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Effects of Social Media on Mental Health: A Review

January 2016
International Journal of Indian Psychology 4(3):125 - 131

Authors:

Central University of Kashmir

From past two decade social media beheld a sporadic enhancement in quantity, quality and utility. As the body of an individual is nourished by the intake of necessary mineral elements obtained through nutrition, likewise human mind is nurtured by the availability of nutrition for thoughts. Now a day’s which is readily available through the advancement of technology, thereby opening a platform for discussion between social media and mental health of present era. From the dawn of internet and social networking sites human resources of contemporary world have become more social virtually but less practically. This virtual life is isolating present man from other fellow beings thereby affecting his health (mental & physical) and overall balance. Increased usage of social networking among adults of the present era is a matter of concern for the parents, society & researchers, as there are always two sides (positive & negative) of every innovation. The aim of present research is to explore the effect of social media on mental health. To achieve said purpose, the investigator reviewed and synthesized available related literature. Literature summed so far reveals that younger generation operates susceptibly. As a confronting population of the present era, younger generation is experiencing embryonic stage of life and is at higher risk of serious mental health problem. Younger generation of present era is acting as active users of social media which has affinity towards the problems of mental health. The present perilous situation requires more understanding, to know relation between social media and mental health problems is just a kick off point. Exploring and understanding the means with the help of which social media is affecting mental health of present younger generation is succeeding step which can illuminate the connections which are at play among these variables of young generation.

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Review Article

The International Journal of Indian Psychology

ISSN 2348-5396 (e) | ISSN: 2349-3429 (p)

Volume 4, Issue 3, DIP: 18.01.134/20170403

DOI: 10.25215/0403.134

http://www.ijip.in | April - June, 2017

Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits

unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Effects of Social Media on Mental Health: A Review

Hilal Bashir1*, Shabir Ahmad Bhat2

ABSTRACT

From past two decade social media beheld a sporadic enhancement in quantity, quality and

utility. As the body of an individual is nourished by the intake of necessary mineral elements

obtained through nutrition, likewise human mind is nurtured by the availability of nutrition

for thoughts. Now a day’s which is readily available through the advancement of technology,

thereby opening a platform for discussion between social media and mental health of present

era. From the dawn of internet and social networking sites human resources of contemporary

world have become more social virtually but less practically. This virtual life is isolating

present man from other fellow beings thereby affecting his health (mental & physical) and

overall balance. Increased usage of social networking among adults of the present era is a

matter of concern for the parents, society & researchers, as there are always two sides

(positive & negative) of every innovation. The aim of present research is to explore the effect

of social media on mental health. To achieve said purpose, the investigator reviewed and

synthesized available related literature. Literature summed so far reveals that younger

generation operates susceptibly. As a confronting population of the present era, younger

generation is experiencing embryonic stage of life and is at higher risk of serious mental

health problem. Younger generation of present era is acting as active users of social media

which has affinity towards the problems of mental health. The present perilous situation

requires more understanding, to know relation between social media and mental health

problems is just a kick off point. Exploring and understanding the means with the help of

which social media is affecting mental health of present younger generation is succeeding

step which can illuminate the connections which are at play among these variables of young

generation.

Keywords: Social Media, Mental Health and Adolescents

The imbalance created by the excessive usage of social media is a great concern for parents,

researchers and society regarding the mental health of individuals. One of the most common

activities of present generation is excessive use of social media web sites. Social media can

be considered as those websites which allows interaction through web 2.0 & 3.0 sites

1 Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Education, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India

2 Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Education, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India

*Responding Author

Received: May 28, 2017; Revision Received: June 15, 2017; Accepted: June 30, 2017

Effects of Social Media on Mental Health: A Review

including application like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, online gaming, virtual worlds like

Second Life, Sims, YouTube, Blogs and so on. These sites of present era are growing

exponentially and act as easy available portals for communication and entertainment for

younger generation. Merriam-Webster (2014) defined social media as, “forms of electronic

communication (as Web sites for social networking and micro-blogging) through which users

create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content

(as videos).”Virtual platforms of social media like Facebook, Twitter etc. significantly

enhanced the virtual environment from past decade by facilitating users to interchange their

feelings, ideas, personal information, pictures and videos at anun-precedential proportion.

