Unveiling Social Media’s Hidden Dangers
It’s a dangerous place social media and I think some people don’t actually know how dangerous it is. Basically, we don’t study it. (P7, Leicester, year 11, aged 15–16 years)
Because there’s like a ton of very damaging websites, especially like on Tumblr (P2, Leicester, year 13, aged 17–18 years)
And it’s dangerous, it’s dangerous, people can take advantage on social media. (P5, Leicester, year 11, aged 15–16 years)
And then people being shot or stabbed and then they say what happens after. I think that’s very traumatizing for someone to see. (P8, London, year 11, aged 15–16 years)
Evidently, from their general negative discourses, the young people felt that social media posed a threat to the wellbeing of adolescents as a group. While not attributing the danger specifically to their own social media usage, they made third-party attributions endorsing the notion that viewing damaging websites could be detrimental to the wellbeing of some and that it may be traumatising for someone to see. They felt that part of the difficulty was that social media knowledge was limited for their age group generally as we don’t study it, demonstrating that the absence of social media knowledge through the educational curriculum led to a limited understanding of the risks.
Specifically, in relation to risks to mental wellbeing, participants described three ways in which social media was ‘dangerous. First, they argued that social media use directly causes stress, depression, low self-esteem and suicidal ideation. Second, they reported that social media exposes people to bullying and trolling, thereby negatively impacts on mental health. Third, social media was constructed as addictive.
Theme 1: social media can cause stress, depression, low self-esteem and suicidal ideation
Participants expressed the view that they felt social media was a risk to mental wellbeing. They identified stress, low self-esteem, depression and suicidal ideation as likely negative consequences of social media. This was despite reporting that it can help to connect people and be a source of support. Notably, many of these comments were made in a general third-party attributions sense, rather than being derived from personal experiences.
Social media functions as a platform for users to share comments and express views, and this was seen as presenting risks to adolescents. The implication was that this kind of activity impacts on their emotional wellbeing and young people felt that social media negatively impacts on mood.
But then there’s other people that just like rant and rant and it’s just like, those negative things that even if it’s not got any like relation to you, just brings you down. (P3, Leicester, year 13, aged 17–18 years)
As well I think that like nowadays, you’re taught to have low self-esteem you know like with photo- shopped images and things like that. (P6, Leicester, year 13, aged 17–18 years)
I think it [social media] sets a lot of expectations and standards for young people who like at that age, like you’re really impressionable. (P7, Leicester year 11, aged 15–16 years)
The emotional consequences were reported as causing low mood in young people as they argued that social media brings you down and they indirectly blamed social media (and other media) for lowering self-esteem in adolescents because of photo-shopped images. This was presented within
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a broader discourse of expectations about body image and the influence of a social media culture, with recognition that as a group adolescent are really impressionable. While low mood and negative emotional consequences are potentially a risk, some participants emphasized this more strongly and employed discourses of mental ill health to portray this:
Um, social media can cause suicide and depression. (P4, London, year 9, aged 13–14 years)
In the past that’s also caused deaths of people being like targeted on social media, they end up committing suicide. (P1, London, year 11, aged 15–16 years)
The adolescents felt that for some of their peers, social media may lead to depression and in more extreme cases suicide. Indeed, they positioned social media as the direct cause of these emotions social media can cause suicide and depression. Fortunately, cases of suicide are rare, but they do raise the profile of the link between social media and risk, and here, the young people considered these risks as potential harms that could affect some, while not including their own experiences. Furthermore, it was positioned as a prolonged effect, with people being targeted on social media, which is linked to the rise of cyberbullying and other types of antisocial behaviour. Nonetheless, such behaviour can have a severe impact on their victims, including suicide (Robson, 2014). It is arguable that this is potentially more problematic for those adolescents who are particularly impressionable and/or vulnerable, although not necessarily the case. As the participants recognised, they may be tempted to copy risky behaviors’, such as self-harm observed on social media to cope with their own difficulties.
You might see someone like doing something and might copy them and there might be like, some people like see people self-harming and they post it on Facebook and that and then they think, oh it might like help me as well, so they start doing it as well. (P6, Leicester, year 10, aged 14–15 years)