Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA, THE NEW ADDICTION 1

Social Media, The New Addiction

Nicole Angelico

Arizona State University

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Social Media, The New Addiction

“[Interviewer] ‘How are you feeling?’

[Demi Lovato] ‘I actually had anxiety around this interview.’

[Interviewer] ‘Why is that?’

[Demi Lovato] ‘Because the last time I did an interview this long I was on cocaine,’”

(Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated).

Demi lovato is an American artist and actress who has struggled with drug and alcohol

addiction for nearly a decade of her life. Demi’s first time doing cocaine was when she was 17

and working for Disney Channel. Demi Lovato was a role model for many kids growing up,

myself included, and it’s crazy to think how serious her addiction had gotten while she worked

for Disney. She was introduced to her addiction at such a young age causing it to take control of

a significant portion of her adolescent life. “I couldn’t go 30 minutes to an hour without

cocaine,” Lovato recalls in her documentary ​Simply Complicated​ (Davis et al. 2018). Addiction

is a huge toll on someone’s life. It can cause them to spiral out of control, withdraw from society,

and spend less time on activities that used to be important to them. Addicts become consumed by

their addiction and begin to suffer from symptoms such as headaches, mood swings, depression

and insomnia. Although, drug addiction is not the most common addiction throughout the United

States- social media is the rising new drug of America.

Since around 1997 Americans have been avid users of the internet and social media.

Social media surged in the early 2000’s when MySpace and Facebook were introduced. Over the

years, parents have been told to reduce their child’s social media use, but there are no reasons as
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to why. American society revolves around technology and social media, but it’s a more widely

accepted addiction, unlike drug addiction. Because social media is so popular throughout

American culture it’s more widely accepted, even though people are aware of some of its

negative aspects. Although, social media has shown to be useful in American society, but at what

cost?

Social media has provided many different platforms for easy communication to people all

over the world. President Trump’s 2016 campaign was spearheaded through his use of social

media. This type of communication provided him with direct contact to most of the population of

the U.S. and connected him with a lot of the younger generations. This was helpful to him since

most social media users are those whose minds can be easily shaped through social media

platforms, such as Twitter. Another avid social media platform is Snapchat. Teens all over the

nation use Snapchat as a way to receive their daily news. Snapchat provides people with news

engines like Daily Mail and The Washington Post for regular updates. These updates include

current icons, including the Kardashians. The Kardashians use Snapchat as a way to promote

their brands and stay in touch with the public. Kylie Jenner is the owner of one of the most

successful makeup franchises because she is so prominent on Snapchat (and other social media

sites) and uses it to advertise her brand. This keeps her and her makeup current and in the eye of

her consumers. These examples prove that social media is helpful with communication, yet

social media has been proven unable to replace face-to-face communication between people.

In a study conducted in 2010, researchers found that girls aged from 8-12 were strongly

affected by social media use. These effects included social isolation, lack of sleep, lack of

physical activity and incompetency with face-to-face communication. “Even though prior
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research found that pre- and early adolescents who communicated online more often felt closer

to their existing friends (as cited in Valkenburg & Peter, 2007), the opposite associations of

face-to-face communication and online communication for positive socioemotional experiences

found in this study suggest that face-to-face communication and online communication are not

interchangeable,” (Pea, 2012). Kids tend to use social media as a way to communicate with other

people when they are unable to communicate face-to-face, but when they are presented with the

opportunity to have an in person conversation, they find themselves incapable to do so. This

leads them to resort back to social media, completing the vicious cycle. The inability to

communicate leads to social isolation, which can lead to mental health issues such as depression.

“Depression is associated with a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors (as

cited in World Health Organization, 2016). Prior research has identified media exposures, such

as video games, television, movies, and the Internet, to be associated with the development of

depression among adolescents,” (Shensa et al., 2017). Researchers have found this correlation

between the increase of depression and social media use to be consistent throughout multiple

studies. In the documentary ​Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated​, Lovato’s manager, Phil, said

gesturing to her old cell phone, “This was the gateway to everything. This was the wrong people.

It was drug dealers, it was a lot of negative influences on her life were coming through her cell

phone.” Lovato’s “social” life through her phone caused her drug and alcohol addiction and her

depression; Demi relied on her contacts in her phone, which allowed her social media to seep

into her life, leaving her with a lot of negative influences.

