In the modern day society, communication can be carried out between friends and family in a variety of ways. Most likely the most popular way to interact is via social media outlets, such as facebook, instagram, and twitter. With more than one billion users on Facebook alone, researchers and psychologist have taken to exploring the impact social media has on mental health. Research suggest that overuse of social media not only decreases productivity, but it causes depression, loneliness, jealousy, decreased self-esteem, anxiety, ruins relationships, and causes sleep deprivation.

Although Social media can be great to keep in touch with distant family and friends, a behavioral scientist, Igor Pantic, whom studies social media, writes  “Although social networks enable an individual to interact with a large number of people, these interactions are shallow and cannot adequately replace everyday face-to-face communication This isolation and lack of face-to-face interaction can cause severe loneliness and depression in users.”(Pantic). He found that social media users tend to follow people’s daily life on social media, but fail to reach out to them to actually interact.  Daniel Miller’s novel that contains his research on the impact of social media includes a study a population of high school students that shows the correlation between time spent on social media and if they felt generally depressed . The conclusion of the study showed a positive correlation between those who spent hours on social media a day and those that answered “yes” to feeling depressed. However, depression caused by social media not only effects school age children, it effects adults as well. A group of doctors in Pittsburgh conducted a study they published called Association Between Social Media Use and Depression Among U.S. Young Adults where they surveyed 1,787 adults age 19-32 using a random digit dialing and addressed based sampling. In their study, they found that “the more time the individual spent on social media, the more likely they were to say they felt depressed in the last six months.”(Lin). Miller suggests that this depression due to social media might be due to the fact that negativity on Facebook becomes contagious in a users daily life. When scrolling down their Facebook feed, if a user sees a negative post, they likely have their mood effected. Doctor Kramer, another psychologist with published work explaining social media effects, found in a study that social media posts are contagious. He surveyed Facebook users and found that they tend to scroll and read horrific news story or see followers complaining about politics, and it dampens their mood. Doing more research, Kramer found that Facebook and Instagram both operate on an algorithm, putting post on a users feed that are relevant to the previous posts they have made. So if a user sees negative posts and “like” one, those types will continue to show up on their feed. Miller also found in his study that the unproductively while users are on social media also causes depression. Users find themselves getting lost scrolling through their social media, wasting their day. The average adult spends about 50 minutes on social media a day, which cuts into time spent on more important tasks.

Also found on the list of negative effects of social media is insomnia. In a study in the Journal of Adolescence, Heather Cleland Woods and Holly Scott research the connection between social media use and sleep quality. They “surveyed 268 young adolescents and found that 37% reported losing sleep due to the use of social networking sites.” (Scott, Woods). Their research found that alerts that come in the middle of the night disturb sleep since “86% of adolescents sleep with their phone in the bedroom – often under their pillow or in their hand.”(Scott, Woods) The study found “It is therefore possible that young people struggle to relax at bedtime due to anxiety at missing out on new messages or content.”(Scott, Woods). The feeling that one should reply to a social media alert immediately tends to keep adolescents up, not wanting to sleep and miss something everyone else is seeing. The alerts are not the only thing disturbing sleep, others include “reduced overall levels of physical activity and digital screen exposure before bedtime interfering with melatonin production and delaying circadian rhythms.”(Scott, Woods). These studies all suggest that putting the phone day may result in better overall sleep quality.

Not only does social media use cause lack of quality sleep, it is also linked to increased anxiety and self-esteem issues. The recent “trending” anxiety condition known as “FOMO” (fear of missing out), is fueled by the constant updates put on social media. A study done by Amir Tarsha found that college aged social media users felt anxiety when they were not able to participate in what their friends on social media were doing, resulting in “fomo”.This is also supported by Igor Pantic’s study mentioned above, in which a study was conducted at Ohio University in which 425 college students reported their social media usage and feelings. Almost a majority of the students that participated reported that frequent social media usage caused them to feel that other’s were living more exciting and eventful lives then them. Pantic writes that “Constant self-evaluation on an everyday basis, competition and comparing one's own achievements with those of other users, incorrectly perceiving physical/emotional/social characteristics of others, feeling of jealousy, and narcissistic behavior—these are all factors that may positively or negatively influence self-esteem.”(Pantic). Similarly, a journalist Caleb Chandler wrote an article explaining the jealousy social media users feel when viewing other people’s lives.  He includes a quote from a psychologist, Dr. Goodnow, “social media allows quick and instant gratification to people.”(Chandler). Chandler writes that when people only see a certain side of someone’s life, such as the fun pictures and events they attend, it is easy for users to feel jealous that their life is not that fun. However, he explains that users are only seeing the side that the user wants their followers to see, not the struggles they face. This also is touched on in Miller’s novel, as he calls this a “fleeting happiness.”(Miller). Miller points out that it is not just school aged social media users that covent their followers’ lives, but it effects parents as well. Miller found that parents struggle with seeing their friends on social media spending more times with their kids and families than they are able to.

Lastly, the increased usage of social media effects those in relationships. In an article by Lauren Papp, she explains the issues social media causes in relationships and the complications it brings. Her article, “Are We Facebook Official”, explains the issues that the online world brings to dating. It talks about when is the right time to become “Facebook official”, which establishes that the Facebook user is in a relationship, and their significant will get “tagged” in their relationship update, then showing that users followers that they are in a relationship. Papp found that often this causes a problem if one partner is ready to make that online commitment, but  the other partner is not ready for that step. Another issue with relationships in the digital age is the fact that nothing is secretive online. Daniel Miller includes cases of partners being caught cheating on to social media in his novel, another social media caused issue. Partners have accidentally found Facebook messages or other posts between their significant other and someone they should not be in contact with. 

It is true that social media advances have made connecting with those distant, and even friends near by, easier than ever. However, these advances have made social media the center of communication for all ages. This has created a society glued to their phones and laptops, and ignoring those around them seeking face-to-face interaction. In turn, people are becoming depressed, lonely, ruining relationships, getting less sleep, and feeling insecure. Social media is not necessarily a bad thing, but if any social media user finds themselves feeling these effects, perhaps they should reevaluate the amount of time they spend on social media and the people they follow. 
