A regular time-passer adolescents of this generation tend to do is log on to social media sites. The sites allow communication from long distances, showing each other what they’ve been doing, and catching up since last time people say each other. However, social media can be a threatening place that leaves most users vulnerable to negative effects: a common one being depression. Social media depression can be resulted from neglect, misinterpretation, or negative confrontation. However, depression does have its benefits, such as better thinking skills and dealing with certain life events. Social media can benefit those for certain situations, but leads to depression as it will worsen a person’s well-being through emotional confrontation, misinterpreting images by others, and a feeling of neglect due to no notifications addressing them.
Social media does cause depression, but that feeling is a benefit that can help with complicated tasks, deal with certain life events, and better understanding. “Depression can be an adaptive way of dealing with certain problems in life, such as relationship breakdown and illness,” (4 Surprising Advantages of Being Depressed). Depression helps people deal with issues in life that would be harder to cope with. It can ease the situation so it doesn’t seem as bad as it is. “Depressed people process information more deeply, are more accurate at complex tasks, make better judgement on detail-oriented information, and make more accurate cost-benefit analyses,” (4 Surprising Advantages of Being Depressed). A down feeling increases thinking skills in the event where it’s normally difficult to process. This is helpful for many occasions. Social media depression provides advantages in life that make it a bit better to have.
However, social media holds its major downside. A common one that leads to depression can be as simple as misinterpretation. While on social media, you could end up seeing your friends having fun somewhere you weren’t aware of, and that could lead to thinking that you weren’t invited on purpose, although the photo may be something else. “You friends might be smiling for the camera at a church or sporting event you normally wouldn’t attend. Before you have a chance to obtain a reasonable explanation, your day is already ruined,” (Tip: Social Media Depression). The photo isn’t always what it seems, leading to a misinterpretation of what’s going on. Explanations for misjudgement isn’t always made on time, so depression takes place first frequently. Judging a picture on what it looks like can make someone depressed to know they weren’t there to have fun.
Social media is a massive online interaction site, but due to so many users, there’s not many staff members to control it all. That leaves some people vulnerable to cyberbullying. “Bullies can amass mobs of other social media users to swarm you with slander, and there’s often no responsible adult monitoring any of it,” (Tip: Social Media Depression). Bullies can gather many followers based on what they said about the victim to create slander. It can’t be stopped by staff until they’re notified and actually take the case under their hands. “Depression is developed by basing identity on what people say about you,” (Social Media and Depression). People express themselves on social media. If they’re cyberbullied, that can change how they look at themselves and develop depression. Bullying is bad enough offline, so people who are hurt in real life never get a break on social medias.
A majority of people use social media to check their notifications, checking what’s happened and see if their friends have addressed them recently. Should nothing pop up, they’d keep checking in a frequent manner and an feeling of neglect that would increase the more nothing shows. “It may be that people who already are depressed are turning to social media to fill a void,” (Psyblog). Social media fills the awkward offline time, some times having nothing to do. This can lead to frequently checking notifications many times a day, noted as “Social Media OCD.” “People with Social Media OCD feel the urge to constantly check their social media for updates,” (Tip: Social Media Depression). If nothing pops up for them, they feel neglected as if no one is around to talk to. “You wake up and check Social Media, and no one’s responded to your hilarious blogs or updates,” (Tip: Social Media Depression). With no one responding to any humor you put up, it feels like no one read it, since someone should have commented to what’s funny. Thinking no one’s around feels like you’ve been neglected.
Social media may have its benefits, but it will have a negative view to those vulnerable to its effects, introducing Social Media depression. This negative result of Social Media proves its dangers to users, and has to be controlled.
