In this day and age, social media takes up a lot of space in teens’ heads. In fact, The American Academy of Child and Adolescence Psychiatry found that 90% of teens use social media on a daily basis and 51% of them say it affects their mental health.

While many students enjoy spending time posting, liking and scrolling, it’s affecting their mental health a lot more than they think. It’s hard to realize that something you like doing is affecting you negatively. Some teens can pass through pictures and videos with no problems, but for others, it’s a battle of comparing. 

Many teens compare themselves to people they see on the internet. It’s hard to go on Instagram and not see people that you want to measure yourself to. Instagram in particular causes insecurity for girls and bad body images. Instagram is mostly people posting pictures of themselves. When girls scroll through these pictures, they can’t help but aspire to look like others. Feeling insecure about your body can lead to bulimia or an eating disorder. So, because of a couple of pictures online, a girl’s life can be turned around. Feeling bad about yourself and the way you look can result in bad mental health.

The second most popular app for teens is TikTok,  a video-focused social media app with over 755 million users. While some videos are fun-loving pranks and adored families, a lot are people hating and criticizing others. Such a negative environment can take a toll on your mind.

Wikapedia  it said that teens who are on social media are more likely to commit suicide. The Annie E. Casy Foundation said that just 45% of people in Generation Z say that their mental health is very good.  Gen Z is also known as the “depressed generation.” I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s also the generation that’s on social media the most. Social media causes FOMO, anxiety and loneliness. It causes FOMO (fear of missing out) because people feel left out when they see their friends having fun on social media. Lots of teens get anxious when they post a picture and it didn’t get many likes. It can cause loneliness when you see people online having a great time with their friends, especially if you don’t have many friends. 

A responsible way to fix this problem would be for teens to stop using social media so much and to try to fix their mindsets about themselves. You could try to get off it by spending more time doing the things that make them happy. The more time you spend doing other things, the less time you spend on your phones.