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As technology advances, there has been a drastic increase in the amount of people who use online networks. Recently, the largest and most used online networks have been social media apps like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. When looking from a business perspective, social media provides a way to advertise products or skills in mass amounts so that millions of people can be influenced at once. Social media has completely changed the marketing, sales, and business industries in a positive way. From the perspective of an average teenager, however, social media isn’t viewed the same. Social media has many effects on teenagers both positive and negative. Recently, however, more negative effects have been found as social media has become a staple part of people's lives. For instance, TikTok recently became one of the biggest social media platforms through the videos that different creators and influencers make. With the app's increase in popularity, the amount of depression and anorexia cases has also increased as more and more kids have begun to change their daily habits to be like others. With the increase in purchases of image-based apps like TikTok, there is an increase in the amount of people being negatively affected by social media.
by: Malaina Dickey
"Women on there especially, there’s so many of those insta model type influencers and half of their pics, their bodies don’t even resemble what a human can look like, then there’s weird stuff like Koreans being obsessed with photoshopping their heads to be ludicrously tiny on their bodies. Then all the filters and everything. It’s super out of control. I’d argue it’s just as bad if not worse than porn. This whole generation coming up has a crazy amount of dysmorphia, look at all the subreddits on here like am I ugly, all that kind of shit. Perfectly normal-looking or even attractive people asking what kinds of surgeries they need etc. It’s just sad."
This comment shows how people negatively view these famous influencers. This commenter argues that the media portrays perfect human beings that don’t even represent a real-life human being. With this, people then become unsatisfied with the way they look and want different surgeries and procedures done to change their body figures to look like people online. This can be unhealthy because everyone is made with their own set of DNA and while some are blessed with certain features, others are blessed in other ways. The problem with society is that people find what they don’t have as a disadvantage and try to change what they look like to be someone else instead of accepting their traits and admiring the way they look.
"I got rid of all social except Reddit. Messed around and got in the best shape of my life at 37yo. Not sure what that says, but I did it the right way (exercise and healthy eating) and just made it part of how I live. No desire to take a million selfies or influence others.Quitting (most) social media is the best thing I’ve done."
This comment is a little different because in this case the commenter has deleted social media and has noticed life change for the better while not having it. Social media focuses on appearance, and this makes society care about little things that shouldn’t be important like how people look. This commenter specifically mentions that he got in the best shape “the right way” hinting that many don’t. This is mainly because oftentimes people stop eating to lose weight and hurt their body or get surgeries done. Today, society tries to reach results or goals way too fast for their body, which can really damage the human body if it doesn’t get the proper nutrients it needs to survive.
Baltrusaitis, Justinas. “Tiktok Becomes the World’s Highest-Grossing Social App by in-App Purchases with over $2.5M in Daily Revenue.” Finbold, 9 June 2023, finbold.com/tiktok-becomes-the-worlds-highest-grossing-social-app-with-over-2-5-million-in-daily-revenue/.
“Christina Aguilera Releases New Video for ‘Beautiful’ Addressing How Social Media Has Affected Our Self Image and Mental Health.” Reddit, www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/y8xz43/christina_aguilera_releases_new_video_for/. Accessed 10 Oct. 2023.
“CMV: Social Media Is Causing More Harm than Good.” Reddit, www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/12p29qz/cmv_social_media_is_causing_more_harm_than_good/. Accessed 10 Oct. 2023.
“Cohen, Rachel, Toby Newton-John, and Amy Slater.” “The Relationship Between Facebook and Instagram Appearance-Focused Activities and Body Image Concerns in Young Women.” Body Image 23 (2017): 183–187. Web.
“Dutta, Dr. Sanchari Sinha. “Eating Disorders and Social Media.” News, 28 Mar. 2022, www.news-medical.net/health/Eating-Disorders-and-Social-Media.aspx.
“Social Media Fact Sheet.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research Center, 7 Apr. 2021, www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/.
“Statistics & Research on Eating Disorders.” National Eating Disorders Association, 14 July 2021, www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/statistics-research-eating-disorders?gclid=Cj0KCQjwqP2pBhDMARIsAJQ0CzqMxZHi_Q2JLThZa0qK-jeQWBh9pyVQ7ymlaODDJcNPAAiFchi-XKMaAkeTEALw_wcB.
While social media has many benefits in society, many issues have been brought upon society as well. Due to the ideal image that our society has created, people have begun to feel insecure about themselves and have taken extreme routes to look a certain way. Usually, the people affected by social media sometimes can feel depressed with how they look and feel and get anxious or begin to stop eating. Not eating can lead to having eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia nervosa which can really hurt the human body as its not getting the proper nutrients to stay healthy. In addition, as more social media apps are created, people strive to become influencers or be like someone they aren’t. While many people are aware of the issues social media has produced, there is a good portion of society that isn’t aware of this issue. Society has made little things like looks and appearance a big part of who someone is, and this can make or break someone. All the influencers that social media promotes have the perfect and ideal looks and body figures that encourage the audience to look just like them. With this, people begin to change their sleeping habits, eating schedules, and daily life routines to reach a specific goal. Since today’s generation has begun to use technology for everything, these issues with social media will only get worse as more social media apps are created and as more people become addicted to how social media makes them feel. People become obsessed with social status which encourages them to act and want to portray a certain look.
Reddit was used as a research tool to investigate the effects of social media on health. By searching for key terms like "harm," "mental," "body image," "depression," and "confidence," communities were identified that provided primary evidence of the negative impacts of social media. The search focused on finding comments and personal stories within these communities, leading to the discovery of helpful evidence. Two significant communities, r/videos and r/changemyview, were analyzed, with the former having 26.8 million members and the latter being in the top 1% in size. The responses were categorized into themes like body image issues, mental health struggles, depression, and lack of confidence, revealing that users often expressed disappointment and insecurity as common emotions related to the effects of social media.