Read the following 6 articles on the controversial topic of social media sites and mental well-being and submit your answers to all the comprehension questions to Blackboard. 

1. Before you read, rate your agreement with the following statement again. Choose the number that indicates your position. 

“I believe that social media sites have negative influences on mental health”.

“1” (strongly disagree), “2” (disagree), “3” (somewhat disagree)

 “4” (somewhat agree), “5” (agree), or “6” (strongly agree)

Your rating:

2.      What makes an argument strong and persuasive? Explain in 50-100 words.

  3.      What is the purpose of writing an argument essay? Explain in 50-100 words.

Article 1

Social Media Affects Our Mental Health

It triggers more sadness, less well-being.

The more we use social media, the less happy we seem to be. One study a few years ago found that Facebook use was linked to both less moment-to-moment happiness and less life satisfaction—the more people used Facebook in a day, the more these two variables dropped off. The authors suggest this may have to do with the fact that Facebook conjures up a perception of social isolation, in a way that other solitary activities don’t. “On the surface,” the authors write, “Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling such needs by allowing people to instantly connect. Rather than enhancing well-being, as frequent interactions with supportive 'offline' social networks powerfully do, the current findings demonstrate that interacting with Facebook may predict the opposite result for young adults—it may undermine it.”

In fact, another study found that social media use is linked to greater feelings of social isolation. The team looked at how much people used 11 social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Vine, Snapchat and Reddit, and correlated this with their “perceived social isolation.” Not surprisingly, it turned out that the more time people spent on these sites, the more socially isolated they perceived themselves to be. And perceived social isolation is one of the worst things for us, mentally and physically.

It can lead to jealousy—and a vicious cycle.

It’s no secret that the comparison factor in social media leads to jealousy—most people will admit that seeing other people’s tropical vacations and perfectly behaved kids is envy-inducing. Studies have certainly shown that social media use triggers feelings of jealousy. The authors of one study, looking at jealousy and other negative feelings while using Facebook, wrote that “This magnitude of envy incidents taking place on FB alone is astounding, providing evidence that FB offers a breeding ground for invidious feelings." They add that it can become a vicious cycle: feeling jealous can make a person want to make his or her own life look better, and post jealousy-inducing posts of their own, in an endless circle of one-upping and feeling jealous. Another study looked at the connection between envy and depression in Facebook use and, interestingly, discovered that envy mediates the Facebook-depression link. That is, when envy is controlled for, Facebook isn’t so depressing. So it may be the envy that’s largely to blame in the depression-Facebook connection.

We get caught in the delusion of thinking it will help.

Part of the unhealthy cycle is that we keep coming back to social media, even though it doesn’t make us feel very good. This is probably because of what’s known as a forecasting error: Like a drug, we think getting a fix will help, but it actually makes us feel worse, which comes down to an error in our ability to predict our own response. One study looked at how people feel after using Facebook and how they think they’ll feel going in. Like other studies suggested, the participants in this one almost always felt worse after using it, compared to people engaging in other activities. But a follow-up experiment showed that people generally believed that they’d feel better after using, not worse. Which of course turns out not to be the case at all, and sounds a lot like the pattern in other types of addiction.

More friends on social doesn’t mean you’re more social.

A couple of years ago, a study found that more friends on social media doesn’t necessarily mean you have a better social life—there seems to be a cap on the number of friends a person’s brain can handle, and it takes actual social interaction (not virtual) to keep up these friendships. So feeling like you’re being social by being on Facebook doesn’t work. Since loneliness is linked to myriad health and mental health problems (including early death), getting real social support is important. Virtual friend time doesn’t have the therapeutic effect as time with real friends.

Article 2

Social media doesn’t, by itself, make teens unhappy or anxious

Cyberbullying is more to blame for teen unhappiness than is ‘screen time’.

