Social Media Problems

Many researches and studies have proven that social media can have very negative effects on the physical and mental health of the users. These studies have consistently found that people who use social media on a regular basis can suffer from eating disorders, as well as post traumatic stress disorders. The usage of social media can also affect the academic performance of the students. This paper explores both the causes and consequences of these problems, as well as the various solutions to them.

Social media is an internet-based form of communication, which offers a huge amount of entertainment to the users, by allowing them to communicate easily and instantly, share diverse information about them, along with pictures and videos. Companies

First of all, it can affect the students’ academic performances. As Mingle, Jeffrey, Adams and Musah (2015) have shown in a study made in Ghana, 20% of 2000 high school students reported that they suffered to get high grades after being introduced to social media platforms. Also, social media can cause eating disorders, especially among women. In fact, “the number of teenagers being admitted to hospitals with eating disorders has doubled in just three years; The Royal College of Psychiatrists has put the blame on social media” ,Emma Woolf (2015). And finally, being exposed to violent content shared on social media can cause trauma, especially to the young audience. As a matter of fact, a study made by Dr. Pam Ramsden (2015) has shown that “22% of 189 participants scored high on clinical measures of PTSD” (Post Traumatic Stress Disorders) after being exposed to posts shared on social media, which were containing violent content.

So as you can see, social media can cause various negative effects on the users, and is affecting a large amount of people since it is used by anyone who has access to the internet.

After elaborating and taking you through the details of the problems caused by social media, I will propose different solutions, some of them requiring an intervention by the government. They will consist of pushing to users to spend less time on social media, and also filtering

As I stated in the beginning, some people use social media to share worldwide news and comment about them. Most of the time, the posts containing news also contain some graphic images and videos showing violent, harsh and brutal content. And people are really attracted to this kind of posts and cannot get enough of, since they create a flow of emotions and concern. But the ausience doesn’t know that it is being ddangerously affected by this type of posts. In one of his conferences, Dr. Pam Ramsden explained the causes of stress disorders caused by social media. He claims that “watching these [violent] events and feeling the anguish of those directly experiencing them may impact our daily lives” (2015). To verify his saying, Dr. Ramsden made 189 persons observe differentposts shared on social media, showing traumatic and violents event such as the 9/11 Twin Towers attack, suicide bombings and school schootings. After this experiment, it was seen that 22% of the participants scored high on clinical measures of PTSD. Dr. Ramsden mentioned that “it is quite worrying that nearly a quarter of those who viewed the images scored high on clinical measures of PTSD”. In addition to that, Psychological scientist Roxane Cohen Silver of the University of California examined the relationship between trauma-related media exposer and