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Everyday Wellness

According to new research, your social networking habits might be affecting your brain more than you know.

It messes with your ability to think independently

One study from HP Labs found that people were more open to peer pressure within social networks. Subjects were more likely to change their minds about "liking" certain things (one cute baby over another, for instance) if enough time had passed and they could see that the other side was even moderately popular.

It can "butcher" real-life conversations

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Susan Greenfield of Oxford University has compared online chats to buying prepackaged meat at a store: "Perhaps future generations will recoil with similar horror at the messiness, unpredictability and immediate personal involvement of a three-dimensional, real-time interaction." Worried about all the effects social media has on you? Try to understand how social media can damage your relationships so you can make them better.

It activates our reward center

Peer pressure has existed long before social media. We want to participate in actives that will result in us being accepted and well liked. Actively using social media without a doubt elevates this and cause a wide-spread reaction across our brains' reward center. At the University of California Los Angles' Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, researches used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to see exactly how teenagers' brains were lit up when experiencing an app that resembled Instagram, where their photos received likes. "The same brain circuits that are activated by eating chocolate and winning money are activated when teenagers see large numbers of "likes" on their own photos," says the study. The part of the brain that showed the most activity is called the striatum called the nucleus accumbens.

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Weird Negative Effects of Social Media on Your Brain | Reader's Digest

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View as slideshow Everyday Wellness According to new research, your social networking habits might be affecting your brain more than you know. One study from HP Labs found that people were more open to peer pressure within social networks.

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The teenage brain has confounded parents for generations. Nowadays, with the lives of most teenagers so heavily enmeshed in social media, it's even harder for parents to know what's truly going on behind the screens.

Social media can give voice to the voiceless, accelerate and aid learning, and help people to feel supported and uplifted. Yet social media can also have a range of negative effects on teenagers, which include:

1. Brain Development:

Social media can play a major role in a child's environment and subsequently affect their developing brain by impacting how it processes information, reacts to situations, and remembers events. Current research indicates that a child's brain development is shaped by social media use and exposure in the following ways:

Adolescents suffering from internet addiction may, over time, experience structural changes in their brain and have lower grey matter. Teens who suffer from other addictive tendencies (i.e substance dependency) may, therefore, be predisposed to becoming addicted to social media and the internet

The multitasking commonly associated with social media can cause adolescent children to take longer to accomplish tasks, which can also hinder the quality of their homework or studies

2. Privacy & Reputation:

Even when social media users have their accounts set to private (which only allows people that they are networked with to view their content) privacy on social media is virtually non-existent. Any content posted in a social space can be easily re-posted and subsequently viewed by third parties.

Social media lacks proper privacy, which leads to problems for young users ranging from image-based abuse to not getting accepted for a job or University program.

3. Body Image & Self-Esteem

Today's teenagers are exposed to images and statuses that portray perfection. Social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram have a tendency to showcase idealized body-types through images that have been cosmetically altered, and therefore set unrealistic and unattainable beauty standards for adolescent children whose bodies are undergoing uncontrollable change.

Photos of models with flawless complexions can make teens feel all the more insecure about having hormonal skin, and overtly sexualized representations of young-adult females in mainstream media can be hugely conflicting for teenage girls who, until recently, were only just children.

Research shows that ongoing exposure to unrealistic beauty standards through social media can affect how teenagers perceive their own bodies. These perceptions can negatively affect a teenager's physical and mental health.
Are you aware of how social media is affecting the mind of your children? Download our FREE eBook, 'How Social Media Affects Young Minds: A Guide For Modern Parents'.
4. Sexual Behaviour

One of the negative effects of social media on teens is that sexually suggestive or explicit content is prevalent throughout numerous social networking sites. Exposure to sexual content that portrays unrealistic or harmful sexual behaviours and stereotypes can negatively influence teenagers who are only just beginning to develop their sexual identities. This can result in them having unreasonable expectations of sexual norms, experiencing difficulty in forming healthy sexual relationships or developing risky sexual behaviours (4).

Using social media can greatly disrupt sleep patterns by compelling teens to stay up late or wake throughout the night to check notifications. The blue light from mobile phone screens can also confuse sleep cycles. indicates that teenagers require 8-10 hours of sleep and that not getting enough sleep can affect their health in the following ways:

6. Social Skills

Developing social skills helps teenagers to establish and maintain friendships. Due to the fact that teenagers and children spend a lot of time interacting over social media sites and apps, many of them are establishing social interaction skills that don't necessarily apply to the offline world. While, of course, social media can help to nurture and strengthen existing relationships, it's integral that teenagers also learn how to have meaningful, face to face exchanges with people.

Being socially isolated is a major risk factor for both depression and suicide (3). With adolescents now spending more time online and less time interacting with people in the real world, they risk not only struggling to develop effective social skills but also predisposing themselves to mental health problems.

