By Kira Yates ’16

Many young adults claim that sites such as Facebook and Instagram are harmless towards one’s health. However, as much as millennials and others want to believe social media is not harming them, it is. From lowering self-confidence to having adverse mental health effects, the reality of social media is that it has countless negative consequences on one’s well-being.

An effect of social media that has been widely publicized is that it leads to people having negative body images. When people see celebrity pictures on Instagram, they subconsciously aspire to imitate this practically unattainable body. These unrealistic pictures, many of which have been altered with Photoshop, have been shown to make many teens feel substandard and less confident about their bodies.

Cyberbullying is another consequence of social media that is demeaning and contributes to lower self-confidence. Social medias provide a perfect outlet for cyber-bullying, which has increased with the rise of social media. The Internet facilitates cyber-bullying by emphasizing dehumanization and a lack of emotional connection, allowing users to say abhorrent things they would not say in person as they can not see the person’s reaction.

The large number of negative mental health repercussions is yet another unfavorable effect of social media. Being able to create many profiles on many social networking sites can lead people to having identity crises and double lives. Social media can also lead to the condition “fear of missing out” (FOMO). This is a medical phenomenon in which people become anxious that they are missing out doing something with friends and is enhanced by people’s ability to constantly publicize their plans.

Social media also diminishes understanding and thoughtfulness while facilitating laziness. One site that emphasizes this is Twitter: while only permitting 140 characters at a time, the site forces people to use short cuts such as abbreviating words and phrases, using numbers to replace text and utilizing symbols to make tweets as short as possible.

Finally, social networking is highly addictive, as proven by many studies including one by the National Institute of Health, which concluded that “Internet Addiction Disorder ruins lives by causing neurological complications, psychological disturbances and social problems.” An addiction to social media has many disadvantageous consequences. For instance, an increased use of social media has been linked with an increased likelihood of obesity and many studies show that teens who spend more time on social media tend to have lower test scores and do not perform as well in school.

The constant use of social media by young adults is an epidemic that is negatively affecting its users’ mental, physical, social and emotional well-being. While the majority of people who use social media will not admit it, the facts show the detrimental effects that social medias have on users.