Friendships and social connections are important parts of teens’ lives. But busy young people can’t always connect in person. Social media apps such as Snapchat and Instagram make it easy to keep in touch. Some research has shown, however, that using social media can harm mental health, especially in teens. A study now finds that social media alone isn’t what causes those problems. Other factors, such as bullying, combine with social media use to bring moods down, the new data show. Many scientists have looked at the effects of social media on the health of kids and teens. Most of their studies were brief and offered only a snapshot in time. Russell Viner and Dasha Nicholls wanted to see how hanging out on social media, as well as other behaviors, influenced well-being over a period of years. Viner studies adolescent health at University College London in England. Nicholls studies adolescent mental health at Imperial College London. The team used data from a previous study that started in 2013. Run by England’s Department of Education, it included 13,000 British 13- and 14-year-olds. All were in ninth grade, initially, and answered a variety of questions. These asked about school — such as whether the teens missed class, completed their work or were bullied. Theyalso asked how much sleep and exercise the teens got and how well they felt overall. This addressed teens’ physical health and their mental well-being. Finally, the teens were asked if about their participation in risky behaviors such as smoking, drinking or drug use. Again in 10th and 11^th grades, the teens answered the same questions. Lack of sleep and exercise are known to decrease happiness and to increase anxiety. So is cyberbullying. The original study included information on all of these behaviors. Nicholls and Viner mined those data from the earlier study. The team divided the teens into three groups based on how often they used social media apps such as Snapchat or Instagram. The first group used those apps more than three times a day. The second group checked their social media accounts two or three times a day. And the final group reported using social media no more than once a day. The researchers also looked at boys and girls separately, because their activities and behaviors might differ.

Not just social media.

The teens used social media more as they got older. Just 43 percent of all ninth graders checked social media three or more times a day. By 11th grade, the share was up 68 percent. Girls tended to log onto social media more than boys. Seventy-five percent of 11th-grade girls checked social media three or more times a day, compared to 62 percent of boys their age.

Boys and girls reported greater anxiety and more unhappiness in 11th grade than in previous years. That pattern was strongest in girls. The researchers wondered whether social media was to blame because other behaviors might be the real culprits, the researchers dug into the data more closely. And among girls, they found, unhappiness and anxiety were linked most strongly to lack of sleep, lack of exercise and being cyberbullied. Reports Nicholls, “Checking social media on its own had no effect on mental well-being for girls who were not being cyberbullied, sleeping more than eight hours a night and getting some exercise.” Boys who used social media a lot also were less happy and more anxious. But there was no clear link between their emotional well-being and their sleep, exercise or experiences with cyberbullying. “Boys were generally getting more exercise in thestudy,” Nicholls notes. They also checked social media less than the girls did. “Other things might make the difference [in] whether frequent social media use is a good or bad thing for boys,” she observes. Her team’s findings appear in the October 1 issue of The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.

“I agree with the view that ‘screen time’ is a simplistic concept,” says Yoon Hyung Choi. She is an expert on social media and well-being at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. “It matters how teens are using technology,” she notes. Using it to talk with friends and family or as an outlet for creative expression can be good. Getting cyberbullied or accessing harmful content? Not so much. This study was a step in the right direction, Choi concludes. It looked behind the curtain to see how social media affects teens. The best course of action, says Nicholls, would be to get enough sleep. How much is that? At least eight hours a night. It’s also critical to get enough exercise, which boosts mood. And if social media has become a stressor, check it less often, she says. Or only connect with people who have a positive impact.

Article 3

Anxiety, loneliness and Fear of Missing Out:

The impact of social media on young people’s mental health

By Rhys Edmonds

Oct. 2019

So-called ‘social media addiction’ has been referred to by a wide variety of studies and experiments. It is thought that addiction to social media affects around 5% of young people, and was recently described as potentially more addictive than alcohol and cigarettes. Its ‘addictive’ nature owes to the degree of compulsivity with which it is used. The ‘urge’ to check one’s social media may be linked to both instant gratification (the need to experience fast, short term pleasure) and dopamine production (the chemical in the brain associated with reward and pleasure). The desire for a ‘hit’ of dopamine, coupled with a failure to gain instant gratification, may prompt users to perpetually refresh their social media feeds.

What is dangerous about this compulsive use is that, if gratification is not experienced, users may internalise beliefs that this is due to being ‘unpopular’, ‘unfunny’ etc. A lack of ‘likes’ on a status update may cause negative self-reflection, prompting continual ‘refreshing’ of the page in the hope of seeing that another person has ‘enjoyed’ the post, thus helping to achieve personal validation. Although these perceptions may not actually reflect one’s image in the eyes of others, the absence of gratification may amplify feelings of anxiety and loneliness. A recent study conducted by the OECD, for instance, found that those who used social media more intensively on average had lower life satisfaction.

The desire for a ‘hit’ of dopamine, coupled with a failure to gain instant gratification, may prompt users to perpetually refresh their social media feeds.

Associated with this desire for instant gratification is the negative impact that these platforms can have on sleep and sleep quality. Data from qualitative studies has shown that using social media compulsively can damage sleeping patterns, having an adverse effect on young people’s performance in school. The University of Glasgow found that young people found it difficult to relax following night time social media use, reducing their brain’s ability to prepare for sleep. Sleep loss works in a vicious cycle of reinforcement with mental health; that is, that loss of sleep due to night time social media use can lead to poorer mental health, and poor mental health can lead to intense night time use and sleep loss.

