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Jasmine Hens
Professor Medvesky
ENC1102
05/08/2022
The Effects of Social Media on Today’s Society
Social media has become an international epidemic taking over millions of people around
the world. From Instagram to Snapchat and for millennials… Facebook. Almost everyone has
some sort of platform, and it is very detrimental to our society. Since social media came to light
in on the internet it has expanded from only a couple platforms to an uncountable amount. Since
it is so easily accessed it has grasped a chokehold on most of the world’s populations and have
produced a toxic environment for a lot of people. Although, social media has an upside to being
around, their cons seem to rise above. Personally, I would have to agree with the fact that the bad
outweighs the good. Social media causes many mental health and self-image issues, an obsession
with checking likes and comments and causes people to lose motivation for things in the outside
world.
First and foremost, since social media has come around there has been a significant
impact on the mental health of people who frequently use it. In 2021, 72% of people reported
using some sort of social media platform. (Tartakovsky) This meaning that over half of the
Earth’s population use social media on a regular basis. With this much usage of it, there’s bound
to be some problems to arise. There is a lot of factors that go into social media affecting one’s
mental health. One especially is jealousy, not necessarily are people purposefully envying others
but people doing awesome things being put in front of your eyes will bring up jealousy. Seeing
others going on grand vacations, having great friendships, job promotions, and “picture-perfect”
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relationships can bring people who don’t realize everything on social media is not completely
real could bring up depression. In 2018 a study showed that people that spend less time on social
media show less symptoms of depression (Nittle). Proving more that people who spend their
time on social media have a higher chance of suffering from loneliness and depression, which
goes to show that it has an unhealthy impact on people’s mental health. Also, one thing that
comes from the constant visual of others’ lives is FOMO, which means “fear of missing out.” I
can personally account that I have experienced this, and it is a horrible feeling. Seeing your other
friends out having fun without you brings a feeling of anxiety that takes a toll on you and brings
a sadness and depressing feeling. Research from 2019 suggests that the use of social media have
troubled sleep (Tartakovsky). Loss of sleep, in general, can lead to many mental health issues,
due to the exhaustion your brain is obviously not at 100% and anxiety and depression stems from