Further, social media users have speedily adopted online social communication as an

essential part of daily life, as evidenced by the increasing figure of daily users. In fact,

Facebook alone reported an estimated 1 billion active users in 27 august 2015. It means one

in seven people on earth used Facebook in a single day to stay connected with their friends

and family (posted by Mark Zakerberg on Thursday, August 27, 2015).

Consequently social media lays substantial influence on different aspects of present digital

life apart from online communication, from marketing to politics to education to health to

basic human interaction. In many of these areas, social media presents clear benefits;

however, social media phenomenon is relatively new, number of empirical studies evaluated

the overall influence of regular use of social media on the well-being and mental health of its

users.

This lack of understanding is predominantly a grave concern in the context of present

younger generation, as teens and young adults spends their good amount of time in online

socialization and hence are potentially experiencing a greater risk of negative effects. A

number of research studies classify connection between use of social media and its

undesirable outcomes like increase in anxiety, stress, depression and loneliness. The

increased usage of social media by younger generation raises alarms regarding its adverse

effects.

Social Media & Anxiety

Link between social media and compulsive behavior has been reported by various studies. It

has been found that forty five percent of British adults feel restlessness when they are not

able to access their social networking sites (Anxiety 2012). In Rosen et al. (2013), it is

reported virtual generation (Net & iGeneration) oftenly check the message on their social

networking application. It is also found that younger generation feels restlessness when they

were not able to access messages of their social networking applications apart from their

counterparts, giving rise to Phantom vibration syndrome (PVS). Which is a nothing but the

perception of an addict person regarding the vibration of his cell phone (Drouin, et al., 2012;

Rothberg, et al., 2010) any victim of PVS reflects obsession of frequent checking of social

messages exhibits manifestation of anxiety caused by cell phones.

Effects of Social Media on Mental Health: A Review

Social Media & Stress

In present era addiction of social media is incredibly increased, once an individual gets on, it

is difficult to refrain from its use. Comments and likes acts as positive reinforcement and

making it more difficult to stop it. Certain people compare their lives with the immaculate

lives of their friends. Dick (2013) reported with the use of free social networking services

(Facebook & Twitter) people remain connected with friends and read productive content but

at the same time lose a lot of discretion and privacy. In present world Anxiety is one of the

fundamental mental health problems. People fret about the likes and comments of their

uploaded pictures and videos. In the present era hardy any person is immune in context of

social media. The Hearty Soul (2016) asserts that longer time you spend on social media

more you are depressed, further it also reported that usage of social networking applications

like Facebook and Twitter are less helpful to students in remaining more focused and less

stressed. Kaur & Bashir (2015) explored both positive and negative effects of social media

on mental health of adolescents, positive effects include socialization, enhanced

communication, learning opportunities and access to health information. While negative

aspects include depression, online harassment, cyber-bulling, sexting, fatigue, stress,

suppression of emotional and decline of intellectual ability. In present world almost every

individual from age of 11-93 is connected to the social media. According to a research

conducted by Strickland (2014) young adults are the most active users of social media and

predominantly are at risk of developing mental health issue at a high rate of concern. Another

study conducted by Park, Song & Lee (2014) indicated that Social media application like

Facebook is positively associated with acculturative stress of college students. Similarly Kaur

and Bhat (2016) made an extensive investigation of stress on mental health of students and

suggest that stress can negatively affect on mental health of students. Therefore we can

conclude that excessive usage of social media can affect on mental health of the younger

generation.

Social Media and Depression

From the above literature it is clear social media is the basic agent that not enhances but also

nourishes the mental health problems. Excessive use of Social media leads an individual to

disastrous results that starts with anxiety and leads to the depression. In (Pantic et al., 2012)

it is revealed that depression and time spent on Facebook by adolescents is positively

correlated. Rosen et al., (2013), mirrored these findings and revealed that symptoms of major

depression has been found among the individuals who spent most of their time in online

activities and performing image management on social networking sites. Similarly (Lou et

al., 2012) asserted that students who use Facebook intensely reports enhanced loneliness. It is

also found that social media usage also enhances the psycho-social problems like

adjustment& self-esteem (Kalpidou et al., 2011).Research conducted by Davila (2012)

reflected severe depression symptoms among younger generation are associated with less

positive and more negative social interactions. In contrary evidence of inverse relation

between depression and internet usage has been reported by the Kraut et al., (1998) and

Shah & Grant (2002), they further suggest that various social forms like gaming & chatting

diminish the depression risk.

