understand the social media world. Older generations did not grow up in a world consumed by social media therefore they don’t understand all aspects of how teens nowadays use it. Oftentimes parents do not have the ability to monitor social media usage of their teens making it challenging to see when it has become a problem. Only the person who runs the social media page knows how much time went into each picture wondering if it was good enough or if they should edit how they look. This alone is toxic because it means teenage users are spending time questioning if they are good enough because they feel the need to keep up with other people’s standards. Once the picture is posted it is more likely than not there will be some kind of negative reaction in some way on the post. Whether someone comments something rude or the post did not get “enough” likes the teen who posted as multiple ways to encounter some kind of cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying is a whole other aspect of the toxic side of social media. When someone is experiencing cyberbullying it can be hard to address the problem if the person is hidden behind a username. It is easier to say something rude through a screen than straight to their face which makes cyberbullying a more recent problem ever since the developments of the new social media apps. Oftentimes when someone sees a rude comment online they will just scroll past it without reacting, this leaves the problem unsolved for the one who received the hate comment.
With each new social media app that comes out it allows for more dangers to the teenage users. As technology advances so will the possibilities of social media platforms, and it is going to continue to get worse for teens with each new advancement. Researchers are able to identify the harmful effects of social media by studying things along the lines of social media addiction and mental health problems relating to social media like depression and anxiety. However, those administering these platforms must also take responsibility and create technology that screens harmful behavior.
Work Cited
Buda, Greta, et al. “Possible Effects of Social Media Use on Adolescent Health Behaviors and Perceptions.” Psychological Reports, vol. 124, no. 3, June 2021, pp. 1031–1048,
McHugh, Bridget C., et al. “When Social Media Traumatizes Teens.” Internet Research, vol. 28, no. 5, 2018, pp. 1169-1188. ProQuest, https://libproxy.highpoint.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/when-social-media-traumatizes-teens/docview/2113587897/se-2?accountid=11411, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IntR-02-2017-0077.
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