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Danny Hughes

Sarah Hughes

English 225

9 November 2020

Open Letter to Social Media Users Final Draft

Dear social media users,

I implore you to listen to the facts regarding social media usage and the damage it

can do to your health. Too many people today use social media, in order to stay in touch

with each other, without realizing the consequences. When the smart phone was invented,

many different forms of social media started to be created and social media platforms

became readily accessible and used more often. With the increase in social media usage,

came an increase in screen time on people’s smart phones. It seems like wherever you go

you will always see people glued to their mobile devices. The rise of social media has come

with many benefits, but it also has a dark side to it. Sure, apps like Instagram, Twitter, and

Snapchat allow for people to be connected twenty-four hours a day but those apps also

cause depression, spreading of false information, addiction, and much more issues. I have

personally experienced many issues while using social media apps involving my mental

health. In total, social media’s bad outcomes outweigh their good.

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Like previously mentioned, not all effects of social media are bad. Because of the

spread of social media, news is released faster to people around the world. Many people in

the year 2020 rely on social media platforms like Twitter to get their news. Before, people

would have to watch the news on television, or read the newspaper daily to receive their

news for the day. Now, news is breaking to the public just as it happens. If something big

happens in the world, Twitter and other social media apps are the first to know and get the

word out. In “It’s Not All Bad: The Social Good of Social Media,” written on Forbes.com by

AJ Agrawal, he writes, “When more people are aware of a situation, those working to

secure locations and ensure the safety of the general public can perform their job duties

more efficiently” (Agrawal 1). Agrawal is saying that when the news reaches people faster,

the public will be knowledgeable about situations that can prevent accidents from occuring

and keep more people out of harm’s way. Social media apps also give you the option if you

would like to receive notifications. This is a way where news will hit you immediately and

alert you. The news reaches people faster through social media so this is a benefit of being

on apps like Twitter or Reddit.

Although social media apps alert you when news is breaking, most people do not

want to receive a bunch of notifications about pointless news they do not care about. In

order for users to receive important news fast, they must turn on notifications. Sure, getting

serious news updates that people need to receive as fast as possible is a great benefit to

social media; but how many of the notifications people are receiving are important news

that is urgent to know? Notifications also are known to keep users occupied on their mobile
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devices. Steve Glaveski, an author for the Harvard Business Review stated, “after a

notification has forced us to switch between tasks, it can take us about 23 minutes to get

back to the task at hand, according to a study from University of California, Irvine”

(Glaveski). This shows that notifications take precious time away from users. People get

distracted when they see a notification pop up on their phone and can easily forget what

they are doing and open the app linked to the notice. This is a problem that many people do

not even realize is occurring to them. Amy Blaschka for Forbes puts it best by writing, “The

bottom line is this: Turning off social media notifications lets your phone work as a tool for

you rather than letting it control you” (Blaschka). Electronic devices can easily take control

of what is truly important in life. It is hard to resist the urge of social media through

notifications and that is exactly what social media platforms want you to do… give in.

This is an issue that is dear to me. My personal experience with social media has not

been a good one and I would like to change that for others by learning from me. If the

research does not scare you of the dangerous of social media, then hopefully my personal

experiences can shine light on the dangers of social media. When I was a kid, I had a flip

phone up until seventh-grade. In seventh grade I got the new iPhone 5C, which I thought

was the coolest thing. The iPhone could do so much more than my flip phone that I was

used to. Before, I only had access to phone calls and text messages on my phone, now I had

access to games and all sorts of apps. I downloaded Instagram my seventh-grade year, just

a few months after getting my new phone. I knew about Instagram but could never really

participate in it because I would have had to use the family iPad and I would have liked my
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privacy with my social media account. When I created my account, I started to follow all my

friends. We always were posting memes and other funny pictures for our friends to see.

One time, me and my close friend Jack got into a meme battle on Instagram. He would send

pictures of memes that were praising the University of Iowa, who he rooted for, or pictures

roasting the University of Michigan, because I was a big wolverine fan. I remember this

meme battle going on for at least two to three hours. I was scrolling through countless

memes on the internet to post on Instagram to get back at Jack’s memes he was posting. I

was scrolling the internet and looking up memes for so long that I lost track of time. I had

been on my phone for so long that it died on me. I realized I had done nothing productive

for the last few hours because I was so engaged in this meme battle with Jack. I realized the

dangers of social media very early on because I realized that it was becoming addictive to

stay on all the time. I did not want this new Instagram addiction to get any worse, so I tried

to tone down my usage of the app with some success. I realized that social media could get

to the point where it is best to only check the apps once a day or you can get sucked into

scrolling for hours on end.

