Social media websites became popularized in early 1997. Since that time social media has become a norm for different societies around the world. Usage rates are increasing the further the technology advances. People are becoming addicted to social media. It has become a place where people are able to communicate with people, who live both close and far. It allows them to keep up with old friends and make new friends simultaneously. It has become a place to share videos, spread joy, share feelings, share hate, make social and political statements, and share both difficult and exciting memories. When you scroll through just about any social media site, everything that is being displayed is glamorized, filtered, and exaggerated.
We see a lot of people marketing themselves in different ways to receive recognition. As we scroll through, we see a lot of smiling faces with captions to match. People are sharing and presenting only moments that seem to be near-perfect. Because of this, people are beginning to rely on that recognition that they receive in order to feel satisfied. Behind all of the smiling facing and liked photos lays a more serious social problem that has also been growing since the rise of social media. Depression is being diagnosed with more frequency among younger demographics. For this paper, I will be considering the link between social media use and diagnosis for depression. I will consider several factors that have potential to link social media use to the symptoms of depression.
For the purposes of this section, I will be considering the connection between social media and the rise of depression rates among adolescents in the United States. I will be citing several studies that discuss the different aspects that make up the survey that we will administer. I will begin by discussing studies that have documented social media usage rates among adolescents. I will then talk discuss the link between social media use and how those have affected sleep patterns. I will continue by discussing how social media has impacted self-esteem among our youth. I will then conclude by directly addressing depression and anxiety among adolescents and different studies that have related that to social media use.
127 our experts are availableright now
Social media has been extensively researched due to such a high volume of the world has become accustomed to utilizing on a daily basis. Usage rates have increased tremendously among youth all over the world. Several researchers (Woods, Scott, 2016, Lerman et al., 2017, Primack et al., 2017) discussed the percentage of youth that have social media and the amount of time that the average youth is spending on social media. It was shown that on average “97% of participants indicated that they used social media” (Woods, Scott, 2016). It was also shown that on average “92% of teenager’s report going online daily” (Lerman, 2017). As we begin to consider the effects of social media throughout the course of this research, it is important that we keep in mind the percentage of youth that are connected to these social media platforms and the risks that are associated with overuse.
In relation to social media usage, several studies (Lerman et al., 2016, Twenge et al., 2018, Guntuku et al., 2017, Woods and Scott, 2016) have explored the effects of sleep deprivation on their depressive symptoms. The studies have focused primarily on adolescents who report that their sleep patterns have been altered by their social media usage. Woods and Scott created a questionnaire that using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The authors found that “37% reported losing sleep due to the use of social networking sites” (Woods, Scott, 2016). It has been documented that loss of sleep can be strong contributing factors to a diagnosis of depression and or anxiety. The DSM-IV states that depression includes the following symptoms, depressed mood, disturbed sleep and fatigue. With the rise of social media, sleeping habits have evolved to be shorter in duration causing disturbed sleep and fatigue.
One aspect of social media that has been explored is the impact that social media is having on the self-esteem of its users. With the amount of time that the average user spends on social media, it is imperative that we begin to look more deeply at the mental health affects of social media. Many studies (Woods et al., 2017, Sherlock et al., 2018) have detailed the adverse effects of social media in relation to self-esteem. In a study conducted by Sherlock and Wagstaff, it was found that “excessive Instagram use may contribute to negative psychological outcomes and poor appearance-related self-perception” (Sherlock et al., 2018). Further adding to this point, a study conducted by Woods and Scott, the authors found that their “hypotheses on social media use and self-esteem were supported. The relationship between self-esteem and social media use was found to be negative, such that lower self-esteem scores were associated with higher levels of overall social media use” (Woods, Scott, 2017).
To conclude this section, I will discuss some of the studies that have looked at the direct connection between social media users and the development of symptoms of depression. There has been a drastic increase of our youth getting diagnosed with depression at younger ages then ever before. Many collective researchers (Twenge et al., 2017, Shensa et al., 2018, Parent et al., 2018) have looked to social media as a potential cause of these depressive symptoms. According to Twenge et al., iIt was concluded that “Adolescents low in-person social interaction and high in social media use reported the highest levels of depressive symptoms” (Twenge et al., 2017). They found that social media use was highly correlated with symptoms of depression, with higher result for girls than with boys (r= 0.06).
