The Real Impact Of Social Media

By Keon Amid

As a member of Generation Z and a teenager throughout this historical wave of new technology and digitalization of the world, I can say with certainty that social media takes a toll on my mental health. Social media has been a big part of our society for decades now; however, in recent times, it has completely taken over the minds of consumers. It was very clear to me that teenage usage of social media was already steadily rising before the COVID-19 lockdown, but due to the lockdown that had all of us trapped in our houses, social media grew exponentially to the point where it completely defined some people. I don’t actually think that overusing social media during the lockdown is a bad thing at all. Since we were stuck in our houses and couldn’t see our friends and family, it helped us maintain our bonds with loved ones.

Although it benefited everyone during the pandemic, the aftermath is devastating. The pandemic pretty much ended when all the Russia vs Ukraine conflict was starting, which was a few months ago. And now being back in school, it is clear to me that all of these teenagers that are surrounding me have basically gotten their lives destroyed by being glued to their phones for the duration of the pandemic, and they don’t even know it yet. This is a topic I am very passionate about because honestly, I believe I am among the very few perspicacious enough to actually see what has happened to my brain because of social media. I truly believe these social media companies have attacked my brain by killing my ability to get work done and better myself. I will get into more later, but the reason I say that I am among “the few” is because I was able to identify this attack before it completely destroyed my brain. I then took action against it by completely deleting all social media off my phone and configuring my phone to completely shut off after 1 hour of usage a day. Social media definitely has impacted me psychologically in a lot of different ways; however, the biggest way it has affected me and the reason I deleted all of them off my phone is 100% because it completely killed my productivity and drive for self-betterment.

Social media platforms that work off of scrolling through short 30 sec - 2 min clips have destroyed my attention span and effectively given me ADHD. My 66-year-old dad, who grew up in Iran where technology used to be scarce, always sits outside on a warm Sacramento night and just watches the stars. Even during the day, he occasionally sits and watches the birds. I’ve always envied how he can be at peace doing an activity that I find to be deathly boring. It frustrates me beyond belief that I’m incapable of focusing on something as simple as stargazing. All of these attention issues have developed into an overall depreciation of the simple things in life, such as nature. The new wave of social media is a system where consumers scroll through short format clips in order to keep them entertained and constantly interested. This format can be found in all the big social media companies such as TikTok, Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, Snapchat explore, etc. However, this has basically given young developing kids like me ADHD. This is because those short videos are usually customized toward you in order to keep you engaged, and this is a problem because it gives your brain large amounts of dopamine in short bursts. Those short bursts of dopamine train your brain to the point where you can’t stay engaged in things that aren’t constantly stimulating your brain. I started to consume content in this format about 2 years ago, which was around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I remember how life was before I started, I remember finding school to be rather easy, and I even remember being able to study for hours without getting distracted. However, I now realize the repercussions of lying on my bed mindlessly scrolling through TikTok for the entire pandemic. Senior year of high school was so hard for me because I just couldn’t stay focused. Those 2-hour classes felt like an eternity.

I am very big on the gym and working out in general. Since I used TikTok a lot, the algorithm knows what my interests are and feeds me videos of insane unattainable bodies. This ends up giving me bad and unhealthy thoughts, it highlights everything I am not and makes me very unmotivated. The unfortunate reality of social media is that it is basically just full of other people's accomplishments. I would say that it is 90% content of other people's achievements and 10% videos of cute animals. I explicitly remember squatting 225 lbs. for the first time over quarantine. It felt great, and I got so hyped for the rest of the day after that. Unfortunately, the jolt of motivation I got quickly turned into dust after going home and seeing all these powerlifters squatting 800+ lbs. Social media companies use your information such as Google searches and YouTube history to feed you content that the algorithm thinks you will be interested in. Since I am so big on the gym and spend so much time researching techniques and tips about the gym, my social media feeds used to be full of gym content. Most of the content included unnatural bodybuilders and powerlifters who were on steroids that were doing extraordinary things with their bodies. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – a professional wrestler, movie star, former football player, and bodybuilder – was one of my biggest idols growing up, and I always aspired to look like him one day. It hurt me to learn that he was using steroids for such a long time. It killed my motivation to work out because I was constantly thinking that it was a waste of time unless I wanted to resort to steroid abuse.