The time lost while people are glued to their phone is not nearly the worst harm that

social media can do to a person. There is great evidence to back up the claim that social

media usage can drive teens toward a state of depression. Social media apps have

unknowingly glorified suicide. In the article “Rise in teen suicide rates coincides with

increase in social media use, analysis finds social media & teen suicide” written by the staff

and news service reports at Yakima Herald-Republic, Jeremy Garcia states, “If a child
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decides to kill themselves, then a lot of people are posting 'rest in peace,' or sharing stories

about how much they cared about that person. You see them get a lot of attention and so it

can glorify suicide and make children think, 'If I kill myself, I might get that same kind of

attention'” (Garcia). This brings to light the fact that social media apps are providing

platforms for teens to engage in this suicidal behavior and go through with the act.

Teenagers are going through puberty and an unusual time of their life and that can be hard

on them. The incentive of gaining attention on social media through suicide can be enough

for teenagers to go through with the act.

The connection to suicide from the use of social media is not one I have personally

experienced, but I know someone who has. A boy in my hometown named Corey

unfortunately took his life because of criticism he was receiving on Twitter. I met Corey a

couple of times and he was a very nice kid. Corey’s problem started on Snapchat. There was

an inappropriate picture of him being sent around behind his back. Corey found out about

this when the picture was posted on Twitter. Because of the embarrassment he felt, he

decided to take his own life. This is a very sad story to tell. Every time I think about Corey, I

think that so much could have been done in order to prevent this from happening. I try to

raise awareness for the dangers of social media in order to stop terrible things like this from

happening in the future. Social media has caused many people to take their lives. These all

could have been prevented if people think before they post, but sadly, that does not always

happen.
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There are multiple links to depression as a result from usage of social media.

Another link to this is depression because of body standards teens see while using these

apps. The users see countless scrolling of perfect bodies that are edited or altered to form

an unrealistic standard of beauty. This also goes the same way for male teenagers who see

pictures of edited muscles to enhance their size and make them look bigger than they

actually are. These are both ways that social media provides a platform for this behavior to

occur. For instance, in the article titled “The dark side of social media: How unrealistic

beauty standards are causing identity issues” written by Ntianu Obiora, the author states,

“Many have developed serious mental health issues, identity issues and even body

dysmorphia trying to emulate the beauty standards that are simply unattainable.” She goes

on to say, “Whilst we may believe we are mindlessly scrolling though such content, our

subconscious is soaking it all up and before we know it, those perfectly formed bodies have

become the standard by which we measure everything else” (Obiora). Users of social media

apps have gotten so used to seeing these perfect bodies that they question themselves and

wonder if that is what they should be looking like. This is a problem because many of these

images of models are either fake or unhealthy. Teens may go without eating for a few meals

to try and get a perfect body image that is unrealistic. Because users see these images so

much, they feel like the goal of having a perfect body is achievable, but in reality, this goal is

not attainable.

The constant access to pictures of professional and college athletes on my Instagram

and Twitter accounts had an effect on me personally. Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted
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to become a college athlete and professional athlete. For this reason, I followed all of my

favorite athletes on Twitter and Instagram because I wanted to see what they were saying

and look at their posts they were putting up on social media. For this reason, I was very

involved in sports social media pages. Later on, in high school, I knew I wanted to play

college football. I was a bigger kid compared to the other high schoolers at my school, but I

was nowhere near the top football recruits or college athletes’ bodies. I saw athletes like

Saquon Barkley, Aaron Donald, and Zeke Elliot on Instagram all the time posting pictures of

them in their football uniform and filling out their pads. I noticed that their arms, legs, and

even Saquon’s abs were all much bigger than mine and more defined. This made me feel

uncomfortable. I thought that I would not have a chance at playing college football if I did

not look like my NFL and college football idols. This forced me to get in the gym and lift

every day, eat more, and drink protein shakes. I was doing everything in my power to try

and gain weight in order to look like a football player. I was starting to engage in unhealthy

behavior by eating too much protein and lifting too often. I did not understand that going to

the gym and working out too much can be bad for your body. I was overusing my muscles,

and because of this, I was putting my body at risk of harming itself. I got a trainer my senior

year of high school and he told me that I needed to let my muscles recover after I work out.

My trainer told me I need to rest, or I will tear something in my body which would hurt my

chances of playing college football. From that point forward, I ate more regularly and only

lifted three to four times a week. I wanted to have a body like the athletes that I look up to,

and I was willing to do almost anything to get there. I did not know that by trying to over lift
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and overeat that I was putting myself at a great risk of injuring myself without knowing it.

