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ACADEMY OF JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION PUBLIC RELATION AND ADVERTISING FACULTY

FINAL ESSAY

SUBJECT: ACADEMIC WRITING TOPIC: Social media effects on mental health

Lecturer: MSc. Nguyen Thuy Linh Name: <b> Nguyễn Phương Thảo </b>

Student ID: 2256160084

Class: Marketing Communication A2 K42

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<b>2. The ability of supporting ...5 </b>

<b>II. HAZARDS OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA ...6 </b>

<b>1. Cyberbullying ...6 </b>

<b>2. Depression symptoms ...7 </b>

<b>CONCLUSION ...7 </b>

<b>REFERENCES ...8</b>

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<b>INTRODUCTION </b>

<small> This essay will analyse the effects, including positive and negative sides, of using </small> social media to mental health It contains researches from scientists in sociology, . psychology and data analyst. The essay below would mention the connections of these networks, their supporting sources from relationships on the Internet when it comes to the advantages of online platforms. Meanwhile, cyberbullying and depressions would be considered the main contents of social media’as s detriments.

<b>CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW </b>

According to W.Akram and R.Kumar, social media is defined as a platform for people to share topics and opinions. They use it as a term for the connection among groups and individuals online. Another definition of Kaplan is that social media is an application built on the Internet allowing users to exchange information. However, it is difficult to find an exact, common and mutually-agreed definition of social media. Therefore, Car, C.T., & Hayes, have paraphrased this definition in a verbose but more easily-understanding way as “Internet-based channels that allow users to opportunistically interact and selectively self-present, either in real-time or asynchronously, with both broad and narrow audiences who derive value from user-generated content and the perception of interaction with others”.

In research, they once pointed out that social media can be a double-edged sword to human mental wellbeing. Sadagheyani and his associates assumed that users might suffer anxiety, depression, loneliness, poor sleep, poor mental health indicators, suicidal and self-harm thoughts, higher levels of psychological distress, cyberbullying, fear of missing out and lower life satisfaction. Nevertheless, social

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networks give access to health experts and information, help users control emotion and community building.

On a Psychiatric Quaterly’s article, it was also affirmed that mental health, include suicidal symptoms, anxiety was slightly affected from SNS. However, it was difficult to blame all those negative psychological problems only on social networks. It was vague booking to make it out that using social media could lead to impaired functions of mental health.

In the opinion of Michelle O’Reilly and his companies their analysis showed that adolescents regard social media as a threat to their children. These applications were accused of causing mood swings and being a platform of cyberbullying. Moreover, users can be addicted to these online platforms.

<b>CHAPTER 2: DISCUSSION </b>

<b>I. BENEFITS OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA 1. Ability of connecting </b>

Social media offer near and constant platforms to connect and interact with others, regardless of time of day or geographic location. It makes the nature of communication changed in the last 30 years since its first launch. Internet’s tools like emails, instant messages, etc. generate new contact methods in a faster way. In addition to that, social platforms have changed the way humans connect, we use them to make friends around the world without meeting face-to-face. People take advantage this convenience. Those who have mental of disorders or difficulties in face- -face experience would be pleased to to communicate. The fact was claimed by Miller and his companies in a study in which the participants were schizophrenia indicated. Another study of

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Rideout and Fox pointed out that the young with multi-levels of depression symptoms had the tendency of connecting with people through online platforms rather than in real life. These media also provided a large number of health consultants with a figure of 20% of teens and young adults having connection with their online providers: 8% by texting, 5% through mobile applications and 4% through video calls. Moreover, according to Health Informatics Journal, they saw that using digital media could gain the interactions between patients and health information under formats such as blogs, posts, videos, etc.

<b>2. The ability of supporting </b>

This connecting function of social media also supports a specific kind of network, peer- -peer one. Peer- -peer is a network of people who share and to to suffer from mutual problems Patients usually wonder if it is worthy to be . concerned about their symptoms and they want to know how others would feel when they go through the same one. However, people with diseases are more likely to isolate themselves, fear and find it challenging to reach out to others. They use platforms as a tool to express themselves and share their individual opinions; furthermore, they establish new friendships, pursue romantic and emotional relationships, maybe find support for life experience as well. In an article, they proposed a model concept about how people in the community connect with others. Individuals with symptoms of mental illness, social isolation, fear to reach out or stigma once decided to visit an online peer network would challenge the stigma, increase their consumer activation or access to inventions for mental and physical well-being.