Likewise, Shensa et al., reported that “rates for both depression and anxiety are disproportionally high among women, individuals of low socio-economic status, and emerging results” (Shensa, et al., 2018). Twenge et al., were also able to measure the risks associated with additional screen time. They found that “Risks became elevated after 2 hours or more a day of electronic device use, when 33% of adolescents had at least one suicide-related outcome, compared to 29% of those using electronic devices 1 hour a day. Among those who used electronic devices 5 or more hours a day, 48% had at-least one suicide related outcome” (Twenge et al., 2017). As we can conclude, it is important to seek for further research that can more closely correlate these two factors in order to help our community avoid the pitfalls of depression.
Method
Participants
Seventy junior high and high school students (12-17-year-olds) attending public schools in Albuquerque, New Mexico will be selected and used as participants in this research study. We will include ten participants from each grade level, which will include five males and five female students. These students will be randomly selected. We will split up the the participant pool into half (35) males and (35) half female students. The schools will be located in a predominantly middle to upper class area. We will assure that the students receive consent from parents or guardians in order to participate in the study. We will accomplish this by having the students and their parents sign an informed consent form. We will provide each student with a free school lunch voucher as an incentive for participating in our study. We will also find volunteer proctors to administer the surveys and go over the guidelines expected while taking the survey.
Design
The design I have elected to use for this study will be a non-experimental research design. This will be the most appropriate approach because it will permit the participants to be observed without requiring any type of simulation. Social media experiences and platforms very according to personal experience and I feel that it would be difficult to create a controlled experiment that would be able to constitute reliable results. The independent variable will be the use of social media. The dependent variable would be whether or not social media is influencing them to have depressive symptoms. The benefits of using a self-report survey is that it is cost effective and quick. The drawbacks to this type of design will be the inaccuracy of the results. Typically, surveys are embellished due to misconception of one’s images or actions when self-reporting on things such as symptoms or experiences.
Materials
The study will consist of the students filling out a detailed survey on their social media use. The survey will include a series of questions detailing their usage habits and feelings that derive from social media use. I will begin by conducting a demographic analysis of the participants to ensure that we recognize differences between age, race, and gender. I will continue by assessing the number of hours spent using social media per day (less than 1 hour, 1-2 hours, 3-4 hours, 5-7 hours, and then 7+ hours).
We will then provide questions on their quality of sleep determining the amount of sleep received per night (less than 3 hours, 3-5 hours, 6-8 hours, 9-10 hours, 11+ hours) and quality of sleep (Scale of 1-10, how well would you rate your sleep quality, 10 being the best?). I will proceed with questions asking them about their overall feelings (On a scale from 1-10, how would you rate your feelings on the post above, 1 being Same and 10 being confidence?) on social media posts that are presented to make someone appear like there life is perfect.
I will continue by asking questions that detail the same feelings on social media posts that are presented as negative. In order to avoid any type of gender bias, each type of post that was used as an example will include one male and one female post. The materials will all be standardized for each student. We will attempt to create a test that is placed at a 6th grade reading level with age appropriate response options to accommodate for our younger demographic. The final section of the survey will ask whether the participant has ever been or is currently diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorders.
Procedure
We will assign each grade level a separate classroom. The gender of the students will be as previously explained, five male students and five female students per classroom so that we can recognize both genders equally. We will conduct a bi-weekly administration of the survey with a total of three separate administrations. During each administration of the survey, one of the seven volunteer proctors will administer surveys to a classroom which we assign at random in order to ensure that there is no bias created by the administrator of the test.
The proctor will discuss with each classroom the method of administration. He will explain the purpose of the survey in accordance with our hypothesis. Each student will be aware that we are conducting the survey to determine whether social media is having any type of impact on current depression rates. The proctor will also discuss the ethical guidelines of the test. The test will be administered on separate days for each group and I will ensure that the participants are aware of the importance of keeping test items confidential from other participants.