Social media can also heighten anxiety by increasing users’ ability to keep up to date with the activities of their social circles. The popular concept of Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) refers to ‘a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent’ and is ‘characterised by the desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing’. FOMO has been linked to intensive social media use and is associated with lower mood and life satisfaction. We have become more aware of what we are missing out on, for example, seeing photos of friends having a good time together in one’s absence. ‘Always on’ communication technology can cause feelings of anxiety, loneliness and inadequacy through highlighting these activities, compelling users to stay continually engaged and up to date due to fear of not being involved. Humans are social beings who desire group interaction, therefore perceived exclusion can have damaging psychological impacts. Indeed, studies from the USA have found a robust association between intense social media use, fear of missing out and both depression and anxiety.

Fear of Missing Out has been linked to intensive social media use and is associated with lower mood and life satisfaction

From another angle, online platforms may also have the potential to damage mental wellbeing through promoting unreasonable expectations. Social media has been linked to poor self-esteem and self-image through the advent of image manipulation on photo sharing platforms. In particular, the notion of the ‘idealised body image’ has arguably been detrimental to self-esteem and image, especially that of young women. The 24/7 circulation of easily viewable manipulated images promotes and entrenches unrealistic expectations of how young people should look and behave. When these expectations are inevitably not met, the impact on self-esteem can be damaging, to the disturbing extent that the Royal Society of Public Health recently found 9 in 10 young females say that they are unhappy with the way they look.

The rise of social media has been a fundamentally multifaceted phenomenon, the statistics suggesting that it will come to play an increasingly dominant role in our lives. The evidence suggests that social media use is strongly associated with anxiety, loneliness and depression. Whether it is causal or just a correlation will need to be further examined by researchers, mental health policy stakeholders and the social media industry. In the meantime, we must think very carefully about how we can manage its impact on mental health, for instance, through integrating social media 'lessons' into subjects in school, the use of behavioural economics and increased signposting efforts by social media firms.

Article 4

The Impacts of Social Networking Sites and Internet Use Are Not What You Think

By Melissa Priebe

June 21, 2019

The persistent contact and pervasive awareness of what people post on social media, particularly on Facebook, is changing the way people feel about themselves and one another—even down to their own mental health.

Dr. Keith N. Hampton, a researcher in Michigan State University’s Department of Media & Information, set out to test the theory that social media use leads to declining mental health. His findings challenge the notion that there is a looming mental health crisis in the U.S. and that the crisis is being caused by technology.

In research published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Hampton showed that social media use often has the opposite effect of what people think. Social media is a protective influence. His article, “Social Media and Change in Psychological Distress Over Time,” reveals that active internet and social media users are less likely to experience serious psychological distress, associated with depression or other mood and anxiety disorders.

A Protective Influence

Having extended family who are active on the internet also tends to improve mental health over time. However, when a member of a person’s extended family experiences a change in their mental health, that change in psychological distress can be contagious through social media. Often, the family members who are not on social media are unaffected. Hampton said this is largely due to two aspects of social media: the persistent contact and the pervasive awareness offered on sites like Facebook.

“It takes an extreme decline in the mental well-being of a tie on social media to wipe out the otherwise protective influence of internet and social media use. For the vast majority of adults, social media is responsible for improved mental health over time,” Hampton said.

Roots of the ‘Looming Mental Health Crisis’ Hampton has published extensively on social media research, and two ideas inspired him to conduct this study. The first relates to common news headlines that point to a “looming mental health crisis,” reportedly caused by social media sites like Facebook.

“I was concerned about the limitations of existing data out there suggesting that internet, mobile phones, social media and so on were contributing to serious anxiety or major depression,” said Hampton. “So, I was interested in finding data that would provide some clarity around that in the general adult population.”

Much of the existing research on the effects of social media use involves studies of youth or college students.

“There is a lot of rhetoric that social media is particularly bad for mental health. But, by focusing on young people it is impossible to know if the very small relationship some have found between social media use and mental health is related to the technology or if it is typical of being in a stage of life that is unstable and full of emotional turmoil,” said Hampton. “Taking a snapshot of the anxiety felt by young people today and concluding that a whole generation is at risk because of social media ignores more noteworthy social changes, such as the lingering effects of the Great Recession, the rise in single child families, older and more protective parents, more kids going to college, and rising student debt.”

To better understand the effects of social media on mental health, Hampton said research has to focus on mature populations.

Social Media Impacts on Psychological Distress

Data for the study came from the PSID (Panel Study of Income Dynamics), the longest-running household panel study in the world. The longitudinal survey began in 1968 with a representative sample from more than 5,000 families in the U.S. Since then, the PSID has added data from descendants and family members who established their own households, allowing researchers to study extended families and changes over time.

