The psychological impact of social media on mental health among secondary to college-level students

Abstract

The miraculously increasing growth of social media use in adolescents and young adults raised a considerable academic debate on the psychological impact of social media use. College and secondary students are sensitive as they are yet to go through cognitive, emotional and identity development. In this paper, the authors focus on exploring the psychological impacts of social media on mental health outcomes i.e., depression, anxiety, loneliness and self-esteem among 200 undergraduates aged between 14-21 years. The research presupposes a mixed-method approach, in which case the standardized survey data will be gathered with the primary and secondary scholarly literature being used as a secondary source. The large-scale quantitative component was a sample size of 200 students who were sampled in the secondary schools and undergraduate colleges by the use of stratified random sampling. They were standardized measures and consisted of Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) developed by Kurt Kroenke and others, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) developed by Robert L. Spitzer and UCLA Loneliness Scale developed by Daniel W. Russell. The patterns of social media use were evaluated using modified questions that were grounded on the proven social media integration scales, the number of hours spent at the screen per day, passive and active use, night use of it, and exposure to cyberbullying. The quantitative results have shown that there was a positive significant relationship between heavy social media use (over 4 hours a day) and greater depression (r =.41, p <.01) and anxiety (r =.37, p <.01) scores. Active consumption behavior, social supportive behavior and interaction were weakly correlated or neutral to higher loneliness scores, passive consumption behavior, scrolling and no interaction were also more positively correlated with higher loneliness scores. According to the mediation analysis, sleep disturbance and upward social comparison mediate the relationship between the levels of the social media and the depressive symptoms to some degree. Quality interviews also signalled the theme of fear-of-missing-out (FoMO) and body image dissatisfaction, validation-seeking behaviour and academic distracter. The results of secondary data provided on the basis of systematic reviews and national mental health reports also confirm the initial results, which indicate that minor, but consistent, correlations exist between problematic social media use and internalizing symptoms in adolescents. However, it has also been pointed out that the context, nature of engagement and personal vulnerability has a high modulative effect as well. The study finds that social media usage is not necessarily entirely devastating but rather the impact of psychology depends on the intensity of the usage, the quality of the social media usage and individual inclinations. The findings affirm the usefulness of digital literacy education, parental assistance, institutional mental health examining, and moderate technology policies. These limitations are that they lack causal inference, as it is a self-reported study, and cross-sectional. The research would suggest subsequent longitudinal and experimental research. This is empirical since this research was carried out on a small population of 200 students and this renders it applicable to the policy making process among educators, mental health professionals and policy makers alike.