7. Mental Health Problems

Research indicates that teenagers who spend more than 2 hours a day on social media are more likely to experience mental health problems such as psychological distress. Teenage girls are particularly susceptible to peer pressure and are therefore at risk of having negative online experiences that can impact their development and lead to anxiety disorders and depression (1).

So, are parents right to be worried about the negative effects of social media on teens? Or are these concerns merely a sign of a generational-gap?

The answer is, rather aptly, it's complicated.

While, historically, new technologies have always sparked fearful commentary (the invention of the train had people genuinely convinced that travelling at speeds upwards of 30 miles per hour would kill them) which has seemed laughable in hindsight, many of the fears surrounding social media are justified. However, it's not necessarily the medium in itself that is a threat to our teens. Social media is a tool and (as with any tool) in the hands of people it can either be used or misused. So while we struggle to understand the negative effects that social media can have on teenagers, we need to remember that the dark side of social media is often little more than a manifestation of the dark side of humanity; a darkness that has always been there but - through its presence on social media - is now more visible than ever.

Therefore, the best way to minimize the negative effects of social media on teens is to provide them with a strong moral compass and guide them in creating solutions that help them safely navigate user-driven environments. If you'd like more information on the risks and benefits of social media and how to promote healthy use, please visit the Center on Media and Child Health website.
References
1. https://theconversation.com/is-social-media-to-blame-for-the-worsening-mental-health-of-teenage-girls-64333

2. Young Health Movement & RSPH Royal Society for Public Health. # Status of mind: Social media and young people's mental health.

3. https://theconversation.com/amp/with-teen-mental-health-deteriorating-over-five-years-theres-a-likely-culprit-86996

4. 2003. Ward, M. L. Understanding the role of entertainment media in the sexual socialization of American youth: A review of empirical research.

5. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/smart-parenting-smarter-kids/201709/its-complicated-teens-social-media-and-mental-health

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The Negative Effects Of Social Media On Teens

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The teenage brain has confounded parents for generations. Nowadays, with the lives of most teenagers so heavily enmeshed in social media, it's even harder for parents to know what's truly going on behind the screens. Social media can give voice to the voiceless, accelerate and aid learning, and help people to feel supported and uplifted.

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If you can't imagine your life without social media, you've probably fallen victim to the strong power that social networking sites have over the public. Chances are that you've also experienced some of the negative effects social media has on people.

Unfortunately, the bad effects of social media are all too real for a lot of us. Let's look at the negative impacts of social media on real people, so you can recognize these symptoms and get help if needed.

You might be surprised to learn that the negative effects of social media are both physical and mental. They can change your perception of the world and yourself. While social media does have some positive effects, and there are certainly positive social media stories, it also has a lot in the drawback column.

Don't believe this? Read on for a list of social media's negative effects. If you recognize any of them as issues in your own life, it may be time to reduce your usage or even stop using social media altogether.

1. Depression and Anxiety

Do you spend several hours per day browsing through social media? Spending too long on social networking sites could adversely affect your mood. In fact, chronic social users are more likely to report poor mental health, including symptoms of anxiety and depression.

It doesn't take much thinking to figure out why. Social media lets you see the carefully selected best parts of everyone else's lives, which you then compare to the negatives in your own life (that only you see). Comparing yourself to other people is a sure path to anxiety and unhappiness, and social media has made this much easier to do.

So how do you use social media without causing yourself psychological distress? If you turn to the same research (and common sense), the recommended amount of time you should spend on social networks is around half an hour per day. As with many other potential ills in life, it's all about moderation.

If you find yourself upset after a social media session, also consider the networks you use and the people you follow. You're much more likely to feel anxious after reading political arguments and doomsday news than you are after seeing fun updates from your favorite musicians or photos of your friends' pets.

2. Cyberbullying

Before social media, bullying was something that was only possible to do face-to-face. However, now people can bully others online-anonymously or not. Today everyone knows what cyberbullying is, and most of us have seen what it can do to a person.

While social media makes it easier to meet new people and make friends, it also enables cruel people to tear into others with little effort. Perpetrators of bullying can use the anonymity that (some) social networks provide to gain people's trust and then terrorize them in front of their peers. For instance, they might create a fake profile and act friendly to a classmate, then later betray and embarrass them online.

These online attacks often leave deep mental scars and even drive people to hurt themselves or take their own lives, in some cases. And as it turns out, cyberbullying doesn't just affect kids. Adults can become victims of online abuse, too. Since screens hide our faces, you can end up being a jerk on social media and other websites without even realizing it.

Learn how to make your Instagram profile more private, and apply the same advice to other social networks, if you suffer from this issue.

3. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is a phenomenon that became prominent around the same time as the rise of social media. Unsurprisingly, it's one of the most widespread negative effects of social media on society.

