The Truth about Social Media

In a world where many students have phones and access to the internet, social media remains a dominant aspect of their lives. From scrolling through Instagram accounts to posting on online forums, there are few who do not spend a portion of their time on social media. These adolescent years are also the most pivotal in the development of the brain, as they begin to mature. Social media influences the way the brain develops in teens in both positive and negative ways, but studies into the subject are a relatively new development, and the effects are largely unknown. However, there are troubling indicators that social media is becoming something to be more wary about. 

There is much to say about social media, but its existence isn’t necessarily harmful to teens. In a 2022 survey of American teenagers and their parents conducted by the Pew Research Center, it was found that social media helped teenagers feel more accepted, have a support system for difficult times, and that it provides a medium of expression. Social media can foster positive connections and help find others who share common interests, and create connections with new friends. It does have the potential to be a force for good, especially as it can create positive relationships. 

However, there is concerning evidence emerging that it may do more harm than good. In a study conducted by neuroscientists at the University of North Carolina on middle-schoolers, it was found that those who checked social media often were more sensitive to rewards from their peers. Researchers found that, among more habitual users, there was increased activity in parts of the brain that processed rewards, others that discerned what stands out in the environment, and some in regulation and control. 

For Mrs. Ka’aha’aina, one of Damien’s own counselors, there are qualities of social media that do encourage this heightened sensitivity to peer approval. If the child isn’t affirmed of their self-worth outside social media, she warns, “then the child could say, you know, ‘I’m only worth something when I’m in front of the camera,’ or ‘when we have followers,’ or ‘when people are sending me things’.” Teens are vulnerable to developing this co-dependency on social media as a way to seek validity from social media instead of their families. Especially if someone spends many hours online, it further ties their identity to social media, leading them to believe that their worth is tied to others' clicks and likes, leading to a lessened sense of self-worth. There are also many other concerns when it comes to social media as well. In a research study of teenagers ages 12-15, it was found that teenagers who spend over three hours a day face twice the risk of developing mental health disorders such as anxiety or depression. Social media has also been a medium of online harassment, with 46% of teens aged 13-17 having experienced cyberbullying, according to a Pew Research survey. 

  Though it presents a scary future, the depth of the problem is largely unknown due to the fact that brain development for adolescents is particularly focused on the middle of the brain, associated with rewards and social feedback. Naturally, teenagers are hypersensitive around these areas, and that major activity is concentrated in the brain area associated with peers, peer pressure, impulsivity, and emotion. Though it suggests that these changes are affected by social media use, there is little conclusive scientific proof that social media affects teenagers in this way. The study conducted by the University of North Carolina does show the way that social media is used to influence brain development, but its extent and whether it is positive or negative remains to be seen. 

Furthermore, the long-term effects have never been fully analyzed, as the rapid development of social media has been more recent. Mrs. Ka’aha’aina recalls her experiences as a former counselor at the Boston Ballet School in 2015, and the way that social media was like back then. “I don’t recall social media being a huge detrimental if they even had. For them, it was more for aesthetics... but I think that was because social media was pretty new, Instagram had only been out for three years.” In its early conception, social media apps such as Instagram have been slow in their development. They never exerted much influence on the public and rather were simply used as tools for sharing information online. However, Instagram today has skyrocketed in popularity as a platform, meaning that the effects can be fully studied as social media further exerts its influence on young minds. Though the aftermath of having been raised off social media is more easily observable, it will still take more years for such effects to be fully realized.