“Is your Facebook really destroying your mental health?” To answer this question, Hampton relied on measures of psychological well-being and separate measures of technology use from the 2015 and 2016 PSID. “Social media users are 63 percent less likely to enter that stage of serious psychological distress associated with a clinical diagnosis of major depression or serious anxiety, from one year to the next.”

However, as a result of heightened awareness, this relationship can vary depending on changes in the mental health of ones’ social ties on social media.

“When a person has an extended family member who experiences a change in their psychological distress, it was reflected in changes to their own mental health. If their tie’s mental health improved, so did theirs. If it got worse, theirs did too. If they were not using social media, or if their extended family member wasn’t, then changes in psychological distress did not appear to be contagious," said Hampton. “Because internet and social media use is generally protective of mental health, at worse, any change in the well-being of those you are connected to on social media removes that extra protection. At best, when people around you are doing well or experience modest changes in their well-being, you’re doing better than you would have been without social media.”

Keith N. Hampton, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Media and Information at the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, and associate director of the Quello Center at Michigan State University.

Article 5

A New, More Rigorous Study Confirms: The More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel

• Holly B. Shakya


• Nicholas A. Christakis

April 10, 2017

The average Facebook user spends almost an hour on the site every day, according to data provided by the company last year. A Deloitte survey found that for many smartphone users, checking social media apps are the first thing they do in the morning – often before even getting out of bed. Of course, social interaction is a healthy and necessary part of human existence. Thousands of studies have concluded that most human beings thrive when they have strong, positive relationships with other human beings.

The challenge is that most of the work on social interaction has been conducted using “real world,” face-to-face social networks, in contrast to the types of online relationships that are increasingly common. So, while we know that old-fashioned social interaction is healthy, what about social interaction that is completely mediated through an electronic screen? When you wake up in the morning and tap on that little blue icon, what impact does it have on you?

Prior research has shown that the use of social media may detract from face-to-face relationships, reduce investment in meaningful activities, increase sedentary behavior by encouraging more screen time, lead to internet addiction, and erode self-esteem through unfavorable social comparison. Self-comparison can be a strong influence on human behavior, and because people tend to display the most positive aspects of their lives on social media, it is possible for an individual to believe that their own life compares negatively to what they see presented by others. But some skeptics have wondered if perhaps people with lower well-being are more likely to use social media, rather than social media causing lower well-being. Moreover, other studies have found that social media use has a positive impact on well-being through increased social support and reinforcement of real world relationships.

We wanted to get a clearer picture of the relationship between social media use and well-being. In our study, we used three waves of data from 5,208 adults from a national longitudinal panel maintained by the Gallup organization, coupled with several different measures of Facebook usage, to see how well-being changed over time in association with Facebook use. Our measures of well-being included life satisfaction, self-reported mental health, self-reported physical health, and body-mass index (BMI). Our measures of Facebook use included liking others’ posts, creating one’s own posts, and clicking on links. We also had measures of respondents’ real-world social networks. In each wave, respondents were asked to name up to four friends with whom they discuss important matters and up to four friends with whom they spend their free time, so that each participant could name up to a total of eight unique individuals.

Overall, our results showed that, while real-world social networks were positively associated with overall well-being, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with overall well-being. These results were particularly strong for mental health; most measures of Facebook use in one year predicted a decrease in mental health in a later year. We found consistently that both liking others’ content and clicking links significantly predicted a subsequent reduction in self-reported physical health, mental health, and life satisfaction.

Our models included measures of real-world networks and adjusted for baseline Facebook use. When we accounted for a person’s level of initial well-being, initial real-world networks, and initial level of Facebook use, increased use of Facebook was still associated with a likelihood of diminished future well-being. This provides some evidence that the association between Facebook use and compromised well-being is a dynamic process.

These results then may be relevant for other forms of social media. While many platforms expose the user to the sort of polished profiles of others that can lead to negative self-comparison, the issue of quantity of usage will be an issue for any social media platform. While screen time in general can be problematic, the tricky thing about social media is that while we are using it, we get the impression that we are engaging in meaningful social interaction. Our results suggest that the nature and quality of this sort of connection is no substitute for the real-world interaction we need for a healthy life.

Igor Pantic, MD, PhD

Oct. 2014

Although several studies have made the connection between computer-mediated communication and signs and symptoms of depression, this issue remains controversial in current psychiatry research. There are many potential reasons why a Facebook user may have a tendency to become depressed, as there are numerous factors that may lead an already depressed individual to start to use or increase their use of SNS.

