Hermione Cruz 

Period 5 
May, 12. 2019 
 
When Social Media Affects Your Mental Health 
 
 
Social  media.  That’s  quite  a  prodigious  topic  if  you  ask  me, 
which  you  aren’t, but that’s okay. Social media has consumed the lives 
of  almost  everyone. Because of that, it has a pretty big impact on the 
mental  health  of  adolescents.  As  a  teen  myself,  and  having  other  teen 
friends, I can definitely justify this. 
I’ve  dealt  with  anxiety  and  depression  for  a  while.  I  was 
finally  diagnosed  with  both  in  2017.  Since  then,  I’ve  had  a  need  to 
speak  up  about  it  with  the  intention  of  helping  someone.  I’d  like  to 
let  people  know  that  they  aren’t  alone  in  whatever  they’re  going 
through and that getting the help they need is important. 
There has been a drastic increase in teens having anxiety and 
depression, and I believe social media is one of the biggest impacts 
on that. In an NBC News article written by Shamard Charles, it says 
“​Young adults born after 1995 are experiencing more mental health issues. Researchers point to
lack of sleep and the rise of social media”, ​and I can’t say i’m surprised. Social 
media has changed society’s social expectations and when one doesn’t 
“meet” those expectations they tend to tear themselves down because 
they think they’re not good enough. ​Therefore, affecting their mental 
health. 
In addition to that evidence​, I also asked a couple friends 
about how social media has taken a toll on their mental health. The 
first person I asked was my friend Alicia, and here’s her narrative on 
this topic…  
“I feel like social media has affected me in a bad way because   
now when I post something i’m more self conscious about what I  
post and worry about what people will think. It also brings  
expectations on how people are suppose to look like” Alicia  
says, “I also compare myself to other things that occurs in 
social media which make overthink everything.  
I also asked my sister, a college student, the same question I asked 
Alicia. Her response was,  
“Social media has affected my mental health in various ways. 
Being exposed to multiple social networks takes a toll on my 
mental health because of the fact that people can easily judge 
 you. Not only that but it also makes me feel like i'm supposed 
to meet the expectations of society as a whole.” 
 
Although many can argue that social media doesn’t affect mental 
health, so many more can agree that social media does. Despite the 
fact that anxiety and depression are just chemical imbalances in the 
brain, there are so many factors that can affect it. In this case, it 
​ s​ social media. This is a problem that we need 
was social media. It i
to fix as a society. Social media shouldn’t have become a platform 
that increases mental health issues, if anything it should be 
something where everyone can be themselves without it having such a 
big toll on their mental health.