Social Media and Mental Health
Social media is instrumental in adolescent development because it enables the youth to forge relationships with their peers and explore their identity. It’s very easy to reach out to friends and feedback is immediately available and measurable (in the form of likes, views and shares). There are benefits to it — Tiktok is an avenue for creative expression, humor, entertainment, and connectedness with peers.
But its negative impact is troubling. Certain social media experiences have been reported to affect the youth’s mental health.
Children are exposed to screens at a very early age. In fact, a 2017 UNICEF report said that 1 in 3 Internet users is a child. The same report said that the private sector and the government are not doing enough to protect the youth from digital technology’s potential harms. Children’s online surfing is less supervised. And as a result, they are vulnerable to harmful content, cyberbullying, or even exploitation and abuse.
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