heavy use of social media is linked to mental illness

Question

Youngsters report problems with anxiety, depression, sleep and “FoMO”

Comments

This claim about social media being a link to mental illness in young adults is a well backed statement. After analyzing the article provided in the post, I cross analyzed it with a more recent article from McLean Hospital. Mclean provides professional opinions and multiple articles that back the information provided within The Economist article. Along with mentioning the same results from the 2018 British study illustrated with a graph by The Economist article.

Source: https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/it-or-not-social-medias-affecting-your-mental-health

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I totally relate to what you’re saying. Social media can often be overwhelming, especially when it seems like everyone else is living their best life and achieving so much. It can definitely magnify insecurities and make you question your own worth or progress. It's important to remember that what we see online isn't always the full picture, and everyone has their own unique journey. Taking a step back and focusing on real-life connections and self-care can really help with staying grounded.

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I agree with this statement. The claim is correct and there are statistics to prove it. The articles are linked and include relevant facts relating increase of social media with decrease in mental health. There are also many reputable articles published on the same topic with the same conclusion.

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I agree to a certain extent of this claim. The statistics and data you provided were very helpful because of the relevant facts. Stanford Law provided similar feedback, but rather initiated the idea there needs to be more research done to prove the direct relation.

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This article is very helpful in supporting the claim that the heavy use of social media can affect one’s mental health. The article provides very helpful graphics to visualize just how dramatic the effects are and the claims are backed with real surveys and data teams. This article proves that overuse of social media is linked to issues with mental illness.

Answer 1

I agree with this claim that heavy use of social media is linked to mental health issues, but to some degree. There isn't a direct casuality between social media and mental illness that we can prove, but for example, the according to Stanford law, the amount of major depressive episodes increased from 8.7% in 2005 to 11.3% in 2014. This is also the time frame social media came into our lives, implying the direct relation, but we can't confirm the statement. 

https://law.stanford.edu/2024/05/20/social-media-addiction-and-mental-health-the-growing-concern-for-youth-well-being/

The source used was from Stanford Law which has high credibility because it comes from Stanford school while also gave a list of reference to show at the end of the article. The article was unbiased considering it gave facts rather than it being opinionated. 

Overall, you cannot claim there is a direct relation between mental illness and social media use, but it can be implied that there is some sort of relationship between the two. 

Answer 2

This claim is generally true; however, "cited literature predicts that the likelihood of social media-induced mental health problems is directly proportional to the amount of time spent on these sites, the frequency of usage, and the number of platforms being used." While the correlation between psychiatric illness and social media use depends on the platforms and frequency of use, it is cited by an article by the National Institute of Health that social media is the second leading cause of disability among mental illness. 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10129173/

Answer 3

The article seems legit and links a survey from the Royal Society for Public health to support its information. I wasn’t able to locate this survey, but found somebody linking this https://www.rsph.org.uk/our-work/campaigns/status-of-mind.html which includes a pdf of the same statistics. In the pdf it talks about positive and negative affects or social media such as Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter supporting that Instagram was in fact causing the most negativity in participant’s health. The Economist article also mentions Sean Parker, Facebook’s founding president, has admitted that the product works by “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology”. This statement has been covered in the Guardian, Washington post and New York Intelligences referring to a video of Sean Parker for Axios saying this direct quote which makes it rather concerning to use the social media he worked on.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/11/facebook-sean-parker-talks-about-psychology-of-hooking-users.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/09/facebooks-first-president-on-facebook-god-only-knows-what-its-doing-to-our-childrens-brains/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/09/facebook-sean-parker-vulnerability-brain-psychology