The rise and constant improvement of modern technology has helped with efficiency, research, and has even saved lives. It has brought about ideas and concepts not even imaginable 20 years ago, completely transforming the way people communicate, learn, and go about their daily routines. Along with all these shiny new things, there is one that has captured the attention of adolescents more than almost anything else—social media. It has become a major part of everyday life, shaping cultural norms, the way we connect and communicate, and even the way young people view themselves.

Instagram is what most would consider the “OG” social media app. Instagram has a feature called “Highlights” which allows users to customize the stories that stay on the account. This allows for a perfectly curated profile, free of flaws, a filtered version of the user’s life; one that shows only the moments someone wants the world to see. Constantly seeing only what others want you to see—their seemingly perfect lives, perfect bodies, perfect vacations, and perfect relationships—can have negative effects on just about anyone, but especially on developing minds that are still figuring out who they are.

According to Statista.com, three quarters of females aged 13-17 in the United States use Instagram, and 69% of males in the same age group were on the app as well, which shows just how deeply embedded this platform is in teenage culture. Instagram has proven to be more popular with older teens rather than the younger ones, likely due to parental restrictions on screen time and media use, but also because older teens often care more about building an online aesthetic, gaining followers, and fitting into certain social groups that exist mainly on the internet.

But in 2007, before Instagram, there was another platform that paved the way for what social media is today—Tumblr. Tumblr was a simple and easy way to share photos and random thoughts with the whole world, and it encouraged people to post freely without needing to look “perfect,” which made it feel more authentic at first. Along with the rise of Tumblr, though, was the rise of suicide rates, which started to increase around the same time that online communities became more widespread and harder for parents to monitor. According to the CDC, female suicide rates have generally gone down in age groups above 25, but have increased in ages 10-24, which is alarming considering these are the ages most affected by new social media platforms.

The rate of female suicides aged 10-14 has more than tripled from 2000 to 2020, and the suicide rate from 2000 to 2006 in females aged 15-24 was generally pretty stable, but saw a significant increase of 87% from the year that Tumblr came out until now, from 2007 to 2020. While social media is not the only cause, it is definitely one of the factors that contributed to feelings of isolation, comparison, and insecurity that many teenagers were experiencing but didn’t know how to express.

A graph on female suicide rates, from the CDC

Social media can be an excellent tool, but only when it’s used properly. Some, who understand how to use it in a way that positively impacts your lifestyle, know how to curate their feed to be full of inspirational quotes, creative ideas, useful information, or positive and uplifting content that makes one feel good about themselves. It’s the perfect place to show off creative talents, whether it’s drawing, writing, photography, or anything else that contributes to the authenticity of their personal interests, style, and lives. It can be used for educational purposes to learn new skills or tips and tricks, and it can even help you discover niche hobbies you’ve never heard of, and maybe never would have found out about had you not stumbled upon it while scrolling. And the most obvious use, of course, is to stay updated and connected with your community and friends, especially those who live far away or people you don’t see every day.

Social media is extremely convenient and has plenty of benefits, but sometimes it gets used in ways that are damaging rather than beneficial. Constant scrolling and stimulation, and especially exposure to short video platforms like TikTok, can shorten attention span and make it harder for people to focus on everyday tasks. A Time Magazine article from 2015 claims Microsoft Corps conducted a study which yielded results that prove the average human has a shorter attention span than a goldfish. A goldfish’s attention span being 9 seconds and humans averaging 8 back in 2015. That was 10 years ago, and there is a high chance it’s been shortened even more since then due to the massive increase of endless scrolling content designed to pull people in.

Beyond shortening teens attention span, social media can also lead to a phone addiction, as the way that these platforms are set up is in a way that the user gets a rush of dopamine while using it. Every like, comment, or notification creates a tiny feeling of excitement, making it harder for people, especially teenagers, to put their phones down. It can create harmful habits and coping skills, making someone turn to their phone instead of facing their problems, distracting themselves from them rather than actively trying to solve them and forming negative coping habits. This can lead to emotional avoidance, procrastination, and unhealthy ways of dealing with stress.

Adding to that, there is a direct correlation between grades and social media use, with students who use their phones excessively often struggling more to focus in school. Phones are a shortcut students tend to use to avoid doing work, not even considering how addictive and hard they are to put down. It serves as a deliberate distraction, constantly pulling attention away from homework, studying, and even sleep. In a case study about student grades and social media from the National Library of Medicine, 66% of students said they were more inclined to scroll instead of study and 77% said they went on the platforms in every spare moment they had. Going away from social media can be hard after forming routines of using social media for long amounts of time. Many teens feel anxious without their phones, which shows how powerful and addictive these apps can be, and why they are much more appealing to adolescents over studying.

As well as causing addiction, social media can create problems in relationships whether it’s disapproval from parents, drama between friendships, and can cause insecurities and arguments in couples. Parents are often more worried about their children than the children are worried about themselves, hence why parents usually try to limit certain content online and screen time. Social media can also play a huge role in friendships, and in many cases it can help build stronger relationships by making someone feel more connected to their friends. On the other hand, it can just as easily ruin friendships, especially when one is clicking through stories and sees their friends and peers at a party or event they weren’t invited to. According to the Pew Research Center, 53% of teens said they could relate to this experience.

As for romantic relationships, another case study by the Pew Research center revealed that 23% of people in relationships claim that social media has made them feel jealous or insecure about their relationship, women being almost 2x more likely to relate. On the same note, the rise of social media has only made it easier for people in relationships to cheat on their significant other through secret messages on social media apps. In an article from McKinley Irvin Family Law, 8% of married adults admit to having secret accounts hidden from their partners, and a third of divorces are the result of an affair that started online.

There have been a multitude of studies that all collectively point to the conclusion that social media impacts mental health in a plethora of negative ways, but what about physical health? Social media has been a proven cause of the rise in eating disorders. Alessa Sabina, a licensed marriage and family therapist, claims that there is a direct correlation between social media and eating disorders. “I specialize in treating eating disorders, and so I see it a lot in that realm of things where there’s constant comparison to other bodies and image focus, and unfortunately, a lot of how people post themselves isn’t actually how they appear in real life. So then people are comparing themselves to a standard of beauty that doesn’t actually exist in the world.” According to the National Eating Disorders Association, a study on American high school students yielded the results that teens using social media for more than two hours a day are 1.6 times more likely to have body image issues compared to those who spent less.

“There have been a lot of, you know, articles written about just grooming about pedophiles, you know, people pretending to be younger than they actually are and reaching out to kids, starting these fake relationships, or these relationships that are real to the child, to the preteen/teenager, and not real to them or maybe real to the adult behind it. But it’s very predatory,” says Heritage Christians’ Dean of Students, Ms. Orellana. One of the more prominent dangers of social media, primarily toward younger teens, is pedophilia and grooming. This type of inappropriate behavior doesn’t only come from the social media apps that are popular with older teens, but also on gaming platforms like Roblox, which are mainly used by children that haven’t even reached middle school. “Snapchat and like Roblox, I know that’s not social media, but I know kids use it to play games and interact. Platforms like that, especially Snapchat, are used by predators and it’s something that, unfortunately, they catch a lot of crimes against children in.”

Overall, social media is a great platform to use to stay connected and informed, and an excellent place for marketing, but unfortunately is used for a multitude of negative motives and can be damaging to mental health in countless different ways especially to developing minds and bodies. Social media may seem like this magical place full of cool products and concepts and people, but something darker lurks beneath the surface.