Depression refers to a standard and consequential illness that influences how individuals feel negatively, how they think, and how they act. Depression is a crucial brutal disorder. It results in feelings such as sadness or lack of attentiveness in activities an individual once enjoyed, as Beck, Koenig, & Beck (1998) state. Depression can result in several psychological and physical complications and lead to poor work performance or studies. Disability can also result from depression worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, depression can affect children, adults, or even the adolescent. The feelings caused by depression are different from mood variations that individuals usually experience as a part of life. This paper focuses on a topic that involves depression and social media. The report will look at the relationship between depression and social media.
Social media refers to connected computer moderated technologies that ease the spread of certain information, idea, and other structures of appearance through influential groups and systems. By a generated plan, social media is established on the internet, and it grants enjoyers fast electronic conveying of information. Social media users generate online groups to spread knowledge and ideas, messages, and other entertainments such as videos. Individuals use gadgets like phones, tablets, and computers to access social media.
According to Greenwood, Perrin & Duggan (2016), social media emerged as a form of interacting with people from different parts of the world. Social media’s strength is the potentiality to connect and pass content to any individual from other parts of the world. As technology keeps on improving, social media also improves and becomes an essential item in modern life. It has simplified life in terms of communication and even passage of information within a short period. In contemporary society, the government is also applying social media to conduct campaigns and the voting process through social media. Children in modern life have also been introduced to social media, thus even getting addicted to it. Additionally, students are also introduced to social media in schools, where it has become a form of learning.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND DEPRESSION.
During the study of social media’s connection with psychological health consequences such as depression, results discovery suggest miscellaneous outcomes. The relationship between social media and psychological health is compounded and may include numerous psychological, social, behavioral, and independent elements. Whether social media is useful or damaging, psychological fitness and good health may rely on social aspects in the social system sites surrounding. When examining child and teenage inhabitants, experiments have been compatible with the connection between cyber-harassment and depression.
Social media has been both safeguarding and a risk element, as Aalbers, McNally, Heeren, Wit & Fried (2019) state. This results from some of the negative aspects, such as cyber harassment. Between the ages of 18-19 years, it has been discovered that helpful social differentiation was remarkably unsupportive and was also accompanied by symptoms of depression. An experiment has revealed the odds of psychological disorder in individuals who spend most of their time on social media. Additionally, social media has been discovered to be an addictive element to individuals.
The social media effect has mostly been observed in college students and teenagers who have already adapted an addictive behavior. Most of the college students and young adults have been marked with depression because of spending most of the time on social media. There are several reasons why college students and young adults are the most affected. One of the reasons is because this is the age with a large number of populations. This is also the highest percentage where individuals use social media and get addicted. The individuals end up being affected by depression as a result of social media addiction.
Social media, such as Facebook, causes depression. Face book depression refers to the affected individual’s experience when discovering that their colleagues are topping in what seems to indicate a more happy life than they lead. This is established according to their colleagues’ status updates and the pictures they post. Young adults may feel less admired when one of their members receives more ‘likes’ and many comments on their updated status or photos posted, according to Boczkowsk, Mitchelstein & Matassi (2017, January). Individuals using social media may feel insufficient when those younger than them happen to perform well on Facebook. An individual might experience a terrible feeling when they see their fellows posting pictures, for instance, with their loved ones, having fun, or enjoying luxurious items. Research conducted has revealed that such situations might cause depression in most people.
Additionally, parents and guardians get scared when their children meet that they haven’t met in real life but only in social media. The fear still exists even in current days. Intimidating individuals in social media has also become so common. Social media grants strangers the courage to bully other individuals, which they can’t perform in real life. Bullying in social media exists in the forms of threatening and making weird comments on posted pictures or updated status. Bullying also occurs where an individual keeps sending text messages for hours and ends up irritating other people. The act of being harassed on social media can end up causing depression.
Social media also becomes addictive since most individuals experience the fear of missing out. Hunt, Marx, Lipson & Young (2018) states that fear of missing out makes individuals feel like they must always be connected to social media at all times. Everyone is afraid of missing some critical information, especially from celebrities. Every individual wants to be related to social media to avoid missing out on what is trending. Every person wants to catch up on what’s happening in the world. The use of social media also results in so many assumptions that could even lead to fights. The fear of missing out can negatively affect individuals, thus leading to depression. Nobody wants to be left out then appears to be the odd one out among his friends.
Individuals who sit with their computers or on their laptops end up being less active. Therefore, these individuals create room for health complications. Additionally, when individuals choose to engage themselves in social media full time, they do not practice activities that fit their minds. For instance, it is healthier to immerse ourselves in a group meeting where people can address specific issues at night, rather than be on your phone viewing status and updated pictures. It is also advisable to spend time reading novels or books rather than social media, which will eventually make you sad or angry.
It is also advisable for individuals to spend time with friends face to face, talk, and laugh rather than conversing on social media with strangers. As a result, social media results in disappointment when an individual highly expects too many comments or likes on a status or a picture. Some even tend to get angry when a person they believe should like or comment ignores the post. This makes people sad and angry, and too much thinking about this can lead to depression.
In some cases, some people deny themselves enough sleep when attending to social media. Once people become addicted, they barely sleep. The feeling of scrolling Facebook and Instagram outdoes them, and they find themselves awake all day. By the time someone realizes it’s already late at night, getting some sleep becomes a challenge to them. Some end up attending to their daily activities such as studies, sleepy, and exhausted. This affects their mind because these individuals mostly overwork their minds. Their performance becomes poor, and some may end up losing their jobs. In case of such situations, such people result in deep thinking, resulting in health complications. Sleep is essential to everyone, and minds need to relax and rest. Sleep enables someone to feel fresh and helps people operate effectively.
Addiction to using social media also results in low self-esteem, especially for girls. According to Vogel, Rose, Roberts & Eckles (2014), teenage girls tend to compare themselves with pictures of other girls posted on Facebook and Instagram. They think negatively about themselves. They think other girls are prettier than them. Other girls appear to have an impressive body size, more prosperous, and more popular. Some post pictures wearing very expensive attires and wigs, making some girls lose their self-confidence to be like the popular girls or celebrities. The act of feeling inadequate may result in depression. This is because all girls want to post pictures that they think will impress everybody on social media. They have a fear of being rejected.
Continuous use of social media leads to low concentration. For instance, students try to multitask, listening to their tutors, and scrolling social media. They end up concentrating on social media more than their tutors. Students believe themselves in the act of multitasking, where the fact is learning performance decreases. Students also try to do their class assignments at the same time conversing with friends on the internet. This leads to low concentration, and their projects take a lot of time more than they are supposed to. A lot of time is consumed, leading to no time for relaxing and resting their brains. This leads to mental illness such as stress, which can later result in depression.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, social media is not a bad aspect, but individuals should learn to manage their time. Time should not be consumed only in social media. Additionally, people should learn to avoid social media and get news from other sources such as newspapers. Visiting news website instead of Facebook and Instagram can help in preventing addiction. From the paper, we can learn that social media’s continuous use results in mental health consequences. In such a situation, the affected individuals should visit a counselor soonest possible before getting worse.