Abstract
Depression and eating disorders among teenagers is becoming a major cause of concern among medical practitioners, parents, the government, and many other stakeholders. Studies have linked social media use among the teenagers to these disorders. In this study, the researcher wanted to determine if indeed the social media is responsible for the increasing teenage depression and eating disorders. The report recommends that parents and teachers should monitor social media use by teens. It recommends that parents and teachers should be keen to identify when a teen is under stress so that appropriate remedy may be taken.
Introduction
According to a report published by Pantic (2014), there is a sudden rise of depression and eating disorders among teenagers over the past ten years. Medical researchers have tried to investigate the issue by looking at their patient’s lifestyle to identify a common pattern that could be linked to the increasing eating disorders and depression cases. In their report, what is more worrying is the fact that these teenagers are unable to determine when they are suffering from depression and eating disorders (Pantic, 2014).
Parents, who are expected to notice any behavioral changes in their children, are rarely at home, working most of the time to improve the social status of their families. Most of these children suffer for a long time, not understanding what exactly affects them. Recent studies are now linking social networking sites (SNS) with the increasing depression and eating disorders. A number of studies have strongly indicated that social media plays a major role in the psychological and behavioral abnormalities currently witnessed among teenagers (Pantic, 2014). In this paper, the researcher focuses on analyzing the increasing cases of depression and eating disorders and how they are affected by the use of social media.
Discussion
Addiction to Social Networking Sites
According to a report by Tiggemann and Slater (2015), the use of social media by teenagers has become a very common phenomenon in the United States over the last ten years. Facebook, SnapChat, and YouTube are some of the most popular social networking sites. The report shows that over 95% of the teenagers interviewed in the study stated that they have been using social media in one way or the other.
In the past, teenagers had to meet physically with their peers in order to share their feelings, ideas, or forces that affected their lives. However, the emergence of the social media networks, especially platforms such as Facebook, has made it possible to spend most of their lives socializing on online platforms. Some teenagers are so addicted to Facebook that they can hardly take their hands off their Smartphone even when they are in a classroom.
These teenagers currently find it easier to engage their friends in the social media than to interact physically. After school, they would lock themselves in their rooms and chat, without paying attention to other activities and other aspects of their lives. Pantic (2014) says that limited physical activity causes health problems such as obesity and related complications. This is specifically so because these teenagers are shifting from the normal trend of having three meals a day at designated times to using snacks at any time of the day.
The more they avoid physical activities and rely on snacks instead of normal meals, the more they become obese. According to Grant, Saha, and Ruan (2016), most teenagers do not realize that they are becoming obese. They only realize that they have added a lot of weight when their colleagues tell them so. The parents are not always around to monitor their activities and so their abnormal addiction to social media sometimes goes undetected for a very long time. When their colleagues point out the fact that they have added weight, everything starts falling apart. Teenagers value acceptance and approval of their peers so much that they can be willing to do everything to get them. To find solution to their problem, they quickly turn to the social media, which is the very cause of their problem
Relying on Social Media to Understand the Ideal World
According to Mondimore and Kelly (2015), teenagers heavily rely on social media to understand the ideal world. In the past, parents played a critical role in explaining to their children what is ideal and how to lead a normal life. However, parents are increasingly getting busy at work so they do not have the opportunity to spend quality time with their children. As such, these children are forced to turn to the social media to solve issues that affect their social lives and to understand the ideal world.
When they turn to the social media, they are bombarded with a lot of information that they cannot properly comprehend. As for the children who have become obese or approaching obesity because of the time they spend without engaging in physical activities, social media become the nightmare that they cannot do without (Karina, Gibson, McLean, Davis, & Byrne, 2014). This problem affects girls more than boys.
In the social media, they get to understand that beauty is associated with one’s body weight and shape. They also learn that eating specific foods or overeating in general causes obesity. As a way of cutting down their weight to what they have been made to believe is ideal, these teenagers start strict regulation of what they eat. Once again, limited parental presence makes it easy for these teenagers to embrace another habit without their parents’ knowledge. They limit their meals to breakfast and supper believing that it is the best way of cutting down their calories.