Effects of Social Media on Mental Health: A Review

Social media and loneliness

Social media usage is growing at a remarkable rate predominantly among young adults,

surprisingly in spite of having greater interconnectivity, present young generation is lonelier

than other groups and even loneliest ever (Pittman & Reich 2016). Loneliness is one of the

prime concerns of present virtual society, as it is intimately related to serious health problems

(Patterson & Veenstra, 2010; Biovin, Hymen & Bukowski, 1995). Loneliness can be

understood as discrepancy among desired level and practical level of social contacts of an

individual’s social life. According to Kim, LaRose, & Peng, (2009); Yao & Zhong (2013)

uncontrolled, unhygienic and compulsive usage of internet resources enhances loneliness

over the time also higher level of internet usage among young generation enhances the

emotional loneliness (Moody, 2001).While Mental Health foundation of United Kingdom

asserts60% of the young adults of age group 18-34 admitted loneliness despite of having all

social media applications and facilities to run these applications (Murphy, 2010). Likewise

researchers Skues, Williams, & Wise, (2012) revealed more the Facebook friends a student

have higher the level of loneliness he/she reports. In contrary to this, researchers Deters, &

Mehl, (2012) revealed people who consumes less social networking revealed higher score of

shyness and loneliness, they are also socially less active, similarly problem of loneliness also

gets reduced due to increase status updating Sheldon, (2012).

Social Relationships and Mental Health

Friendship is a vital component in protecting our mental health (Mental Health Foundation).

According to Umberson & Montez, (2010), quality and quantity of social relationships

affect health behavior, physical health, mental health and mortality risk. A number of

empirical studies determine that social support can prevent hopelessness (Johnson et al.,

2001) demoralize avoidant coping (Weaver et al., 2005), suppress loneliness (Schneider et

al., 1991), and strengthen positive states of mind (Gonzalez et al., 2004). On contrary

depression are associated with negative social interactions and social isolation (Schuster et

al., 1990; Chou et al., 2011) and suicide (Holma etal., 2010). Reich et al., (2010) inveterate,

that social support is related with better mental health. A social relationship plays a pivotal

role in boosting mental health. But the fact is there is disagreement among investigators

relating what components of social relationships have an impact on mental health. With the

amplified social support from relatives and friends grieved less from mental health problems

after a traumatic life event owed to stress-reduction function of this social support (Maulik et

al,. 2011).

CONCLUSION

This investigator reviewed and synthesized extensively related literature of social media and

some factors of mental health. The relation between usage of social media and depraved

mental health determines the significance of the topic. Social media usage have dangerous

effects for younger generation because problems related mental health which gets developed

during young period can act as an epidemic for any individual throughout the life. The

significance of continual enquiry and examination on this construct can’t be overstated.

Present literature reflects the deprived association between usage of social media and mental

Effects of Social Media on Mental Health: A Review

health of younger generation and also demonstrates the significance of present topic. It is

clear that adverse effects of social media usage obligate propounded consequences for present

generation especially for younger ones. The literature reviewed in various section of present

paper elucidates the substantial value of association between social media usage and mental

health problems of present era; also present paper illuminates the complexity of relationship.

Present Paper offers an insight in the complex connection of social media usage and mental

health problems of younger generation. These problems can be identify as online harassment,

depression, sexting/texting, stress, fatigue, loneliness, decline in intellectual abilities, cyber

bullying, emotion suppression and lack of concentration. These all things directly or

indirectly effects on mental health of younger generation. Literature summed so far reveals

that younger generation operates susceptibly. As a confronting population of the present era,

younger generation is experiencing emerging stage of life and is at higher risk of serious

mental health problem. To reduce these risks proper steps should be taken like information

and counseling sessions can be structured at schools and colleges. A proper awareness

movement can be organized to understand the effects of usage of social media on mental

health on younger generation. The social networking sites should be constrained to certain

age limit. Any social media application that has not positive effect like discrimination,

violence and racism etc. should be dissolved at once completely

Acknowledgments

The author appreciates all those who participated in the study and helped to facilitate the

research process.

Conflict of Interests: The author declared no conflict of interests.