Now, I try to not let what star athletes’ look like effect how I train and fuel my body. I know

how often I need to lift and how much I need to eat every day. Social media provided me

with a poor body image of myself and it effected my body in a harmful way.

Another link from social media to depression is the photos people are posting on

these social media cites. People mostly post the highlight of their day, month, or even year

on social media apps like Instagram. All these posts are threaded together in a feed, this is

what users see. A University of Michigan Professor named Oscar Ybarra was quoted in an

article entitled “The FOMO Is Real: How Social Media Increases Depression and Loneliness”

written by Gigen Mammoser, saying, “What happens many times when they log on is that

you kind of activate a lot of social comparison. People don’t necessarily have to be super

aware that this is occurring, but it does. You log on, you’re generally dealing with very

curated content on the other side” (Mammoser). This proves that users are actively making

comparisons to posts that they see. Most of the posts on Instagram and Facebook are the

best moments of that person’s day. If people are making comparisons to these highlights,

they will start to feel lonely or depressed if they are just sitting in their room scrolling

through social media feeds. If someone is having a normal day relaxing at home, they will

feel left out seeing people at parties and having fun on their social media accounts. This is

just another way that social media platforms are causing the youth to become more

depressed.
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Social media users fall into the trap of believing that being on apps like Twitter and

Instagram will help them feel happy. When I was in high school, I started using Twitter. All

of my friends had the app so I thought that I should download it. My friends all seemed to

love talking about what athletes were tweeting about and what sports pages were saying

about their favorite teams. They looked like they were having so much fun talking about

sports together that I thought if I downloaded Twitter, I would instantly love it and my

knowledge of baseball statistics and football facts would go up. Instead of this, I found that I

was constantly glued to my phone scrolling through Twitter. The only place I wanted to be

was laying on my couch at home looking at my phone. The thing that gave me happiness

was Twitter. Because Twitter was the only place where I was happy, everything else seemed

less enjoyable. I started to hang out with my friends less even though the reason I

downloaded the app in the first place was to engage in baseball and football conversations

with my friends in the first place. I started to be a loner and only do things by myself. My

life consisted of football practice, homework, and Twitter. There was no room to have fun

with my friends and family anymore, which resulted in myself becoming less happy overall. I

was tricked into believing that Twitter was going to improve my well-being. In the end, it

was tarnished.

Social media does a lot of good for people. People are connected together all around

the globe because of new technology and these social media apps. New technology keeps

advancing us into the future by finding more ways to stay connected. But there are also

dangerous consequences when using social media apps. I hope you realize to be careful
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when using apps like Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and others by reading through the

research I have provided, facts, and my personal experiences with social media. Toning

down social media usage can be tough at first, but just know you will be doing it in order to

look after your own wellbeing. In todays society, everything is online, and it is easy to get

lost into the grasp of electronic devices. I hope you take my advice and use social media

smartly and not let it take over your life like it has done to millions of people.
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Works Cited

Agrawal, AJ. “It's Not All Bad: The Social Good Of Social Media.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine,

18 Mar. 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2016/03/18/its-not-all-bad-the-

social-good-of-social-media/?sh=1c0c379c756f.

Blaschka, Amy. “This Is Why You Need To Turn Off Social Media Notifications.” Forbes,

Forbes Magazine, 21 Sept. 2020,

www.forbes.com/sites/amyblaschka/2020/09/21/this-is-why-you-need-to-turn-off-

social-media-notifications/?sh=f6cf60a6690a.

Garcia, Jeremy. "Rise in Teen Suicide Rates Coincides with Increase in Social Media use,

Analysis Finds Social Media & Teen Suicide."  Yakima Herald - Republic, Dec 01, 2017.

ProQuest, https://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-

com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/newspapers/rise-teen-suicide-rates-coincides-with-

increase/docview/1974568984/se-2?accountid=14667.

Glaveski, Steve. “Stop Letting Push Notifications Ruin Your Productivity.” Harvard Business

Review, 5 Apr. 2019, hbr.org/2019/03/stop-letting-push-notifications-ruin-your-

productivity.

Mammoser, Gigen. “Social Media Increases Depression and Loneliness.” Healthline,

Healthline Media, 10 Dec. 2018, www.healthline.com/health-news/social-media-

use-increases-depression-and-loneliness.
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Obiora, Ntianu. “The Dark Side of Social Media: How Unrealistic Beauty Standards Are

Causing Identity Issues.” Pulse Nigeria, Pulse, 30 Sept. 2020,

www.pulse.ng/lifestyle/beauty-health/the-dark-side-of-social-media-how-

unrealistic-beauty-standards-are-causing-identity/hv4tffb.