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<small>Figure 1. Model illustrating chances that available for mental patients to meet online communities (Credit: The future of mental health care: peer- -peer support and social media)to</small>

<b>II. HAZARDS OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA 1. Cyberbullying </b>

Smith and Sharp defined “bullying” as a systematic abuse and imbalance of power within interaction and the victim did not have the ability to defend. Along with the development of the Internet, a new kind of bullying was formed. According to Slonje, R., & Smith, P.K, cyberbullying means “an aggressive intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself”. is listed in behaviors such as written-verbal, It including calling, texting and emailing; visual, volved in delivering whether in images or picturing; representing like attacks and finally exclusion. In a study by Alhajji et al, 15.5% of their sample reported cyber-bullying in which 68% of them were female and it made 48.7% the total group. To schoolgirls, poor body images and lack of teacher support would lead to psychosomatic problems whereas these problems to the boys were caused by

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foreign background and age. In comparison to other traditional forms of bullying, these high-tech methods could gain a bigger spread without social control. Moreover, it is more complicated to remove a piece of information published on the Internet. These actions were mainly to harm the victims’ reputation, which was greater than the traditional one.

<b>2. Depression symptoms </b>

Depression is said to be a mode of painful dejection or a series of dysphoric mood and pervasive loss of pleasure. In an ADAA (Anxiety & Depression Association of America) statistic, about 7% and 18% of adults in the US have depression and anxiety. Depressed people suffer it in daily life, and it can be the clue of suicidal ideas. In recent times social media have been proved t, o be the cause of psychological illnesses Chou and Edge showed that social . networks were associated with the decreased quality in well-being, life satisfaction, and the offline community. In a research article, the group with higher social media visits have the bigger potential of being depressed than that of the group with lower quartile of time on online platforms. On these networks, seeing their friends’ posts with positive contents can make them feel jealous, or have mood modification and interpersonal conflicts. In the long term, using social media could lead to insomnia and the mentioned symptoms of depression.

<b>CONCLUSION </b>

As the Internet develops since its first launch 40 decades ago, 90% and even more of the world population have been using the Internet every single day. They

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encroache on all aspects of our private life unavoidably and their effects are undeniable. In the future, when it comes to the IOT (Internet of things) era, digital a future of hyperconnectivity would make these effects even clearer and it requires humans to have an overall and strategic approach to protects users from being bullye and depressions make them believe in technological future. Whereas, we still to a need to improve the accessibility of Internet, especially social media to connect people and patients and advance their experience when using them.

<b>REFERENCES </b>

1. W.Akram, R.Kumar (2017). A study on Positives and Negatives of Social Media on Society. International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering, Volume 5 (10), p.347.

Available at: www.ijeseonline.org

2. Kaplan, A.M. (2014). Social Media, Definition and History. In: Alhajj, R., Rokne, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Social Network Analysis and Mining. Springer, New York, NY.

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3. Carr, C. T., & Hayes, R. A. (2015). Social media: Defining, developing, and divining. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 23(1).

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4. Sadagheyani, H.E. and Tatari, F. (2021). Investigating the role of social media on mental health. Mental Health and Social Inclusion, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 41-51.

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Available at: Berryman, C., Ferguson, C.J. & Negy, C. Social Media Use and Mental Health among Young Adults. Psychiatr Q 89, 307–314 (2018).

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6. Michelle O’Reilly, Nisha Dogra, […], and Paul Reilly (2018). Is social media bad for mental health and wellbeing? Exploring the perspective of adolescents. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 23 Issue 4, pp. 601 – 613.

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10. Ziebland, S. and Wyke, S. (2012) Health and illness in a connected world: How might sharing experiences on the internet affect people’s health?, The Milbank quarterly.

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12. Sharp, S., & Smith, P. (2002). School bullying: Insights and perspectives. Routledge.

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21. Chou HTG, Edge N. “They Are Happier and Having Better Lives than I Am”: The Impact of Using Facebook on Perceptions of Others' Lives (2012 Feb); 15(2):117–21.

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