Social Media
and
Mental Health
By Abbi O'Brien
Introduction
Why mental health and social media?
Think back to when you made your first social media profile. What platform was it? How old were you? For me, I was in the 5th grade when my mom made me a Facebook account. My mom had made the account, so she could tag me in the photos she posted. Since then, I have been super fascinated with social media.
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You may not even remember making your first social media account. It has become so ingrained in our lives, we don't usually think twice about using it. Going on a favorite platform is a habit for many people.
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As I got older, I noticed a lot more conversations about mental health across the various social media platforms I used. I related to these conversations because I was diagnosed with ADD at a young age. Many of these conversations would center around how people had more mental health struggles now than ever before. This made me wonder, what do we have now than we did not before? Then I made the connection that social media could be a key player in the increase of mental health issues. These conversations have inspired me to research this connection further.
Interested in learning more from pre-existing research?
Check out my literature review!
Ready to read more?
I conducted a survey among my peers. I asked various questions about their social media habits and what their mental health status looks like.
I created a brand new instagram account to analyze the type of content instagram will show a new user. I analyzed the first 50 posts on my explore page.