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How the voracious use of social media, the constant consumption of images of perfect people posing in artistically arranged paintings, affects the mental health of users, especially young female users Is it?
This question is on many people’s minds, and it’s the focus of this week’s episode of the Chasing Life podcast.
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“I think it’s how people see you on social media. You put out good pictures of yourself and you want to make sure your life is good, even though not everyone has a perfect life. I want it to seem so perfect.” Skye Gupta, 16, addressed the pressure to be perfect to her father, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, in an in-depth interview earlier this year.
It is no secret that young people, especially young women, are at risk. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released in mid-February and based on fall 2021 data paints a disturbing and heartbreaking picture of the mental health of today’s high school students. This is the first youth risk behavior survey to be conducted every two years to collect information since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Young people want to show the best side of themselves on social media.
The survey found that 57% of teenage girls reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless in 2021. The proportion for teenage boys was nearly half that, but still surprisingly high at 29%. Just over half of LGBQ+ respondents have experienced poor mental health, and more than one in five reported attempting suicide in the past year.
The report also revealed that almost one in three teenage girls seriously consider attempting suicide. The number of teenage girls experiencing sexual violence and teenage boys experiencing electronic bullying has also increased since the previous survey.
Although the report does not specifically link these alarming findings on mental distress to internet or social media use, other studies have found a link, and public health officials and psychologists are concerned. It connects parts of.
Correlation is not causation, but evidence of a strong connection is difficult to ignore.
“A lot of what’s happening with the average teenager is that they live a large part of their lives in a digital world on social media, and a lot of that is connected and their psyche. Keneisha, Chief Psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Boston Children’s Hospital and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School・Sinclair McBride says:
Dr. Sinclair McBride, who specializes in body image issues and some eating disorders, said she sees a lot of depression, anxiety and trauma in her practice. She describes it as “an epidemic of loneliness and overwhelm.”
She doesn’t think it’s too far-fetched to link social media use to mental health issues, especially eating disorders and body image.
“I don’t think it’s flimsy at all[to draw conclusions]. I think it could probably start out innocently like… ‘That person’s diet looks really healthy.'” I think I’ll try to imitate some of them. “It can be so harmless and fun and simple,” she said.
“And there’s also the fact that there are a lot of representations of people in the digital world that aren’t real, right?” she said. “The filters, the Photoshop, the cosmetic enhancements that people have. And a lot of teenagers who aren’t yet used to their growing bodies compare themselves, saying, ‘Well, I don’t look like her.’ (But) she doesn’t even look like her! But you wouldn’t know that because she looks at her social media feed. But now you feel like you’re not good enough because of what you see on the screen. ”
It’s called the selfie effect. Research shows that scrolling through an unlimited number of carefully crafted images and comparing them to your own real-life situations can have a noticeable impact on your mood and psychological health. Not to mention that smartphone camera distortion can cause distress, just looking at yourself too often in selfies with filters can skew your perception and lead to unhappiness.
What can we do to counter this never-ending hall of mirrors and preserve the mental health of today’s teens? Tips and tricks on how to help your child navigate this minefield and stay balanced? , for more of our conversation with Sinclair McBride, listen to the full podcast here.