The Obsession with Social Media
Capstone Project 2019
In this research paper I will talk about the problems with being obsessed with social media. This will be focused on middle schoolers and how it negatively affects them. I will also be talking about how this obsession can affect them in the long term. Another thing I will talk about is cyber bullying. The final thing I will talk about is how to stay away from social media or at least limit yourself to it. This is a very important topic since in todays world technology has been integrated very strongly into our every day lives. With this comes social media.
The first thing I am going to talk about in this paper is how social media can make people feel. In certain cases it makes people feel important or appreciated. For example lets say you just preformed at your first music concert and you post a picture of it on twitter or Facebook. Some people may say that the music was great or they wish they were their. This could make that person feel good and higher their self esteem which is good. But other people can say things like, I hated your music or I hate concerts. People should try to ignore things like that but the bad comments seem to stick more then the good ones. Bad comments like these can also keep coming and can lower peoples self esteem. This is not good, it can make people more shy and be afraid to ask questions too. They may start second guessing themselves or be afraid to ask for help when they really need it. None of this is good.
Going off of what I said before comments on social media can make people feel bad about themselves. With this I am going to talk more about how you look. You could go to a store and get a new outfit and think its cool. Then you buy it and head home. You want to show your cool new outfit to all of your friends so you take a picture of it and post it on some form of social media. It could be twitter, or Instagram, or Facebook. Some people think your outfit looks cool and make nice comments. This can be good, you gain self esteem and it can even make you just feel in a better mood. Other people can still make rude comments like you look fat, or I hate that color. This can make you feel self conscious about how you look and what you wear. You may think your not good enough and you’ll start doubting your own choices. You would also most likely be wasting your money, if you think other people don’t like the clothes your wearing your probably not going to ever wear them. This means that social media can start dictating what you think you should look like. You compare yourself to other people and how nice they look. People on social media may comment and say you look fat. You may think you need to be skinnier and look like some other people. Certain people may refuse to eat and this gives them anorexia were they are unusually skinny and are basically starving themselves.
Around 2.77 billion people use social media
I said I would talk about some long term effects of social media. Here I an example, there was a shooting at YouTube’s head quarters in California one or two years ago. During the attack the shooter killed herself. Eventually the police found her motive which was her lack of YouTube followers. She had thought that YouTube was censoring the amount of followers she had. This isn’t something that constantly happens but it’s a good example of certain negative long term affects of social media. Another pretty bad long term affect from social media can be depression. It’s a mix of feeling worthless, lonely, sad, apathy, and guilt at a constant. I had talked about anorexia before and that’s another negative long term affect. There is also social anxiety disorder which is directly related to social media. It’s when a person feels rejected socially on social media. What I am going to talk about next is also a long term affect from social media. This can affect your college choices and applications which will further more effect your job choices.
- Middle/high schoolers using social media. 94%
%
Middle/high schoolers using social media.
Cyber bullying or even what some people call media bullying can cause feelings like the ones I talked about before shown in depression. Media bullying is a mix of bad comments and thoughts towards one person or multiple. This type of bullying is hard for teachers and parents to notice and if this has been happening the person effected by it may not have the courage to speak up and ask for help. The bully can make rude remarks or comments about you. They may also start false rumors about you. The most common place cyber/media bullying occurs is on social media. Once again this can have a permanent effect on certain people. It can make them constantly self conscious or shy.
. The average person spends 5 years and 4 months on social media in their lifetime.
There are also some more long term negative affects of social media. You think I have talked about this before but not all effects are mental, some of them are physical. One of these affects are obesity, which is when your very unhealthily overweight. Another thing that could happen would be heart disease or even cancer. Sometimes people can also be more likely to have a stroke. All of this is because of social media.
You also probably know at least a little about how your phone can affect your spine. Constantly checking your phone or your computer for social media alerts and things like that, you start to lean your head down. Even though you may do it very slightly it can still damage your spine. Even just two inches of a constant looking down posture can add ten to twenty pounds of stress on your spine. From this you can get a pinched nerve or spinal arthritis.
The average middle/high schooler spends 3285 hours on social media each year.
Now I am going to talk about how you can stop being obsessed with social media. The first and easiest thing you can do is to set a time limit for when you want to got to bed and make sure you have half an hour of no screen time before bed. Another thing you can do with that is to start setting ground rules. Like no electronics at breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Other things you can do include things like saying I will only be on electronics for a max of three hours each day. If you don’t like that you can try saying that I will only be on social media for a max of maybe one or two hours each day. Any of these ideas can help you stop being obsessed with social media.
The average kid between 0 and 8 spends around 50 minutes on electronics daily
The average kid between 8 and 12 spends around 6 hours on electronics daily
The average kid between 12 and 18 spends around 9 hours on social media daily
I hope this research paper was helpful and informational. If you have an over obsession with social media you can try one of my suggestions to limit yourself to it. Thank you for reading.
Bibliography
. https://www.quora.com/Is-there-such-a-thing-as-the-fear-of-social-media-or-anxiety-over-it
. https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/
. https://makeawebsitehub.com/social-media-sites/
. https://qz.com/1367506/pew-research-teens-worried-they-spend-too-much-time-on-phones/
. https://adaa.org/social-media-obsession
.https://www.braceability.com/blogs/articles/text-neck-how-smartphones-hurt-your-spine
. https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/amazing-social-media-statistics-and-facts/
Original photography by Eric Pickersgill
Uncredited stock photography
Photo from Kenneth K. Hansraj, MD, Chief of Spine Surgery , New York Spine Surgery & Rehabilitation Medicine