The attention issues that social media gave me led to a poor performance in my senior year of high school, and all of the fitness influencers made me feel bad about my body and unmotivated. Picture that for a second, a teenage boy lying on his bed, and all he can think about are his bad grades and how he is below average in one of his favorite hobbies. This is why social media is one of the leading causes of teenage depression, and I am clearly no exception to that fact. According to the US Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2022), “According to the new data, in 2021, more than a third (37%) of high school students reported they experienced poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 44% reported they persistently felt sad or hopeless during the past year” (para. 3). At first glance at this evidence, you would probably think that the pandemic itself was the reason for all the poor mental health. I mean it makes sense, you're locked in your house with nothing to do and no one to see. Now allow me to let you in on a little secret: most teenagers who were in high school when the COVID lockdown happened secretly loved it. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true because let's be honest, teenagers don’t like following rules, so while the adults had to actually work from home, us teens would either be out with our friends all day or playing video games while in our Zoom classes. However, let me be clear, I still know people who had their lives ruined by the pandemic, and I’m not trying to write it off as some type of joke. I’m simply relaying the experiences I saw that most high school students had during the lockdown.

Now, all this begs the question that if the majority of teenagers had a seemingly great time during the lockdown, why did the CDC find that so many of them experience poor mental health? If you haven't been able to guess it already, it’s because of social media. Social media makes me, and other teenagers like me, depressed because it shows me how great of a life other people and even other 17-year-old kids are living and makes me doubt my life choices and path. Seeing other people, especially people my age, that have so much wealth and free time, basically everything that I’ve ever wanted, makes me feel like somewhat of a failure or a waste of potential and those feelings lead into depression. Let me give you an example, as previously mentioned I love working out and building my body, but unfortunately all the gyms were closed during the lockdown and I had no access to the one thing I genuinely enjoyed doing. This led me to gain a lot of unwanted weight and that by itself made me feel bad about myself. However, what really did it for me was scrolling through TikTok for hours on end seeing people my age and even younger with the body of my dreams working out in their home gym. Not only did seeing them lifting weights make me feel jealous, but a deeper dive into their profiles also led me to find out that most of them were on steroids. It should be clear now why social media is a poison to the youth that develops into feelings of depression.

Aside from making you feel bad about your life, social media has another technique that contributes to depression and ultimately led to my productiveness and drive being destroyed. The technique I am alluding to is the fact that social media has the ability to ruin your sleep. Sleep is the number one most important aspect of a healthy body and mind. Without sleep, we feel like zombies and are completely out of energy. The social media algorithms in place to keep me plugged in led to an excessive use of my phone at night before bed. This is a problem because our phones emit a certain type of light known as “blue light” that keeps us awake at night leading to an unhealthy loss of sleep. Rob Newsom (2022), a mental health counselor and a writer for Sleep Foundation, has this to say about the blue light: “While all light can interfere with our circadian rhythms, the 24-hour internal rhythms that control processes like the sleep-wake cycle, the blue light emitted from electronic screens has the greatest impact on sleep. Blue light stimulates parts of the brain that makes us feel alert, leaving us energized at bedtime when we should be winding down” (para. 5). Since sleep is the most important aspect of a healthy and productive mindset, especially as a teenager whose body and mind are still in development, a lack of sleep contributes to the lack of motivation, ADHD, and feelings of depression I talked about earlier which all funnels back to the idea that it has killed my productivity. The best way I can describe it is that the lack of sleep made my mind vulnerable and defenseless to these mental illnesses such as ADHD and depression.

As you can see, social media has had an array of negative effects on me and other young impressionable teenagers like me. It has made me care about other people's lives and what they thought of me instead of focusing on my own, it has given me mental diseases such as depression and ADHD, it has been a big contributor to an overall lack of sleep, and so much more. However, the majority of my experiences that I talked about were experiences I had in the past when I still had social media. I am a lot better now that I have deleted those poisonous apps from my phone. I am honestly very proud of myself for realizing what was happening to my brain instead of giving in to the comfort of social media. Thanks to the perspicacious decision of deleting them I am now much more productive, and I wake up every day eager to work out and improve my quality of life.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). New CDC data illuminate youth mental health threats during the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/p0331-youth-mental-health-covid-19.html

Rob Newsom. (2022, April 22). Sleep and Social Media. Sleep Foundation. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/sleep-and-social-media