Using Excess Social Media Causes Mental Illness In Teenage Girls As Per This Study

For a while now, we’ve been hearing a lot of news about how mental health and social media usage are directly linked. But at that time, there was no evidence of any causal link. Moreover, even if a direct link was found, it was outlined to be minimal and not something of too much concern.

Now, a new study is providing otherwise, leaving many to think twice about how social media can really play with young people’s minds without them even realizing it. This study by a psychology professor at NYU is really making many of us realize that the problem is growing as we speak. And there needs to be an alarm raised against it.

The CDC’s new survey is really showcasing how 57% of young females spoke in detail about how depressed and helpless they felt on most occasions. Some 30% claim to have had suicidal thoughts too. But it’s not just the females that are suffering from such negative thoughts. Males are feeling the same way as well and their respective rates for anxiety and depression may not be as great as their female counterparts but it’s definitely there.

In the past, it was revealed how things have been super difficult to show how there was a cause-and-effect relationship. There could be many causes of females feeling negative or bad about themselves. So to prove that it was directly related to smartphones or social media was a little hard for obvious reasons. Let’s not forget how there have been hundreds of studies linked to the same subject and mostly all have shown little to no effects.

But with this particular new study, things are definitely changing. The amount of details and evidence on display shows how social media is the main cause of the mental effects that young women display and with the dangers of self-harm linked to it, this is major.

The study had enrolled a huge sample size and there were a lot of interesting findings highlighted. The research further spoke about all types of digital media sources being the culprit and Netflix was a part of the list as well. But when you do isolate some apps from the world of social media, that’s when you see how the data is able to pass statistic tests and directly show a causal relationship.

Many argued in the past that correlation is there but not causal. This is different as it provides the latter with strong sources of evidence, with the authors concluding social media to be a leading detrimental factor for mental illness in young teens.

This might be one of the many reasons why we’re seeing apps like TikTok be deleted from the likes of all official devices across the United Kingdom. They claim the reason to be data protection issues and a similar stance was taken by the US recently too.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World