At risk…

Social media has a dark side as we all know. But having a generation see the change in growing up with technology is finally showing its effects. We are now seeing the ultimate effects that social media has on a maturing mind. That is also why companies are beginning to offer age restrictions when they never had any before. Such as Instagram. It is also for safety of minors, and preventing them from being scammed or groomed. But limiting screen time is also a useful feature, because having a limit on screen time will force prioritization when the media is in use. There won’t be time to dilly dally and find the negative posts. As well as message restrictions which will protect minors from being preyed on. But when people have no restrictions, which is completely within their rights, there are risks. We know that social media is a curation of how someone wants to portray or “brand” themselves. But looking at these curation’s you are also looking at a facade, because rarely ever is social media portraying constant real life or life struggles. “There is research that suggests that teens who spend less time on their phones engaging with social media do report being happier and more satisfied, as stated in this excellent article in the Washington Post.” (Simon, 2019). These links do work as well. But research shows that social media has the power to effect self-esteem and by association their self-perception. Social media is a deep dark whole if you let it over take your life. Let this be a reminder that if you find yourself thinking negatively, or constantly comparing yourself to pictures that are most likely edited on the internet to maybe stay off for a little while. Let your brain rest and not overthink or focus on what you “should” be doing or look like.

Social media is a catalyst now. Social media allows you to create your desired brand. But it also changes how you see yourself. We spend so much time on social media that at this point there is no alternative when you want to stay connected and up to date. From an article on St. Luke’s Penn Foundation Mental Health Services we see that, “Americans spend between 10 and 12 hours a day using some form of media.” (The Impact of Social Media | St. Luke’s Penn Foundation, 2022). Which means if you spend 8 hours sleeping which is the recommended amount than over half the day you spend awake is spent on media. Even without thinking we use it. And more importantly they talk about the effects of social media mentally. “The resulting belief can look like this: it is not okay to think, feel, or behave in certain ways. One of the costs of social media can be that we learn to push more and more of ourselves into the category of ‘unacceptable.’” (The Impact of Social Media | St. Luke’s Penn Foundation, 2022). Social media fully changes how you perceive yourself and it gets worse over time when gone unchecked. And knowing what we know about things like AI makes it worse. It has the potential to completely ruin people’s mental health. We have a article from The Conversation, about AI’s effects on body standards. People are using AI to give themselves “better” feature such as slender figures, different eye colors, abs, etc. These might seem harmless but they are affecting people’s self-perceptions very negatively. They are further pushing unrealistic body standards that are unachievable. Not to mention that generative AI which is the AI that can create an image from a prompt is the worst one environmentally. So not only is it hurting the Earth, but it is hurting the self-perception of viewers.

References:

Simon, A. (2019, March 8). How The Social Media Comparison Trap Hurts Kids’ Self Esteem. Odyssey Teen Camp. https://www.odysseyteencamp.com/social-media-kids-self-esteem/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23174673025&gbraid=0AAAAACKbx6P4k4N90TbWcgqoRkb3DjOAs&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgr_NBhDFARIsAHiUWr7tcl3o3EyKmjv6ggcyFAEpc_ESjzHxKBTlO4ZzKCROMx7VZqB3OG0aAqg2EALw_wcB

Thibodeau, D., Sabiston, C., & Gollish, S. (2025). AI is perpetuating unrealistic body ideals, objectification and a lack of diversity — especially for athletes. https://doi.org/10.64628/aam.kmxp7qrjt

The Impact of Social Media | St. Luke’s Penn Foundation. (2022, December 8). St. Luke’s Penn Foundation. https://www.pennfoundation.org/news-events/articles-of-interest/the-impact-of-social-media/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=2089244628&gbraid=0AAAAADKDV34YWvuF3ffpe4fDAXCp6uSJD&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgr_NBhDFARIsAHiUWr4vobiZzZQ6GOLNBxBpUE8Owv_80rRrRY4-rXXotIJciJgrkPX-VxIaAjGTEALw_wcB