Letter to my readers:

After doing my draft I think overall it went well and that I did a good job using Reddit for
sources and explaining how my methods for doing so. I think that overall I struggled with
incorporating my articles from Project 1 into this one as I don’t have any other sources right now
besides the Reddit sources. I also think I need to incorporate using YouTube as my source
because in my analysis I said I used both Reddit and YouTube but as of right now I don’t have
any evidence from YouTube. As far as feedback goes, I would love any constructive criticism so
that I can use it to better my analysis. I hope that all comments are positive though and that all
comments are only geared toward trying to better my work. Overall, I think I mostly understand
the assignment but I do think its kind of confusing trying to incorporate our other sources into
the work as well.
Research question,
methods
key findings

How does social media affect overall health?

Introduction

As technology advances, there has been a drastic increase in the number of people using

online networks for specific purposes. One of the biggest and most used online networks is social

media through many apps like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. According

to Pew Research Center, “today around seven in ten Americans use social media to connect with

one another, engage with news content, share information and entertain themselves.” When

looking from a business perspective, social media is great as it provides a way to advertise

products or skills in mass amounts so that millions of people can view ads at the same time.

Social media has completely changed the marketing, sales, and business industries in a positive

way. From the perspective of an average teenager, however, social media is not viewed the same.

Social media has many effects on teenagers both positive and negative. Recently, however, more

negative effects have been found as social media has become a staple part of people's lives. For

instance, TikTok recently became one of the biggest social media platforms through the videos

creators and influencers make for their audience to see. According to Baltrusaitis, “ TikTok

became the world's highest-grossing social app by in-app purchases with over $2.5 million in

daily revenue.” With the increase in popularity of this app, the amount of depression and

anorexia cases also increased as more and more kids began to change their ways of life to be like

others. In this paper, I examine the subreddit r/socialmedia, finding that both online spaces
provide personal stories and comments from people who have experienced the negative effects of

social media and have shared why they made certain decisions with the online world. This paper

provides much insight into the feelings many teenagers have felt after being consumed with

social media and how much it has affected their lives. While there are a lot of negative impacts

by social media, this paper will offer a variety of impacts both negative and positive so that one’s

able to see both sides of this large network.

Methods

I used Reddit to search “social media effect on health” to collect the primary sources I

used to support this analysis. This gave me a variety of different communities to sort through that

discussed both the positive and negative impacts that social media has had on people. Within

each community holds several comments which allows people to share things they have in

common with one another and provide their thoughts, views, and opinions on the different

topics. To narrow down the options, I used the search bar to search the words, “harm”, “mental”,

“body image”, “depression”, and “confidence”. All these terms that I searched were used to help

me find specific primary evidence of people who have experienced the negative side of social

media. Using these terms to search through different communities made it really easy to find the

communities I needed to support this analysis. The term “harm” was used to catch anyone

casting social media in a negative light so that way I could see only the negative effects of social

media. I used the “mental” search because many teenagers are affected by social media by

thinking of themselves in a different way. Many teenagers begin to compare themselves to

influencers and create mental blocks and emotions in their heads which can lead to issues like

depression and lack of self-confidence. The terms “mental”, “depression”, and “confidence”
were all searched to find people that have been mentally affected by social media. Last, the term

“body image” was used to also find people who may have been physically affected by social

media as they may have changed their body types to look like others or changed their eating

habits. Through the search terms, I found a couple of communities that were very helpful which

allowed me to find primary evidence for this topic. The first community was r/videos which was

Reddit's main subreddit for all different types of videos. This community had 26.8 million

members and was ranked 14th in size. This was beneficial because due to the large amount of

people within the community, there are a lot of comments from people who can relate to the

posts. The other community that I found through the search terms was r/changemyview where

anyone is able to post their opinions allowing for online conversation. This community has 3.4

million members and was ranked in the top 1% by size.

Results

This section goes over the findings from the 2 subreddits I found under the search “social

media effect on health”. These 2 subreddits r/video and r/changemyview both have a large

number of members which is better because there are more shared perspectives and opinions

within the community. I first found a video of Christina Aguilera's release of her new music

video “Beautiful” addressing how social media affects self-image and mental health. Many

members of this community took this video very personally and made many aware of the issue.

1. Frankly, it’s depressing that this is the world we’ve created for future generations

2. Def just cried

3. Yep! Plus the message she delivers in the song is more relevant, and needed, than ever.

Social media really is damaging society in ways I don’t think we ever anticipated.
 The first comment is responding to the video showing disappointment as to how our world

has changed due to how people are being affected by self-image and mental health because they

aren't content with how they look. People in today's society now compare themselves to others

and are never happy with what they have. Society has built a figure for what people should look

like and many feel that they need to replicate this ideal image of a person. The second comment

is just agreeing with the first on an emotional level. This shows that this is a sensitive subject and

that people do have feelings toward the way social media has changed people and their mindsets.

Comment 3 describes how the song has been needed for society to hear as many aren't aware of

the issues social media has caused to people as it has created a standard for what people should

look like. Social media has encouraged people to change their ways of living to be like others.

All 3 of these responses to the video are negatively connotated as they show the disappointment

they have with society and how sad it is to see society react to social media in such poor ways.

