DPS article draft (Aaliyah)

Mental health, a persons condition with regard tp their psyholigial and emotional well

being. It’s scary really. My neice, as a school project had to research and write an essay of

her choice. So, her first instinct was to do one based on mental health, brave choice right? It

wasn’t really. She was traumatised by the cocept that comes with mental health and how

social media influences these petrifying issues. Anxiety. Depression. Schizophenia. Bulimia.

It goes on. A new documentary, which is to air on BBC one called ‘socially mental’

investigates how more and more young people are suffering fom mental health issues.

What I had found extremely fascinating about this ocumentary was how the implications of

social media manage to cause devastating problems mentally.

Mental health is becoming a common life experience, but this shouldn’t be happening.

Socially mental focuses on the issues that social media contributes to mental health issues

such as body image and how it affects both genders. The presenter of this documentary, 18-

year old Aaliyah Malvanker, a student of The Sixth Form College Solihull, had created this

documentary to help both students as well as adults to understand these issues. We find

out through the documentary, that women are twice as more likely to be diagnosed with a
mentl health issue than men in the united kindom. We also find out that in 2013, 6232

suicides were recorded in 2013 alone, which is a significantly high number. The

documentary informs the viwers that there were 8.2 million cases of anxiety in the uk

during 2013, and these numbers are still rising. Through the shocking use of facts and

statistics used in Socially mental, viewers are most likely going to be mortitied at the horrid

truth and findings behind mental helth.

During the documentary, we are exposed to opinions from students, as well as the general

public. One clip shows a male student of the college talking about how he believes that

males are affected by social media more than females, as they are expected to act a certain

way and have a certain persona, which allows them to fit in. We are also shown a females

opinion who mentions how she believes that females are affected more as they have to live

up to a certain body image, which are often unrealistic. Socially mEntal also shows expert

opinions, such as Caroline Sweeney, an additional learner support member, mentions how

people are able to talk to people about their problems, showing that there is support

available and that everything will be okay, especially if u talk to people about your

problems.
Socially mental allows both parents, as well as young people to understand mental health in

a more simple manner, along with how these issues can affect people silently. The use of

how dangerous social media can be and how it damages people in certain ways are also

prominently shown. Me and my neice will most defintly be tuning into ‘Socially Me’, which

again, airs on BBC One on Sunday 11th February 2018 and 8pm.