In 1998, Kraut et al. published one of the first studies to indicate that Internet use in general significantly affects social relationships and participation in community life.¹ In this research, the authors found that increased time spent online is related to a decline in communication with family members, as well as the reduction of the Internet user's social circle, which may further lead to increased feelings of depression and loneliness. This work was later followed by several other publications where it was suggested that computer use may have negative effects on children's social development.²

At the time when these studies were conducted, most of today's social networks did not exist. For example, Facebook was founded in 2004, and became popular among children and adolescents a few years later. Instead, most works were focused on the investigation of possible effects of Internet browsing, e-mail checking, and other online and offline behaviors (i.e., violent video games) on mental health.

With the development of social networks, the time children and adolescents spend in front of the computer screens has significantly increased. This has led to the further reduction of intensity of interpersonal communication both in the family and in the wider social environment. 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.

Since social networks are a relatively recent phenomenon, this potential relationship between their use and feelings of loneliness and depression has not yet been properly investigated. Most of the research on this issue has been published during the past few years, and so far, the scientific community has not been able to interpret and discuss the results fully.

In our recent study in a high school student population, we found a statistically significant positive correlation between depressive symptoms and time spent on SNS.³ Depression symptoms were quantified using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). On the other hand, no such correlation was detected between BDI score and time spent watching television. Other authors have reported that there is no relationship between SNS and depressive symptoms in a sample of older adolescents—university students using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 depression screen.⁴ Apart from differences in applied methodology, there is a possibility that different age groups (i.e., high school children vs. older adolescents) may react differently to SNS content and challenges.⁵

In 2013, Kross et al. published a study on the relationship between Facebook use and subjective well-being in young adults.⁶ The design of this research was based on text messaging the participants five times per day for 2 weeks in order to evaluate their mood, feeling of loneliness, social interactions, and social Facebook use. This approach was combined with the application of a conventional set of questionnaires, such as the Beck Depression Inventory, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Social Provision Scale, and Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale.⁶ The results indicated that users' subjective perception of well-being and life satisfaction may be undermined. It goes without saying that any decline of this sort may increase depressive signs and symptoms.

One of the reasons why time spent on SNS may be associated with depressive symptoms is the fact that computer-mediated communication may lead to the altered (and often wrong) impression of the physical and personality traits of other users. This may lead to incorrect conclusions regarding physical appearance, educational level, intelligence, moral integrity, as well as many other characteristics of online friends. Recently, Chou and Edge published an article about the potential impact of using Facebook on students' perceptions of others' lives. The study carried out on 425 undergraduate students of at a state university in Utah reported that Facebook use is linked to participants' impression that other users are happier, as well as the feeling that the “life is not fair.”⁷ Perceiving others as happier and more successful does not necessarily result in depression. However, in individuals who already have certain depressive predispositions as well as other psychiatric comorbidities, this may further negatively impact mental health.

As it is thought that Facebook may be one of the factors influencing the development of depressive symptoms, it is also assumed that certain characteristics of online behavioral may be predictive factors in depression identification and assessment. Today, it is clear that SNS such as Facebook can be useful in the early detection of depression symptoms among users. Recently, Park et al. published a study in which they suggested that the more depressive the user is, the more he/she would use Facebook features that focus on depression tips and facts. The authors designed a unique application —Emotion Diary—that was proven to be capable of evaluating symptoms of depression in individuals.⁸ In other words, certain depressive behavioral characteristics of a social network user can be quantified, and that quantification has a potentially high predictive value for a future diagnosis of depression. Apart from these results, this work also presented some evidence that a depressed Facebook user has other characteristics, such as a fewer friends and location tagging. Since these traits can be quantifiable, they could also be valuable predictors for possible future depression screening.

Comprehension questions: 

1. After reading the articles, rate your agreement with the following statement again. Choose the number that indicates your position.

“I believe that social media sites have negative influences on mental health”.

 “1” (strongly disagree), “2” (disagree), “3” (somewhat disagree)

 “4” (somewhat agree), “5” (agree), or “6” (strongly agree)

Your rating:

1. 5.      Did you change your initial position? Why or why not? 

1. 6.      Rate each article based on the strength of its argument.

“1” (weak), “2” (mild), “3” (moderate), “4” (strong), “5” (very strong)

1. 7.      Why did you give such a rank? Explain your thinking behind the rank in 100 words.

1. 8.      Scenario: Suppose (Imagine) you are going to write a 3-page essay on the topic “social media sites and mental well-being”. Choose evidence from the above six articles to include in your essay.  You can decide the number of evidence.