Hisham Sarwar
It is pretty common nowadays for young people to scroll through their Insta feed or checking what other people are up to on SnapChat. But this entire social media stalking is having negative effects on today’s teenagers. According to a study, Instagram and SnapChat although being very popular platforms are having adverse effects on teenagers.
The study conducted by researchers surveyed around 1,479 British youths between the age range of 14-24. The researchers asked the students how they felt different social media networks effecting in several factors such as sleep deprivation, bullying, self-identity etc. The study revealed that the young people had terrible scores for body image, anxiety, and bullying. Although these two platforms were the worst in affecting people but Facebook and Twitter were not much better. Among the popular platforms, YouTube was the one that apparently inspired the young adults more positively.
The reason for such negative impact is because that Instagram and SnapChat are mostly image-based applications which make them unavoidable for youngsters. The fear of missing anything from daily activities make users check the platforms again and again which creates feelings of anxiety. The study says that seeing friends constantly posting images of their holidays and trips make other people feel that they are missing out on such things. The individuals who have posted the images might have photo-shopped their photos but it gives the impression that they are enjoying extraordinary lives.
The researchers, however, have suggested that pop-up warning signs must appear in order to remind such people that they have reached critical mass of their social media usage and should watermark that an image has been a work of Photoshop.
Via: Business Insider