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How to cite this article: Bashir H, Bhat S A (2017), Effects of Social Media on Mental

Health: A Review, International Journal of Indian Psychology, Volume 4, (3),

DIP:18.01.134/20170403, DOI:10.25215/0403.134

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p style="text-align:justify">The mental well-being of individuals is as important as their physical health, contributing to their overall quality of life. It is, however, often neglected due to associated stigma, with people silently suffering from mental health challenges. In India, a large population is struggling with mental health concerns, especially teenagers and adolescents. With a population of around 1.4 billion, India faces an immense shortage of adequate mental health services, realizing the need for alternate strategies to fill the treatment gap. As teachers spend much time with students in school, they can contribute to their mental well-being if provided with capacity-building opportunities. This study aims to measure the impact of a teacher sensitization program in Indian government schools on mental health-related knowledge, beliefs, and the behaviours demonstrated by them in the classroom while interacting with children, creating a ripple effect towards students’ mental well-being. A total of 136 teachers who were teaching at government high schools in the district of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India, were included in the study. The study used a pre- and post-design to investigate the impact of a teacher sensitization program on their understanding related to mental health. The results indicated notable improvements in teachers' attitudes and beliefs toward mental well-being, with significant improvements observed in areas such as behaviour, teachers' body language, relationships with students, and the use of effective teaching strategies. The findings highlight the importance of professional development initiatives to equip teachers with the skills to effectively support student well-being.</p

Assessing the Dual Impact of the Social Media Platforms on Psychological Well-being: A Multiple-Option Descriptive-Predictive Framework

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Full-text available

Sep 2024
Comput Econ

A comprehensive and recent exploration into the relationship between Social Media Platforms (SMP) usage and Social Media Disorders (SMD) is currently investigated as a topic of increasing importance given the surge in SMP use over the last two decades. The approach of analyzing data from 479 individuals across various SMP using clustering is particularly noteworthy for identifying the risk profile of the users and understanding the diverse impacts of SMP on mental health. In this paper, a multiple-option descriptive-predictive framework for assessing the impact of the SMP on the psychological well-being is proposed. This method effectively categorizes mental health states into distinct groups, each indicating different levels of need for professional intervention. Out of 5 clustering algorithms, K-prototypes proved to bring the best results with a silhouette score of 0.596, whereas for predicting clusters, Random Forest (RF) and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) outperformed K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) and Support Vector Classifier (SVC), providing the highest accuracy and F1 score (0.993). Moreover, we analyze the connectedness between each SMP, anxiety and depression. Two distinct clusters emerged: Cluster 0 “Stable Professionals”, Cluster 1 “Vibrant Students”, and new instances are seamlessly predicted. While Youtube is the most popular platform among the respondents, Instagram shows a relatively higher correlation with both anxiety (0.256) and depression (0.186), indicating a stronger association with these disorders compared to other platforms.

Impact of social media and technology on young minds: A mental health perspective

Article

Dec 2023

Phanikanth Kondaparthi

Impact of Stress on Mental Health of Students: Reasons and Interventions

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Full-text available

Jan 2015

Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. A state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community (World Health Organization). The word 'health' is generally described in terms of working order of body and mind. But when we talk of one's mental health it means we are referring to the working order of the mind of an individual concerning to the problems that how he thinks, feels and behaves. The mental health problem is very crucial because it is related to the overall well-being of an individual, irrespective of one's status, age, gender, race or social background. Stress is mind and body's response or reaction to a real or imagined threat, event or change. The threat, event or changes are commonly called stressors. Stress is defined as any change that we have to adapt to. This includes difficult life events (bereavement, illness) and positive ones. Getting a new job or going on vacation are certainly perceived to be happy occurrence but they too are changes also known as stress that require some adaptation. Wolff (1968) described stress as an inherent characteristic of life. He emphasized that different stressors should have different meanings for different individuals which might be related to his/ her past experiences and personal characteristics. This paper was an attempt to know the impact of stress on mental health of students. Just a physical fitness helps our bodies to stay strong, mental fitness helps us to achieve and sustain a state of good mental health. When we are mentally healthy, we enjoy our life and environment, and the people in it. We can be creative, learn, try, new things, and take risks. We are better able to cope with difficult times in our personal and professional lives. We feel the sadness and anger that can come with the death of a loved one, a job loss or relationship problems and other difficult events, but in time, we are able to get on with and enjoy our lives once again. Nurturing our mental health can also help us combat or prevent the mental health problems that are sometimes associated with a chronic physical illness. This seminar also helps us to know about how stress influences our healthy relationships, good life choices, physical health and wellbeing. Stress is fact of life. No matter how much we might long for a stress-free existence, the fact is stress is actually necessary. It is how we respond the stress that can negatively affect our lives. When we are free of depression, anxiety, excessive stress and worry, addictions, and other psychological problems, we are more able to live our lives to the fullest.

