Many people think that social media is a good thing for society, and while it might be in a couple of ways, it has a lot of negatives to it. When it comes to the cons there is quite a list. Social media has affected teens drastically and for many years now. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Tiktok have painted unrealistic expectations of teens and young adults. Other huge topics with social media are unhealthy sleep patterns, addiction, cyberbullying, depression and anxiety, self-esteem issues, and FOMO(fear of missing out). This is why we should watch what we do on social media and how much time we spend on it cause it could be changing us without even realizing it.

Social media is affecting teens’ physical health, according to NBCNEWS after interviewing teens from the ages of 13-17 said:  “29 percent said a text or other notification had woken them up at night.” You wouldn’t think that something like social media could be addictive, but that’s where you are wrong. MediaKix says “210 million people are estimated to suffer from internet and social media addictions” that just goes to show how much people are affected by social media. Therefore being addicted to something like social media can keep you up at night.

It doesn’t just affect physical health but also mental health. On a platform like Instagram where you can post pictures, people can edit them to the point where it isn’t realistic anymore. When pictures like that are on the internet teens can see it and might feel insecure or not comfortable with their body off of a picture that is edited or not realistic. People can use an app such as facetune to edit pictures. Whimn states “the facetune app has been downloaded more than 500 million times since launching in 2013” and they have also said that “The $5.99 version was the most downloaded paid app of 2017.” This shows that many people have downloaded this app and edit their pictures on social media and cant trust every picture you see.

On the topic of mental health, social media could be the top cause of mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and self-esteem issues. According to Child Mind Institute, a study in 2017 states “Over half a million of 8th through 12th graders found that the number of exhibiting high levels of depressive symptoms increased by 33 percent between 2010 and 2015. In the same period, the suicide rate for girls in that age group increased by 65 percent.” That is a crazy high percentage and goes to show that social media has put a very negative impact on us teenagers. Reasons that social media users can develop these disorders come from a lot of different things such as cyberbullying. DoSomething states that “About 37 percent of young people between the ages of 12 and 17 have been bullied online. 30 percent have had it happen more than once.” That quote proves that social media is one of the main causes of depression.

In conclusion, something you wouldn’t expect like social media to have such a negative impact on society. So when you are posting and reading stuff on social media just know that it could be fake and to be careful. Fake pictures and rumors on apps like Instagram and Twitter can cause things like depression, anxiety, addiction, and other disorders.