Does Staying Connected Mean Staying Safe?

    The words in social media are self explanatory. Social meaning a way to connect with other individuals and express themselves and media, and outlet meaning for individuals to indulge and enjoy content. It has been one of the biggest influences in how people think, feel and act especially teenagers. Some highly influential person wears a certain clothing, then others will follow in their footsteps. This kind of influence can go many ways; the clothing to wear, how to style your hair, what your teeth should look like or how skinny you can be. Those are just a few kinds of influences teenagers get from scattering across social media. Yes, there can be good in it but there is plenty of negative influence to their image, health and self. You wanted to head out for the night with your friends and your mom or dad says, "Make sure you text me", you will stay connected since you don't want them worrying. Staying connected with family and friends helps you and them with being able to contact each other without really seeing them. The problem is staying connected in other ways, like social media posts, news and drama can create the sense that being connected isn’t always a good idea which creates an environment of stress, anxiety, envy, jealousy and want for these teenagers.

    Sleep is a wonderful thing right? Social media affects many teenagers sleep hours and sleep schedules. Disruption of sleep is a common problem with social media; Teenagers before bed will scroll till no end on platforms and stay up all night because of that. Sleeping is so important for your health, not sleeping enough can harm you physically and mentally. High stress and anxiety can occur with having lower hours of sleep and/or bad sleep schedules. 

    FOMO is an acronym used to heavily describe how teenagers think and deal with social media. “Fear Of Missing Out” is the meaning behind it stating that many teenagers use and continue to use social media because of the fact that they think they are better knowing what is going on than not. The problem is, FOMO can play a very negative role on teenagers stress and anxiety levels. An article by center4research states an example of seeing a party online that fellow friends are at and you are not invited. That creates negative feelings towards the teenager and heightens their own stress and anxiety which then they develop the fear of not being there, the fear of missing out. 

    Image of the body and life are vastly influenced by social media and lead to negative effects other than just anxiety and stress. Body image circulates all around social media, showing the "ideal" bodies that will attract everyone and make the teenager "more popular". Instead of it helping teenagers get these body images that they see all over, it creates a stigma on their own body image and the want to escape their own image and body in all. Many of these so-called influencers with lean bodies and barbie doll figures are faked with edited stretching and shrinking of the bodies and removal of blemishes and scars to fit the perfect image. Teenagers seeing these photos have a want to match these social media influencers and manifest a hate on their own body image from a fake and edited photo they saw online.

    Cyberbullying is another problem with social media and staying attached to it for a long period of time. Teenagers at some point have been exposed to cyberbullying from others online. Since it can be done without teachers and parents seeing and knowing, cyberbullying nowadays is a lot more accessible and easier to do; talking or typing through a screen gives the bully a "safety net" to bash people and get away with it. The victim fights back? The victim starts to cry? The bully with just one click of a button can leave and never see the likes of them ever again. Easy right? Even though it is easier, it can still be as effective as bullying in a real life setting. Cyberbullying is linked to many cases of depression and even suicide. 

    There is research from the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction where teengers were asked questions and it showed that extensive internet use correlates with lower quality family relationship,  social relationships and mental health. All of these can contribute to a mental health problems in teenagers. Bad environments for the individual creates a want for them to "escape" the setting and seek comfort; Seeking something for the teenager to indulge in and forget about what is really going on behind the curtains.  Social media is that comfort that many teenagers might find.

    Dependency is what drives social media beyond its limits. Many teenagers depend on social media for its comfort, entertainment and drama. When they wake up they need to see what's the new drama or fashion statement to get them through the day. That need to grab the phone even if it negatively affects the individuals mental health and mental image is what makes social media so peculiar. So many negative effects from social media and everyone still uses it? Yeah, I know. It's annoying, but addicting.