Hopelessness as a mediator of the association between social support and depressive symptoms: Findings of a study of men with HIV

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Full-text available

Dec 2001

Data from a prospective longitudinal study were used to investigate whether hopelessness mediates the association between social support and depression, as hypothesized by L. Y. Abramson, G. I. Metalsky, and L. B. Alloy (1989). Measures of hopelessness, social support, and depression were administered to 103 HIV-infected men and readministered 6 months later, Findings indicated that low baseline social support predicted increases in hopelessness and depression. Increases in hopelessness predicted increases in depression after controlling for baseline social support. Low baseline social support did not predict increased depression when hopelessness was controlled statistically.

An Examination of the Reciprocal Relationship of Loneliness and Facebook Use among First-Year College Students

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Full-text available

May 2012

College students are using social network sites such as Facebook to communicate with their families and friends. However, empirical evidence is needed to examine whether there exists a reciprocal relationship between students' use of social network sites and their psychological well-being. The present study focused on two reciprocally-related research questions: (a) Is there an impact of loneliness on Facebook intensity and motive for using Facebook among first-year college students? (b) Is there an impact of Facebook intensity and motive for using Facebook on loneliness? Data were collected from a sample of 340 first-year college students and were analyzed through structural equation modeling. No reciprocal relationship was found in the study: Facebook intensity had a positive impact on loneliness and, motive for using Facebook did not have any impact on loneliness, whereas loneliness influenced neither Facebook intensity nor motive for using Facebook.

Frequency and Quality of Social Networking Among Young Adults: Associations With Depressive Symptoms, Rumination, and Corumination

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Full-text available

Mar 2012

Two studies examined associations between social networking and depressive symptoms among youth. In Study 1, 384 participants (68% female; mean age = 20.22 years, SD = 2.90) were surveyed. In Study 2, 334 participants (62% female; M age = 19.44 years, SD = 2.05) were surveyed initially and 3 weeks later. Results indicated that depressive symptoms were associated with quality of social networking interactions, not quantity. There was some evidence that depressive rumination moderated associations, and both depressive rumination and corumination were associated with aspects of social networking usage and quality. Implications for understanding circumstances that increase social networking, as well as resulting negative interactions and negative affect are discussed.

Loneliness, social contacts and Internet addiction: A cross-lagged panel study

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Full-text available

Jan 2014
COMPUT HUM BEHAV

This study aims to examine the causal priority in the observed empirical relationships between Internet addiction and other psychological problems. A cross-lagged panel survey of 361 college students in Hong Kong was conducted. Results show that excessive and unhealthy Internet use would increase feelings of loneliness over time. Although depression had a moderate and positive bivariate relationship with Internet addiction at each time point, such a relationship was not significant in the cross-lagged analyses. This study also found that online social contacts with friends and family were not an effective alternative for offline social interactions in reducing feelings of loneliness. Furthermore, while an increase in face-to-face contacts could help to reduce symptoms of Internet addiction, this effect may be neutralized by the increase in online social contacts as a result of excessive Internet use. Taken as a whole, findings from the study show a worrisome vicious cycle between loneliness and Internet addiction.

Does Posting Facebook Status Updates Increase or Decrease Loneliness? An Online Social Networking Experiment

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Full-text available

Sep 2013

Online social networking is a pervasive but empirically understudied phenomenon. Strong public opinions on its consequences exist but are backed up by little empirical evidence and almost no causally conclusive, experimental research. The current study tested the psychological effects of posting status updates on Facebook using an experimental design. For 1 week, participants in the experimental condition were asked to post more than they usually do, whereas participants in the control condition received no instructions. Participants added a lab “Research Profile” as a Facebook friend allowing for the objective documentation of protocol compliance, participants’ status updates, and friends’ responses. Results revealed (1) that the experimentally induced increase in status updating activity reduced loneliness, (2) that the decrease in loneliness was due to participants feeling more connected to their friends on a daily basis, and (3) that the effect of posting on loneliness was independent of direct social feedback (i.e., responses) by friends.

Impact of Social Media on Mental Health of Adolescents

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