Social Media Isn't All Negative

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Although social media has many negative effects, it doesn’t mean it is all negative. Many people believe that the use of social media can be positive. Social media can be seen by people as an escape from the real world, forgetting about their own problems. People go online to make friends and gain support, which might even lead to higher their self-esteem. According to Project Know, a study showed that “30-50% of its teen patients used social media as a means of supporting their eating disorders” (2018) because they can go on line and talk to people about it, have people encourage them to get better, and even find other people struggling with it and support each other. Although there are support groups for eating disorders on social media, there are a lot of pages on social media that contain people with anorexia where they support each other to keep going with their disease.

People go online to join and build communities in things they like such as music, sports, tv shows, games, hobbies, etc. They also build communities on political issues.

Social Media can be educational. It informs young citizens about political issues and other problems in the world. Not just teens, but people in general go on social media to connect with like-minded people, give awareness to a cause, and express their opinions. Although they inform people, it is important to be careful about knowing what is true and what is not true and to know not the believe everything on the internet. Although teens can go on social media to find support and express their opinions, cyberbullying will most likely occur at some point.

People also believe it can possibly be good for mental health. If someone is feeling down, they can go onto social media to express how they feel, get advice, and connect with people who are feeling the same way. Expressing your mental health on social media can be a good thing by making others think they are not alone, but people will also say you are doing it for attention or that mental health isn’t real. Unfortunately living with a horrible anxiety disorder, depression, and hypochondria, I personally have been told that mental health is not real and that it is all in my head. From personal experience, social media such as Instagram has never helped and is not used anymore by me (except twitter where I follow funny accounts to bring up my mood), and that social media can really bring an adolescent down, especially if the teen is dealing with mental health.

Another thing people believe social media is good for is advertising. It’s much cheaper and will most likely get more views. The audience is less broad and covers all ages. Social media shouldn’t be completely abandoned because of the negative effects, but parents need to be informed on how to reduce them in their adolescent children