The Role of Social Media on Mental Health Among Younger Populations:

Analyzing how technological advances are causing a new social dilemma

Date of Event: Thursday, September 26th 2024

Time of Event: 9:30 AM — 1:00 PM PST

Place of Event: Webinar

Key Speakers

Overview

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention released data showing that nearly three in five (57%) of U.S. teen girls persistently felt sad or hopeless in 2021, doubling that of boys. Additionally, the data showed that nearly one in three girls seriously contemplated suicide. Since 2010, rates of depression and mental health crises in American teens have nearly doubled, where before, rates remained stagnant. Social media creation and use have been linked to these increased rates. As the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) depicts, “the number of social media users worldwide in 2019 was 3.484 billion, up 9% year-on-year.” (National Library of Medicine) Popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat have billions of users that each have different objectives for being there. The NCBI illustrated a gender distribution in January of 2020 that details the percentage of male versus female users on these social media platforms, finding that more females are using Twitter and Facebook, versus males who are predominantly active on Instagram and Snapchat. According to the Pew Research Center, “69% of adults and 81% of teens in the U.S. use social media. This puts a large amount of the population at an increased risk of feeling anxious, depressed, or ill over their social media use.” (McLean Hospital) One of the questions that experts ask themselves in consideration of these figures is why do people continue to use social media platforms despite the negative feelings that they feel while using it? Doctor Jacqueline Sperling, a McLean Hospital psychologist who works with youth populations experiencing anxiety disorders, said the following statement where she compared the situation to that of using a slot machine and gambling: “When the outcome is unpredictable, the behavior is more likely to repeat. Think of a slot machine – if game players knew they never were going to get money by playing the game, then they never would play. The idea of a potential future reward keeps the machines in use. The same goes for social media sites. One does not know how many likes a picture will get, who will ‘like’ the picture, and when the picture will receive likes. The unknown outcome and the possibility of a desired outcome can keep users engaged with the sites.” As Doctor Sperling observed, the overuse of social media is correlated with a feeling of reward, and the feelings associated with obtaining that specific goal.

To describe why social media leads to mental health disorders, the McLean Hospital says that “in addition to providing young people with a window through which they can view missed experiences, social media puts a distorted lens on appearances and reality. Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat increase the likelihood of seeing unrealistic, filtered photos at a time when teen bodies are changing.” (McLean Hospital) College campuses have reported statistics showing how social among their students has led to a decrease in mental health. For example, the MIT Management Sloan School has stated that “college-wide access to Facebook led to an increase in severe depression by 7% and anxiety disorder by 20%. Beyond these results, a greater percentage of the most susceptible students also treated symptoms with either psychotherapy or antidepressants. In total, the negative effect of Facebook on mental health appeared to be roughly 20% to the magnitude of what is experienced by those who lose their job.” (Dylan Walsh, MIT Sloan School) Another observation that MIT points out is the fact that between 2000 and 2007, suicide rates increased by 57% among the age groups between 10 to 24 years old, as stated by the Centers for Disease Control.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the U.S. Surgeon General released an Advisory in 2023 on Social Media and Youth Mental Health, which details that while social media use by younger populations is very much a universal concept (as between the ages of 13 to 17 there is a 95% usage rate), it has also presented a real threat in harming the youth. The Surgeon General’s Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health sets out many points of improvement to help mitigate the mental health decline in the youth caused by increase use in social media, calling for “engaging in a multifaceted effort to maximize the benefits and reduce the risk of harm posed by social media with actions suggested for groups including: children and adolescents, policymakers, technology companies, researchers, and families.” (U.S. Surgeon General) As the Advisory states, everyone must understand their role in this phenomenon as a stakeholder in order to reach adequate agreements and solutions. In addition, the Biden-Harris Administration previously announced actions to protect youth from not only the mental health aspects pertaining to social media, but physical safety as well. As this depicts, one of the gaps in lowering the use of social media platforms is the amount of intriguing advertisement, luring young populations to engage in technological usage as a means of staying in the loop.

Given the data that has been analyzed and the correlation between social media usage and the increase in mental health disorders among young adults and adolescents, this symposium seeks to address the role that government legislations pose in mitigating the use of technological platforms and anxiety/depression disorders. This event seeks to discuss and observe ways that marketing and advertisements are impacting and increasing young adult and adolescent use of social media platforms.

Program

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