- Social media and its false realities
- Social media and its effects on mental health
- Social media constantly has people comparing their lives to others, even though the lives they envy may not be completely factual.
- Mental health issues commonly found in people today such as anxiety and depression may have a direct link to social media
- False realities shared on social media leads users to constantly pursue similar standards, leading them into depression.
- Social media is leading its avid users into a state of dissatisfaction with their everyday lives, resulting in the decline of their mental health.
Counterintuitive 
1. Young adults and their infatuation with social media
—This is dangerous territory for a research paper, Bean, but only because so many college essay-writers have trampled over this territory. If you can find fresh earth to tread, I will help you forge a path.
2. Social media and its effects on mental health
—Still dangerous if by mental health you want to argue that media-addicted teens and young adults are becoming anti-social bordering on sociopathy.
3. Social media constantly has young adults comparing their lives to others.
—This is perhaps refreshing but not restricted to young adults. (Just yesterday a friend who will be undergoing gender reassignment surgery reported that in the past she had to unfriend more affluent friends because she couldn’t read about THEIR surgeries without deep resentment and anguish that she couldn’t afford it for herself. Her reaction is more extreme than you may be imagining, but certainly illustrative of just how affected we can be by others’ lives as self-reported to social media.)
4. The constant comparison that results from using social media is leading young adults into depression.
—That’s possible. Will you be able to document it? The danger of hypotheses that depend on surveys or self-reported impressions is that they are so difficult to reliably quantify. I don’t mean to prohibit you from pursuing any topic you find intriguing, but you’ll need academic sources as evidence.
5. Mental health issues commonly found in young adults today such as anxiety and depression have a direct link to social media
—Also possible. Now, will “the link” be causal or correlative? Does comparing our lives to others’ CAUSE anxiety or depression? Or do anxiety and depression simply co-exist to a greater degree among people obsessed with social media than among those not obsessed? Be alert for any hint of causality in the research. You’ll need it. (I have had perhaps 1000 international students in the past few years, many of whom attend mosques. Someday I expect my relationship with a student will create a “link” between me and a mosque that is connected with a mosque that is connected with a radical terrorist group. Beware of “direct links” is what I’m saying.)
6. Infinite content available to young adults through social media is actually leading to an anti-social group, focused solely on mass consumerism.
—Refer back to my concern about Step 2. You’ll need to keep your wits about you to carve out fresh ground, Bean. I will guide, I will cheer you on, I will help you seek sources, but I will also be alert to squelch any impulse you have to re-recite the conclusions of others who have compiled such opinions before you.
Shall we proceed?
If you say yes, I want you to make it your business to read broadly in this topic. DON’T put faith in popular media reports that express opinions about our disaffected youth. It’s faddish to do so, and therefore probably untrue. Start sharing your best sources with me immediately, please.
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1. I agree with what you are saying, social media is commonly reviewed today and my intentions are to draw new conclusions . To be honest, my mind is scrambled at the moment with just ideas,Inot full, complete thoughts where I feel confident enough to prove or disprove anything im saying in my hypotheis. I’m currently gathering different information and deciding which is the best approach I should take. (I know this is all part of the process) . Further research is needed, but I feel confident on the subject and my ability to bring something new to table. I really want help working on this during our meeting, and I appreciate your concerns and guidance.
2. Dangerous, maybe, but I believe it to likely be true. Have you heard of the “Slender man” stabbing? A 12 year old girl repeatedly stabbed her best friend to please a fictional online character from a creepy pasta post. I’ve recently watched a documentary that covers the full story, including interviews with the girl who committed the crime and I must say, she seemed to lack emotional empathy towards her friend that she injured. She was so consumed by the online fantasy world she entered herself in.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/02/01/a-teen-stabbed-her-friend-to-impress-slender-man-and-will-spend-40-years-in-a-mental-hospital/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.713619edc7d2
Or is this what you mean by faddish?
3&4. I’d like to dive into the world of instagram during my research paper. More often than not, a post you are viewing has been modified or photoshopped to make one’s life appear to be more “picture perfect” than it really is, leading others to feel inferior. But it’s just not real. I’d like to find more research on this, as when you google anything about photo editing on instagram, mostly all you get is sites to help you edit your pictures. I think that proves something in itself.
5. Most millenials have some type of anxiety or depression to an extent, it’s so commonly talked about, and most posts shared that I view are things that relate to how to cope with anxiety. I believe this has so much to do with the digital world we have grown up in, and not because anxiety and social media co exist. I believe social media is a direct affect. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m right.
Thank you so much for the GREAT feedback. Right after I read your reply, I saw a sign to recieve a link to a new study done on 18-25 who are social media users. Of course, I replied to the post and asked for a link to the study. From what I’m understanding, it is a study on if the emotional investment and time usage that is given by young adults today on social media is relating to their mental well being. I will keep you posted .
🙂
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I do know the Slender Man story, and it’s very peculiar, disturbing, and compelling. But it could also be extremely misleading. The story certainly spread faster and wider than it would have without social media, but that’s true of every kind of story now compared to a few years ago. I don’t think the stabbing can be blamed on social media, and I don’t think social media necessarily contributed to the girl’s mental illness. SM certainly provided ACCESS to the story, but I saw it too and didn’t stab anyone. You know the story and didn’t stab anyone. How did the MEDIUM of social media make this girl go nuts?
I like that you’re all over the place for now, Bean. Instagram filters, ritual killing spooks, deprivation illness—they’re all fascinating. If you can REALLY connect them all, you may use them all, but do guard against a “Several Ways” essay in which you name and briefly sketch profiles of lots of aspects of a broad topic. That’s not an arguable thesis worthy of your ability.
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I will heed your warning and make sure I can appropriatley relate topics to prove something new. Sorry for the scattered topics, I’m just exploriing. I will eliminate the unecessary and present you with something clear for my proposal.
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Nothing but admiration for your thoughtful and mature replies.
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It’s a good theory. Avid users are driven slightly insane by the affluence they witness in social media.
Your #4 is redundant and can be struck, but you play out your other cards nicely.
However. Architectural Digest has been around for, I don’t know, 100 years? and on every page it displays man-made worlds and human-natural collaborations so incomprehensible every viewer of every page knows they’re unachievable.
So what’s new about Facebook?
Fashion magazines, lifestyle magazines, real estate magazines—they’ve been presenting the unattainable to us since there were magazines. Does Facebook take its place in that tradition . . . or is it something new?
I don’t mean to refute you, Bean. But I do mean to challenge you because you’re more than equal to the challenge.
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No, thats okay and I understand why you’re questinioning so much. But, you can not compare fashion magazions to advertisement in the media (not just facebook, but instagram, twitter). For example, there is now AI in the advertisement industry. Magazines try to persuade you and tell you why you should want this item, but advertisements in social media show you exactly what you want. We are all collectively programming this AI constantly with our searches and purchases online. Each person is shown unique advertisements based on their personal preference, leading to mass consumerism (works like a charm on me). We are always shown that we need more. That’s just one, small part of it and thats when 3000 words comes in handy. The comparism stems more from images shared on social media, mostly instagram, that display false realities, while creating people to feel disatisfied with their own lives, as they can not reach these (unknown to them) unrealistic standards.
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