4. Women on there especially, there’s so many of those insta model type influencers and half of

their pics, their bodies don’t even resemble what a human can look like, then there’s weird

stuff like Koreans being obsessed with photoshopping their heads to be ludicrously tiny on

their bodies. Then all the filters and everything. It’s super out of control. I’d argue it’s just as

bad if not worse than porn. This whole generation coming up has a crazy amount of

dysmorphia, look at all the subreddits on here like am I ugly, all that kind of shit. Perfectly

normal-looking or even attractive people asking what kinds of surgeries they need etc. It’s

just sad.
This comment shows how people negatively view these famous influencers. This commenter

argues that the media portrays perfect human beings that don’t even represent a real-life human

being. With this, people then become unsatisfied with the way theylook and want different

surgeries and procedures done in order to change their body figures to look like people online.

This can be really unhealthy because everyone is made with their own set of DNA and while

some are blessed with certain features, others are blessed differently. The problem with society is

that people find what they don’t have as a disadvantage and try to change what they look like to

be someone else instead of accepting their traits and admiring the way they look.

5. I got rid of all social except Reddit. Messed around and got in the best shape of my life at

37yo. Not sure what that says, but I did it the right way (exercise and healthy eating) and just

made it part of how I live. No desire to take a million selfies or influence others.

Quitting (most) social media is the best thing I’ve done.

This comment is a little different because in this case the commenter has deleted social media

and has noticed life change for the better while not having it. Social media focuses on

appearance, and this makes society care about little things that shouldn’t be important like how

people look. This commenter specifically mentions that he got in the best shape “the right way”

hinting that many don’t. This is mainly because oftentimes people stop eating to lose weight and

hurt their body or get surgeries done. Today, society tries to reach results or goals way too fast

for their body which can really damage the human body if it doesn’t get the proper nutrients it

needs to survive.
In a different community discussing how social media is causing more harm than good, people

comment on the different issues social media has created within society.

6. Social media is a breeding ground for mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). People are constantly comparing themselves to others and

feeling inadequate. Studies have shown that the more time you spend on social media, the

worse your mental health becomes. That can't be a good thing, right?

As social media becomes more and more popular, people start to become addicted, and it

causes different mental issues like anxiety and depression. People start to think of themselves

differently and become unhappy with how they look and feel. It starts to become unhealthy

when people begin to not eat to look a certain way because they feel they aren’t skinny

enough.

Reflection:

While social media has many benefits in society, there are many issues that is has

brought upon society as well. Due to the ideal image that our society has created, people begin

to feel insecure about themselves and go the extreme routes to look a certain way. Usually, the

people who are affected by social media either become depressed with how they look and feel

and get anxious or they begin to stop eating. By not eating, this can turn into having eating

disorders like anorexia or bulimia nervosa which can really hurt one's body as they aren’t

getting the proper nutrients to stay healthy. When technology wasn’t as big, there were fewer

people with these issues, but as more and more people become addicted to technology there's

been an increased number of people that have these eating disorders. The National Eating
Disorder Association claims, “an ongoing study in Minnesota has found the incidence of

anorexia increasing over the last 50 years only in females aged 15-24.” This makes sense as

people who have social media tend to fall in that age group. In addition, as more social media

apps are created, this drives people to want to become an influencer or be like someone they

aren’t. In order to portray a certain look or feel a certain way. While many people are aware of

the issues social media has caused, there is a good portion of society that isn’t aware of this

issue. In these online spaces, people feel comfortable sharing how they feel about the issues

going on in society in hopes that other people with agree and comment back. For this issue,

many people agree that social media has begun to cause an issue with the way people view

themselves as everyone is made differently and people shouldn’t feel like they have to change

in order to look good or be viewed a certain way. Society as a whole has made little things like

looks and appearance a big part of who someone is, and this can make or break someone. All

the influencers that social media promotes have the perfect and ideal looks and body figures

that encourage the audience to look just like them. With this, many don’t keep their body

healthy, instead, people start to change their sleeping habits, eating schedules, and daily life

routines to reach a goal. Since today’s generation has begun to use technology for everything,

these issues with social media may only get worse as more social media apps are created and

as more and more people become addicted to how social media makes them feel. People

become obsessed with social status which encourages them to act and look a certain way to

portray or certain look.

Works Cited:

Baltrusaitis, Justinas. “Tiktok Becomes the World’s Highest-Grossing Social App by in-App
Purchases with over $2.5M in Daily Revenue.” Finbold, 9 June 2023, finbold.com/tiktok-
becomes-the-worlds-highest-grossing-social-app-with-over-2-5-million-in-daily-revenue/.

“Christina Aguilera Releases New Video for ‘Beautiful’ Addressing How Social Media Has
Affected Our Self Image and Mental Health.” Reddit,
www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/y8xz43/christina_aguilera_releases_new_video_for/.
Accessed 10 Oct. 2023.

“CMV: Social Media Is Causing More Harm than Good.” Reddit,

www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/12p29qz/cmv_social_media_is_causing_mor
e_harm_than_good/. Accessed 10 Oct. 2023.

“Cohen, Rachel, Toby Newton-John, and Amy Slater.” “The Relationship Between Facebook
and Instagram Appearance-Focused Activities and Body Image Concerns in Young
Women.” Body Image 23 (2017): 183–187. Web.

“Dutta, Dr. Sanchari Sinha. “Eating Disorders and Social Media.” News, 28 Mar. 2022,
www.news-medical.net/health/Eating-Disorders-and-Social-Media.aspx.

“Social Media Fact Sheet.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research
Center, 7 Apr. 2021, www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/.

“Statistics & Research on Eating Disorders.” National Eating Disorders Association, 14 July
2021, www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/statistics-research-eating-disorders?
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jeQWBh9pyVQ7ymlaODDJcNPAAiFchi-XKMaAkeTEALw_wcB.