Social media was first introduced in 1997 to a company called Six Degrees, then Myspace followed in 2003, Skype in 2003, Facebook in 2004 and so on. The industry of social media is enormous with more than 4.48 billion people using social media worldwide. With 82% of America over the age of 13+ having social media. Social media took off so much that the industry made billions of dollars, and to this day company’s like facebook are still around and their stock is over 300 dollars. Although, this all came at a hefty price, the lives of young teens, and many others who suffered through harassment, bullying, threats, and more. Studies show a strong link with mental illness and social media, and the corruption of the body image due to the constant exposing of the ideal body.

20% of people who have at least one social media account feel as if they need to check their account every 1-3 hours to avoid feeling anxious. This statistic is scary because the more and more that one uses their phone, the more addicted, and the higher possibility of having a mental illness. In fact there is a new disorder called social media anxiety disorder which is when people constantly check their phone, avoid contact with people, neglecting school work, and drawing away from their family. Although this can be avoided very easily, setting limits on how long you could use an app could drastically help with this disorder.

People could also help each other easily, if you have a friend who is addicted to their phone, you could ask for help and take their phone for a certain amount of time. The less time people have their phones, the less attached they become. Although this process takes a lot of time, it could possibly save someone's life if they are struggling. Same goes if they are getting bullied, completely disabling social media could do the trick instead of having your phone taken away. Another way in fighting addiction is going to sleep with your phone away from your room, it makes you less tempted to go and get it. It is also much healthier going to bed without looking at your phone. In fact, going to sleep without your phone increases sleep drastically.

Disorders are not something to joke around with, studies show that the more you prioritize social media interaction, rather than eye-to-eye, the more you are at risk of developing anxiety and depression. Social media can also cause self-absorption, which means that it can cause you to drift away from real-life connections, causing you to be more isolated, stressed and less outgoing. Scientists have called this FOMO or the fear of missing out, which basically as said earlier makes you have the urge to do things that others do, even if you know it doesn’t matter. An example of this is if your friend is at a party and posts photos, and you want to go, this is FOMO.

To conclude, social media has a strong influence on teens due to FOMO, cyber bullying, the portrayal of the ideal body, and mental illness. Around 37 percent of kids aged 12-17 have been cyber bullied. That is an incredibly large number and more than likely some of this percentage was affected by a mental illness. Making matters worse this could lead to self harm, and possibly death. Doing so little as taking the phone away and making boundaries is all it takes. If taking away a phone is too hard to do, setting limits on the phone, and setting parental control is very easy and important to do. With this day and age, setting up parental controls can be easily done using your cellular provider.