The classroom that we will use will be at the local high school. We will attempt to create an environment that will allow each test taker the opportunity to fill out the survey to the best of their ability. We will not allow any talking during the administration of the test. We will pass out a piece of paper with the survey, which the students will be permitted to write on, as well as a pencil. The proctor will administer the instructions orally and they will also be listed at the top of each survey. The proctor will encourage the students to ask any questions they may have in order to clarify instructions or questions that they may have. After each student has completed their survey they will be asked to turn the paper over. Once every student has completed their student, the tests will be collected by the proctor.
Results
The 4 sets of questions that we will prepare for the survey will be rated by the 7 groups of youth. For the descriptive statistics, the possible range of values changes based on the subject being evaluated. Three scales will have a possible range of values of 1-10. For example, students will rate their quality of sleep from 1 being “poor” and 10 being “excellent.” Scores will be analyzed and we will seek to determine the correlations between each symptom being measured to different symptoms that measure anxiety.
For the inferential statistics, we will attempt to find differences and similarities between the different groups that we will create. We will find statistical differences between race, socio-economic status, gender, and age by performing a two-way, between subjects ANOVA.
Discussion
The results of the study that will be conducted will be evaluated and compared to other similar studies that we have discussed previously. We will discuss our original hypothesis and the relation of that hypothesis to the results that we received. For the purposes of this research, we are focused on adolescents, however, if the results show a correlation between depression and social media, we will continue with this research by looking at an older demographic. We will discuss the implications of our research and suggest what action needs to be taken as a result.
We will also discuss any potential limitations to our research design and any test bias that we may have observed. We will look at how those limitations can be changed or improved in further research. We will discuss potential topics with which I could continue this research. One limitation that we may find with our design is the use of self-report surveys and it may be important to take into consideration another form of gathering information to yield more reliable results. I will conclude by stating the magnitude of the results and summarize the purposes of the study.
References
- A Multilevel Predictive Model for Detecting Social Network Users with Depression. (2018). 2018 IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), 2018 IEEE International Conference on, ICHI, 130.
- Guntuku, S. C., Yaden, D. B., Kern, M. L., Ungar, L. H., & Eichstaedt, J. C. (2017). Detecting depression and mental illness on social media: An integrative review. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 18, 43–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.07.005
- Lerman, B. I., Lewis, S. P., Lumley, M., Grogan, G. J., Hudson, C. C., & Johnson, E. (2017). Teen depression groups on Facebook: A content analysis. Journal of Adolescent Research, 32(6), 719–741. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558416673717
- Padoa, T., Berle, D., & Roberts, L. (n.d.). Comparative Social Media Use and the Mental Health of Mothers with High Levels of Perfectionism. Journal of social and clinical psychology, 37(7), 514–535.
- Parent, M. C., Gobble, T. D., & Rochlen, A. (2018). Social media behavior, toxic masculinity, and depression. Psychology of Men & Masculinity. https://doi.org/10.1037/men0000156
- Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Barrett, E. L., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., & James, A. E. (2017). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among U.S. young adults.
- Shensa, A., Sidani, J. E., Dew, M. A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., & Primack, B. A. (2018). Social Media Use and Depression and Anxiety Symptoms: A Cluster Analysis. American Journal of Health Behavior, 42(2), 116–128. https://doi.org/10.5993/AJHB.42.2.11
- Sherlock, M., & Wagstaff, D. L. (2018). Exploring the relationship between frequency of Instagram use, exposure to idealized images, and psychological well-being in women. Psychology of Popular Media Culture. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000182
- Twenge, J. M., Joiner, T. E., Rogers, M. L., & Martin, G. N. (2018). Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among US adolescents after 2010 and links to increased new media screen time. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(1), 3– 17. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376
- Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). pass:[#]Sleepyteens: Social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Journal of Adolescence, 51, 41–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.05.008
