How Does Facebook Affect Social Psychology

2299 Words10 Pages

1. Study Title
Does the use of Facebook by adolescence and college student affect their emotional health such as causing them to experience depression?

2. Literature Review
Facebook is a social networking service launched in February 2004 by a Harvard undergraduate named Mark Zuckerberg invented “The Facebook” as a way for his Harvard University classmates to communicate on the web (Phillips, 2007). As of June 2012, Facebook reported to have more than 1 billion users worldwide that post photographs, share feeling and update relationship statuses (Smith, 2009). Through extensive research in different studies, users of Facebook may be at risk of developing depression and anxiety. Thus this literature review aims to explore how social media affect health by assessing how that using Facebook as means to communicate and socialize with the …show more content…

Kaplan et al. (1994) states that, in depression, thought content of the individual usually revolves around thoughts of loss, guilt, suicide and death. Furthermore depressed patients have suicidal thoughts and of those who have suicidal thoughts do commit suicide. Research has stated that the cognition of people with depression cannot be described in a linear way as all the components of their cognitions tend to reinforce each other in a circular way, that is low self-esteem intensifies the low mood, which in turn creates a negative view of the world and self, which in turn reinforces the low self-esteem. This circular reasoning therefore traps the individual in a situation which they feel they are unable to escape, therefore creating a sense of helplessness and hopelessness (Beck et al,

Open Document