Social media and the mental health of teenagers and young adults

Social media is a phenomenon that has been steadily growing since its inception. Sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are widely used, especially amongst younger people. Previous research has shown that there might be a connection between social media use and mental health issues such as eating disorders and depression. Thus the purpose of this study is to cast light on the relationship between social media use and mental illness amongst teenagers and young adults. To this end, a literature study using a systematic search across multiple academic databases was conducted. Data was gathered from scientific articles no more than five years old. The results of these articles were compiled and analyzed in an attempt to find common themes among them. The results revealed that there is a connection between social media use and depression or anxiety and social media use and eating disorders. The way one uses social media has a large impact on its effect on one's mental health. One study also concluded that there is no correlation between social media use and mental health. Our conclusions from this is that social media on its own has very little effect on mental health. However, social media as a medium through which you can experience feelings of envy, or where you can compare yourself negatively to others does have a negative effect on the mental health of young adults and adolescents. This can have clinical implications where nurses working with mental health can help patients identify which parts of their social media use is unhealthy