FOMO is just what it sounds like: a form of anxiety that you get when you're scared of missing out on a positive experience that someone else is having. For example, you might constantly check your messages to see if anyone has invited you out, or focus on your Instagram feed all day to make sure that nobody is doing something cool without you. You may also see pictures of something fun that your friends were able to do, feeling left out that you couldn't go because you had another responsibility.

This fear receives constant fuel from what you see on social media. With increased social network use, there's a better chance for you to see that someone is having more fun than you are right now. That's exactly what causes FOMO, so if you're prone to this, know how to prevent FOMO when using social media (or cut back on using it altogether).

4. Unrealistic Expectations

As most people are probably aware, social media forms unrealistic expectations of life and friendships in our minds.

Most social media sites have a severe lack of online authenticity. People use Snapchat to share their exciting adventures, post about how much they love their significant other on Facebook, and load up their Instagram page with heavily staged photos.

But in reality, you have no way of knowing whether this is all a farce. While it looks great on the surface, that person could be in massive debt, on bad terms with their significant other, or desperate for Instagram likes as a form of validation.

One simple way out of this mess is for everyone to quit lying on social media. But in the era of Instagram influencers and YouTubers who earn millions from being inauthentic, that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Remember an important adage: you should not judge your everyday life against the highlights of someone else's.

5. Negative Body Image

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Speaking of Instagram celebrities, if you look at popular Instagram accounts, you'll find unbelievably beautiful people wearing expensive clothes on their perfectly shaped bodies.

And to nobody's surprise, body image is now an issue for almost everyone. Of course, seeing so many people who are supposedly perfect (according to society's standards) on a daily basis makes you conscious of how different you look from those pictures. And not everyone comes to healthy conclusions in this situation.

It's really important to remember that everybody is human. No one wakes up every day looking like a supermodel, and while many people have gone to great lengths to train their bodies, that's not the case for everyone who looks fit. Many people, in search of social media fame, have definitely taken unhealthy routes to appear more attractive.

Surround yourself with people who love you for who you are, and you won't have to stress about fake Instagram beauty.

6. Unhealthy Sleep Patterns

On top of increasing the cases of anxiety and depression, another bad thing about social media is that spending too much time on it can lead to poor sleep. Numerous studies have shown that increased use of social media has a negative effect on your sleep quality.

If you feel that your sleep patterns have become irregular, leading to a drop in productivity, try to cut down on the amount of time you browse social media.

This is especially the case when using your phone in bed at night. It's all too easy to tell yourself that you'll spend five minutes checking your Facebook notifications, only to realize an hour later that you've been mindlessly scrolling through some nonsense on Twitter you don't even care about.

Don't let social media algorithms, which are designed to keep your attention for as long as possible, steal your valuable sleep too. Getting less sleep, combined with that sleep being lower quality, is a dangerous, unhealthy combination.

7. General Addiction

Social media can be more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol. It has a powerful draw for many people that leads to them checking it all the time without even thinking about it.

If you're not sure whether you're addicted to social networks, try to remember the last time you went a full day without checking any social media accounts. Do you feel rejected if someone unfollows you? And if your favorite social networks completely disappeared tomorrow, would the absence make you feel empty and depressed?

At the end of the day, social media sites want to keep you scrolling for as long as possible so they can show you lots of ads and make more money. Because of the attention economy, these sites need your eyes on them for as long as possible. Apps like TikTok feed you a constant barrage of quick videos that destroy your attention span over time.

Just because you've been going overboard on social media use doesn't mean you necessarily need to wipe out all your social networking accounts. However, if you think quitting is the best solution for you, it isn't a bad idea. See our guide to quitting social media for good if you'd like help.

As with everything else, there are good and bad aspects of social media. We've discussed some of the negative impacts social media has for many, but you're the one who must decide whether there's more help or harm in it for you personally.

If you find that social media is having a negative impact on your life, stop using it. However, if you decide to stay, there are ways to waste less time on social media, and thus maintain a healthier relationship with it.

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7 Negative Effects of Social Media on People and Users

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If you're a heavy social media user, it's wise to think about the negative impacts of social media on you and your peers.

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There are obvious reasons to be aware and cautious about the extent and frequency of one's own social media use, but is there a positive side to this story? Of course! It's all in how social media is used and how we can make it work for good.

Need more convincing? Look no further!

But, be aware. The problem of social media addiction is very real, and if you think you have a problem, it is important to recognize it and ask for help. Social media sites are wildly popular for a reason, because they employ strategies to keep people coming back for more. Don't fall for the tactics!

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5 Ways Social Media Is Changing Your Brain

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There are obvious reasons to be aware and cautious about the extent and frequency of one's own social media use, but is there a positive side to this story? Of course! It's all in how social media is used and how we can make it work for good. Need more convincing?