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Emily Higgins

English 1201

Professor Cassel

24 March 2019

Social Media and Mental Health

Like many people my age, social media is a huge part of my life. I use multiple apps

every single day, usually spending more time on them than I probably should. Mental health is

such a big problem today, it has affected me personally and many of the people around me. I

think that social media has such a significant effect on the mental health of teenagers because of

all the comparison, bullying, triggering images, etc. Teens are getting bombarded with horrible

images and language at all times, I want to know just how bad this problem is and what it can be

done to help.

This topic makes me feel upset and worried for where our world is headed. The

conversations about mental health are certainly more acceptable now, social media probably

being a huge factor in that but the negative effects of social media on teen’s mental health largely

outweigh the positive effects. I want teens to understand the kind of damage social media can

have on them and what they can do to minimize that damage. I think this topic is so important in

today’s society and I am so curious about just how hurtful the social media world is. I believe

this topic is not talked about enough, like I said, mental health is becoming more important in the

eyes of the world but the people talking about it on social media do not talk about how bad social

media is for their mental health. I know that nearly everybody is using social media and that
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nearly everybody has been affected by mental health, whether it be personally or through

someone else. I also know what a teenager has to go through, because I have been there and,

honestly, I still am there. It is so hard being a teenager in this society, with somebody telling you

to one thing and someone else telling you to do something else, trying to fit in and social media

just adds to that weight.

There is so much about this topic that I am so curious to learn about. I plan to begin my

research by looking at articles written by mental health professionals about mental health and

how horrible the mental health of teenagers is today, then moving on to how social media has

affected it. I want to know specific statistics on mental health and social media and how the

relationship between the two. I also want to know what can be done to help this problem and

how teens can become more aware of the underlying side effects that comes with too much

social media usage.