Like many people across the nation, Demi Lovato was diagnosed with depression. The

amount of teens with depression has been increasing over recent years, and researchers predict it
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has to do with their exposure to social media. “Previously, depression was regarded as a disorder

of middle-aged and elderly persons; now, adolescents and young adults are increasingly

depressed and seeking treatment,” (Klerman, 1989). Social media is exposing youth to

unnecessary life stresses, causing a result of mental health issues like depression. Girls are found

to have higher rates of depression because of the pressures they feel from images they see on

social media. A lot of their concerns are about body image; this is an unimportant stressor in

their lives. In a study for teenage depression that took place between 2010 and 2015, researchers

asked more than half a million teenagers between the ages 13-18 a series of questions that

determined if they were at risk of depression. The first trial was conducted in 2010 and then

repeated in 2015. “Between 2010 and 2015 [researchers] found the number of teens who

answered "yes" to three or more of these questions increased significantly, from 16 percent in

2010 to 22 percent in 2015… By far the biggest increase was among girls — who were six times

more likely than boys to report these or other symptoms of depression,” (Neighmond, 2017). The

reason depression was found to be more significant in girls was due to their concerns with

popularity on social media. There are other life stressors that could have contributed to the

increasing rates of depression, but there has not been an significant increase in those other

outside factors to explain the increase in youth depression. “Financial stresses and anxiety related

to academics and homework are often cited as factors in teen depression. But the overall

economy improved between 2010 and 2015… And surveys suggest the amount of homework

given over that time period did not increase… What did increase significantly, she says, was

students' online activity, via computer games and social media,” (Neighmond, 2017).
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With this increase in screen time and depression, there has been a decrease in the

amounts of physical activity among adolescents as well. “The national recommendation is that

children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years should have 60 minutes (1 hour) or more of physical

activity each day,” (Healthy Schools, 2017). Only 21.6% of children in the United States reach

this recommendation for healthy living. “Physical inactivity can: Lead to energy imbalance (e.g.,

expend less energy through physical activity than consumed through diet) and can increase the

risk of becoming overweight or obese, Increase the risk of factors that cause cardiovascular

disease, including hyperlipidemia (e.g., high cholesterol and triglyceride levels), high blood

pressure, obesity, and insulin resistance and glucose intolerance, Increase the risk for developing

type 2 diabetes, Increase the risk for developing breast, colon, endometrial, and lung cancers,

Lead to low bone density, which in turn, leads to osteoporosis,” (Healthy Schools, 2017). Being

physically inactive can be more dangerous than the risk of smoking. If being physically inactive

is a higher risk than smoking cigarettes, then why does our nation allow our children to spend so

much time on social media?

Social media is just as big of an addiction as drugs and cigarettes, if not bigger, but it’s

still more widely accepted in our society than both of those things. It’s wrong for social media to

be viewed so positively when it has so many negative influences. It causes health issues and

cripples our ability to communicate in our daily lives. Knowing these facts, parents are still

freely exposing their children to this new addiction. That’s like giving an alcoholic a drink. It’s

not healthy for children to revolve around social media so much. Social media use needs to be

significantly decreased to improve the health of future generations. The problem with social

media is that it’s so widely accepted in society. Society is misusing social media. The original
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intentions of social media was for easy communication, but now it has taken over our lives. This

is why so many health professionals make recommendations about social media use. They

encourage less screen time and more physical activities to try and prevent depression and

physical inactivity. These recommendations are made to decrease the negative aspects of social

media.
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References

Davis, H. L., Lovato, D., McIntyre, P., Pearson, R., Lebrios, A., Bonfiglio, B., & Bayer, M.

(2017, October 17).​ Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated.​ [Video file] Retrieved March 19,

2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWTlL_w8cRA&t=344s

Healthy Schools. (2017, June 28). [Web log post] Retrieved March 19, 2018, from

https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/physicalactivity/facts.htm

Khan, L. (2016, November 15). Trump won thanks to social media. [Web log post] Retrieved

March 19, 2018, from

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/306175-trump-won-thanks-to-social-med

ia

Klerman, G. L. (1989). Increasing Rates of Depression-Reply. ​JAMA: The Journal of the

American Medical Association,262​(7), 900. doi:10.1001/jama.1989.03430070047015

Neighmond, P. (2017, November 14). Increased Hours Online Correlate With An Uptick In

Teen Depression, Suicidal Thoughts. [Web log post] Retrieved March 19, 2018, from

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/11/14/563767149/increased-hours-online-

correlate-with-an-uptick-in-teen-depression-suicidal-thou

Pea, R., Nass, C., Meheula, L., Rance, M., Kumar, A., Bamford, H., . . . Zhou, M. (2012).

Media use, face-to-face communication, media multitasking, and social well-being among

8- to 12-year-old girls. ​Developmental Psychology,48​(2), 327-336. doi:10.1037/a0027030

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Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Sidani, J. E., Bowman, N. D., Marshal, M. P., & Primack,

B. A. (June, 2017). Science Direct. ​Problematic Social Media Use and Depressive

Symptoms among U.S. Young Adults: A Nationally- Representative Study​.

doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f