Since 2012, before COVID-19, depression rates in teens have gone up 60%. More and more teens are feeling worse mentally and becoming more isolated from their peers. For some, this could be for a multitude of reasons. However, for most, the only change major enough to cause this crisis was the advent of smartphones among teens.
Social media has been proven to be incredibly addictive. It has also been proven to have an incredibly negative impact on the adolescent mind. Jeffersonhealth.org says, “AÂ recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) revealed that teens who use social media more than three hours per day may be at heightened risk for mental health problems. Since the pandemic, there has been an uptick in depression and anxiety among teens, specifically low self-esteem, disordered eating, body image issues, and suicidal thoughts.”
How Boyertown students are being affected
A survey was cast out to Boyertown students, asking a multitude of questions based on mental health, social media, and COVID-19. 65% of students felt that social media had a negative impact on them in some way, and over 81% of students at BASH said that COVID-19 had a negative impact on them in some way. Social media was already an issue before COVID-19 happened, and COVID-19 only exacerbated the issue.
Kids didn’t have the option to go out with peers as they had before COVID-19, which caused a lot of self-isolation among teens. Even after COVID-19 had ended, it was too late. Students currently in high school were at a major socially developmental stage of their lives during COVID-19 (ages 9-13), and they could not learn to be social due to the lack of society.
45% of students said they would rather stay inside than go out with friends, and 20% of students said they rarely have one-on-one time with friends or family. While some may be more introverted, the numbers shouldn’t be this high. There was a clear change in self-isolation after COVID-19, when using social media was the only source of communication for many around the world.
Passive scrolling vs active engagement
Passive scrolling is when one consumes content without any interaction. Passive interaction is what most people use when mindlessly scrolling on social media. Scholastic.uar.edu says that passive engagement “was found to increase the likelihood of comparison among peers, increase anxiety, and lead to negative self-image.”
Active engagement is when one interacts with someone or something. For example, messaging someone on social media or commenting on videos. Scholastic.uar.edu states that, “Active social media use was found to increase feelings of belongingness and co-rumination. [Also known as excessive, repeated discussion of personal problems within a close relationship, characterized by rehashing, speculating on, and dwelling on negative emotions].”
Active and passive engagement can cause a multitude of issues when mixed. Passive engagement can cause high rates of depression in teens when using social media, and active engagement can make a lot of teens feel like social media is the only place they’re safe. This can easily lead to a dangerous spiral of social media addiction and depression.
Larger social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat have a minimum age requirement of 13 years old; however, many health organisations say that waiting until age 16 would be less of a risk. Waiting even longer than that may benefit many teens, though. bca.org states that 46% of teens ages 13-17 feel worse about themselves after using social media. 64% of teens had also stated that they were exposed to hateful types of content more than once while using social media.
What can teens and parents do to avoid these issues?
In a world where people are becoming increasingly more dependent on their technology as a whole, it is still important to ensure that people are using their technology in a safe manner while still being able to enjoy entertainment.
AACAP.org recommends that infants under 18-24 months should avoid screens entirely, toddlers ages 2-5 should have a maximum of 1 hour of screen time per day, children ages 6-18 should have strict limits, of when they are allowed to have screen time to ensure 9-12 hours of sleep due to social media and screen time being a major disruptor of sleeping habits from ages 6-18. Adults are recommended to have no more than 2 hours of screen time each day.
It’s important to refrain from using any kind of technology an hour before bed. Using phones before bed often results in more trouble having a good night’s rest. If having phones in bedrooms gets to be too tempting, it is a good idea to keep phones out of rooms (for parents and teens alike).
Making these few changes could help many teens and parents alike with their stress, sleep, and mental load.
