Who does social media affect the most? It's probably not who you think.
By Antoine G Larosiliere
It’s clear that excessive use of social media can negatively impact us all, but who does social media affect the most?
Bullies prey on the weak. The low self-esteem, smaller, less confident, less popular, poorer, quieter person who usually doesn’t see the bullying coming.
As a parent and an educator, it’s our job to protect our children and students. In order to protect them, it’s important to isolate the ones who are more at risk to certain harms. In regards to social media, there’s a multitude of ways it can negatively affect us all if we use it excessively. The question that immediately comes to mind is, who does social media affect the most? After researching, I learned that it’s teenage girls, teens who suffer from mental illness, teens who desire to be liked, LGBTQ teens, teens with disabilities, people who are considered unattractive and the people who spend the most time on social media platforms.
People who spend the most time on social media
An overuse or the abuse of any vice, activity or object will eventually have a negative impact on the individual. So it’s safe to say, so would the excessive use of social media. According to a University of Pittsburgh study, “people who spent more time on social media were 2.2 times more likely to report eating and body image concerns, compared to their peers who spent much less time on social media. While the people who spent the most time on social media were 2.6 times more likely.”
Teenagers in General are the most affected
For the most part, teens are the ones mostly affected by social media. For social media to have an adverse affect on someone, they usually would have to spend a significant time on it. One study found “teens between the ages of 13-18 spent about 9 hours on social media per day.” That’s an astounding number. While pre-teens between ages 8-12 spend only 6 hours a day; which is still a lot but 3 hours less than teens. Even the Pew Research Center reported “97 percent of 13 to 17 year-olds use at least one of seven major social media platforms.”
It affects girls more than boys.
Research has found that girls experience more cyber bullying than boys, but why? Is it because they spend more time on social media? According to the Journal of Youth Studies, “girls were significantly more likely than boys to wake up and check social media on their phones.” They also reported feeling tired all the time and being less happy than teens whose sleep isn’t interrupted by social media. In another study published in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, found “frequent social-media use seemed to harm the health of girls when it led to either cyberbullying, a lack of sleep and exercise; but did have that same effect on boys.
Teens who suffer from mental Illness.
The excessive use of social media will likely have a negative impact on just about anyone. In trying to understand who social media affects the most; we need to identify who are our most vulnerable population. Teens obviously lack the maturity and experience of seasoned adults, which would make them more susceptible to issues associated with social media; especially because they use it most. Wouldn’t that imply that teens who are already dealing with severe issues such as mental illness, would struggle more? According to the National Institute of Mental Health reports that “the lifetime prevalence of any mental disorder among adolescents is 49.5%, and 22.2% of adolescents will suffer from a severe mental impairment in their lifetimes.” The excessive use of social media can only make things worse.
Teens who desire to be liked
Most people, if not everyone, wants to be liked by someone. Human development will tell us that teens probably want to be liked the most. The teen years tend to be the most difficult and challenging for humans because of the many changes they go through. Many of those changes cause teens to be the most self-conscious and insecure group of people. For those same reasons are why teens desire to be like the most. According to a study from the UCLA Brain Mapping Center, 13-18 year old teens receiving a high number of likes on photos showed increased activity in the reward center of the brain. Social media platforms know this and use it to influence teens to like photos, regardless of content, based on high numbers of likes. The idea is, if you like what others like, then you’ll be liked too.
It affects people who are supposedly unattractive.
Your appearance is the first thing people notice about you. It doesn’t matter if you’re in person or online. The bottom line is appearance seems to matter. People use social media to cyberbully others all the time and research shows the first thing that’s usually attacked is the appearance. In a study done by McAfee, 72% of victim’s responses to why they were cyberbullied was their appearance. So it appears that social media negatively affects people who are perceived as attractive as well.
It affects LGBTQ Teens.
Social media can also negatively affect people who are LGBTQ. They are harassed on every, if not most platforms. LGBTQ students are also victimized by other students on school grounds or on social media. According to the 2017 National School Climate Survey , “48.7% of LGBTQ students experienced cyberbullying in that year.”
It affects Children with disabilities.
Children and adults with disabilities are at an increased risk of being bullied. Their disabilities can be anything from physical, developmental, intellectual, emotional and even sensory disabilities. Studies have found that “children with disabilities were two to three times more likely to be bullied than their nondisabled peers.”
Social media can be a great tool for many, but for others, it could potentially be a house of horrors. Now that we know who social media affects the most, these individuals should proceed with caution. If social media has had a negative affect on you, please seek professional help. I hope this has been helpful. Also visit my YouTube channel for more insight to these topics.
The Bully Experience "Daniel's Story"
Sign up for our newsletter and Read the novel For Free!
Stay updated. Sign up for our newsletter, and get the first two chapters of The Bully Experience Daniel’s Story absolutely free.