Teens and Social Media: Am I As Good As Them?

Written By: Maryam Adhyan Shafeeq

We live in a time when the entire world is at our fingertips. We are constantly in touch with everyone around us, whether it’s the people we live with, meet in our daily lives, or even people we have never met across the globe. While this might initially sound convenient, it is important to consider whether being available and having access to all these people at all times is really something we need. These days, it’s not just the adults who have access to these resources. Having a smartphone and being on all the popular social media platforms is nothing new to most teenagers. Like most people, they are constantly in touch with the world around them through their phone screens, if not more than adults. Unfortunately, teenagers who are still developing their social personalities are susceptible to the harmful side of social media. Excessive use of social media can have different impacts on a teen, ranging from effects on their mental health to harsh blows to their self-esteem, all branching from one thing. Addiction to social media. 

Social media use is labelled as an addiction when the usage goes beyond simple necessity and becomes a compulsion. When it becomes excessive to the point that it disrupts an individual's daily functioning and well-being through constantly checking for updates and feeling restless and distressed to be offline and out of reach of any social media platform, it has become an addiction (Amirthalingam & Khera, 2024). According to a study, teenagers usually spend two to four hours per day on average interacting on multiple social media platforms, engaging in direct messaging, reacting to posts, and ‘doomscrolling’ through endless posts (Amirthalingam & Khera, 2024). This would evidently get in the way of their responsibilities, such as studies, and impact time spent within the family. We often hear of teenagers expressing distress and frustration upon being restricted access to social media.  Now, what is it about being on social media that is so attractive for teens of today? The content they interact with daily is often curated by the algorithm for their interests and their preferred lifestyle, such as desired looks and wanting to be included amongst their peers. Usually, this brings up a lot of comparing between what they see online and themselves. 

While seeing content that teens would like to achieve one day can provide motivation, comparisons involving what they believe is better than themselves can quickly become harmful as well. Social comparison is usually described as thinking about one or more people in relation to themselves (Rasool & Waqar, 2023). This is because on social media platforms, individuals present an extremely perfect and desired version of themselves. When teenagers view these and compare themselves, this can easily become addictive considering the amount of time teens spend viewing this content. Teenagers have a high need for social acceptance and the sense of belonging within their peers, which easily pulls them into continuously viewing endless posts (Amirthalingam & Khera, 2024). However, studies have shown that continuous use of social media platforms has a connection to increased levels of anxiety and depression amongst teenagers specifically (Amirthalingam & Khera, 2024). It was also highlighted that this has a negative impact on their sleep quality, and in addition, teenagers also use social media platforms as a coping mechanism to manage their stress, which further escalates the problem.  

While the matter of a teen’s mental health is being discussed, we cannot ignore that this is the age when they begin to become quite sensitive about their looks and personality. In some cases, when someone with lower self-esteem repeatedly uses content on different social media platforms as affirmations, it can make them feel even more inferior, which is very likely to happen to most teenagers as they are viewing carefully selected photos and videos posted by others on social media (Amirthalingam & Khera, 2024). Teenagers have a specific concept of a desired body image, and social media platforms provide the means to encourage social comparisons with others as most teenagers are yet to learn to differentiate between unrealistic content online and their reality (Auf, et al., 2023). Continuously being exposed to content posted by people who appear ‘perfect’ to viewers on social media can make a teenager feel extremely insecure about themselves. 

Now, we can’t make all teenagers stop using social media, but we can make them more aware of these harmful impacts. Parents and guardians need to have open conversations with their teens to gently guide them as they explore the digital world so that they become self-aware of how they feel with the content they view and engage with online. 

References

Amirthalingam, J., & Khera, A. (2024). Understanding social media addiction: A deep dive. Cureus, 16(10), e72499.

Auf, A. I. A. A. I., Alblowi, Y. H., Alkhaldi, R. O., Thabet, S. A., Alabdali, A. A. H., Binshalhoub, F. H., ... & Alzahrani, R. A. (2023). Social comparison and body image in teenage users of the TikTok app. Cureus, 15(11).

Rasool, A., & Waqar, A. (2023). Brand consciousness, social comparison and materialism amongst teenagers. Pakistan journal of humanities and social sciences. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101302