Pantic (2014) says that sometimes teenagers become so obsessed with the idea of gaining the right weight that they induce vomiting whenever they are forced to take a proper meal. Given that most of their peers also rely on the same misleading information, when such a teenager starts to lose weight drastically, they get the approval of their friends. They influence these friends in turn, mostly through the social media.
The low-self esteem in most of these teenagers makes them very vulnerable to the information they get in the social media. In their effort to become what they consider idea, they end up punishing themselves physically. When the weight loss does not occur as fast as they desire, stress sets in. They start blaming themselves for not being what the world considers perfect. Some of them even start blaming their parents for their condition, making it difficult for them to share with their parents what is affecting them.
Social Media Bullying
The psychiatric disorders arising from social media, if not addressed in time, can lead to more serious issues in the life of a teenager. According to Pantic (2014), some teenagers have committed suicide because of their perceived failure to become what their peers’ desire. These tragic events occur because parents, guardians, and teachers rarely give these teens proper attention, always believing that they can easily express themselves whenever they have an issue that is affecting them. The rising cases of social media bullying often go unchecked because of the little attention adults give to the teenagers’ use of social media.
A sixteen year old can easily fall prey to a pervert of the opposite sex. Such a child may be manipulated and if the issue is not arrested in a timely manner, then they may be subject to physical abuse. Others are even kidnapped after being lured through the social media. All these social problems in turn lead to mental distress. The victims develop depression and find it difficult eating as would be normally expected of them.
Case Study: 14 Year Old Nyah James Commits Suicide Because of Snapchat and Facebook Bullying
In an emotional story that was reported by Howes (2017), the 14 year old Nyah James was found dead in her room one evening after deliberately taking an overdose of prescription tablets and locking herself in her room. Investigations quickly established that the teenager had been a victim of relentless bullying by colleagues through SnapChat and Facebook. The most unfortunate thing in this case is that the little girl was suffering in silence. The mother never knew that her teenage girl was suffering from deep depression because of the cyber bullying. The investigation revealed that Nyah tried to fight off the bullies, but she was unable to.
She shared her ordeal with a friend, too young to be of proper advice to her, but she never got the solution. The fact that parents and teachers never realized that she was suffering from depression clearly demonstrates how dangerous the problem was. The police took over the investigation to try and identify the individuals who were specifically responsible for the emotional frustration of the teenager that forced her to take her own life. The mother, who was unable to detect the psychiatric problem of her child early enough, is now demanding for justice.
Conclusion
It is clear from the above research that social media is one of the leading causes of depression and eating disorders. When these children start using social media, they get into a realm dominated by people of all characters. The invisibility that is brought about by the social media makes it difficult for the authorities to control activities of users of these platforms. It creates a scenario where teenagers are subjected to verbal abuse and exploitation that may have devastating impact on their mental and physical health. Cyber bullying is increasingly becoming a major problem and it is worrying that adults rarely take note of the problem in time.
Some children live with depression caused by cyber bullying for years. Others get misled into lifestyles that only bring them physical and mental torture. When a teenage girl is convinced that the only way to be pretty is to cut down her weight, she embraced an abnormal eating pattern. Parents and teachers should always be keen on identifying these problems in time to avoid more serious consequences.
References
Grant, B., Saha, T., & Ruan, J. (2016). Epidemiology of DSM-5 drug use disorder results from the national epidemiologic survey on alcohol and related conditions. JAMA Psychiatry, 73(1), 39-47.
Howes, S. (2017). Heartbroken mum of girl, 14, who ‘killed herself’ claims she was bullied on Snapchat and Facebook. Mirror. Web.
Karina, A, Gibson, L., McLean, N., Davis, E., & Byrne, S. (2014). Maternal and family factors and child eating pathology: Risk and protective relationships. Journal of Eating Disorders, 2(11), 1-7.
Mondimore, F. M., & Kelly, P. (2015). Adolescent depression: A guide for parents. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Pantic, I. (2014). Online social networking and mental health. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, 17(10), 652–657.
Tiggemann, M., & Slater, A. (2015). The role of self-objectification in the mental health of early adolescent girls: Predictors and consequences. J Pediatr Psychol, 40(7), 704-711.