How social media overuse impacts Gen Z’s psychological wellbeing

 

Abstract

Since social media’s 1997 debut, the way individuals communicate has greatly transformed. This does however have its own consequences. This conference paper explores the psychological effects of social media overuse, anxiety, body dysmorphia, and the dopamine driven algorithms designed to maximise individuals’ screen time. Excessive social media is also linked to neurological changes which increase the likelihood for early onset of dementia. Due to social media and its impact being such a recent phenomenon, in depth research is quite limited. This paper will combine and present multiple sources of information to explore the addictive nature of social media as well as its negative impact on individuals.

 

Introduction

In 1997, the first recognisable social media website launched under the name Six Degrees (Purba et al., 2023). Since then, technology has greatly evolved and has slowly began replacing genuine social interactions such as riding a bike around the neighbourhood, approaching people to converse and being present within your environment. Nowadays people walk the streets glued to their phones struggling to perform any social activity without the involvement of an electronic device. Social media overuse has resulted in an increase in anxiety and body dysmorphia while contributing to unhealthy habits and addiction in younger Millenials, Gen Zs, and Gen Alphas. This conference paper will be exploring terms such as cognitive decline, social media addiction, and dopamine deficiency to understand the negative psychological effects associated with social media on Gen Z’s mental wellbeing. 

Anxiety and Social Media

Anxiety is the mind’s built-in self-defence emotional mechanism distinguished by physical and negative feelings such as worrying, an elevated heart rate, a rise in body temperature, and high blood pressure (Mevlevioğlu et al. 2023). These symptoms manifest as a form of alert in order to indicate or prevent perceived danger (American Psychological Association 2022 as cited in Mevlevioğlu et al. 2023). A 2018 study conducted by Goodwin et al. (2020) found that anxiety has increased by 1.56% in a span of ten years rising from 5.12% in 2008 to 6.68% in 2018. This study involved a test which measured the anxiety levels and mental states of Gen Zs aged 18 years and above. This was done through a self-reporting test containing five responses which range from none of the time to all of the time in order to help understand the current mental state of today’s teenagers as well as the effects of health treatment if any was involved (Goodwin et al., 2020). 

A byproduct of the increased dependence on social media within Gen Zs has been linked to increased anxiety and body dysmorphia (Alwuqaysi et al., 2024). Body dysmorphism or body dysmorphia is a condition defined by obsessive fixations on certain physical features which are deemed imperfect or non favourable in regard to communal standards (Alsaidan et al., 2020). These issues are manifested through an endless cycle of using a social media platform such as Instagram or TikTok, being overstimulated with unrealistic portrayals, putting your phone down, and experiencing withdrawal symptoms resulting in picking the phone back up and restarting the cycle (Abd. Rashid et al., 2020).

A study performed in Saudi Arabia where data collected from numerous surveys related to COVID-19, mental health, and social media usage further highlights the detriments of social media overuse with anxiety and body dysmorphia. The collected information from that study revealed that 69% of Gen Z participants had struggled with anxiety and 21% had struggled with body dysmorphia further highlighting the negative influence of social media overuse on mental health (Alwuqaysi et al., 2024). The study also revealed that more frequent social media use correlates with mental health issues and unhealthy family functioning (Alwuqaysi et al., 2024). The findings are further reinforced through another study also conducted within Saudi Arabia from mid-2019 to mid-2020 which examined social media use and its effects on mental health by evaluating overall social media usage, night-time social media usage, and emotional investment in social media (Alsunni & Latif, 2020). Overall social media usage was determined through a mix of volume and frequency of use across six social media platforms. Nighttime social media usage included use before or during bedtime as well as influence on sleep quality. Emotional investment was measured through the Emotional Connection subscale of the (SMUIS) Social Media Use Integration Scale (Alsunni & Latif, 2020). By measuring anxiety, depression, and self-esteem levels with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale, it was found that greater emotional investment in social media results in significant increases in anxiety and depression (Alsunni & Latif, 2020).

Social Media’s Relationship with Body Dysmorphia

Social media plays a pivotal role in shaping body image as well as influencing standards through unrealistic portrayals of beauty. This is done through filtering, photoshop, or certain angles which often result in body dysmorphism within more vulnerable individuals (Alsaidan et al., 2020).  Features that are obsessed over commonly include facial features such as the nose or eyes as well as body features such as height, weight, or sexually depicted body parts (Alsaidan et al., 2020). Body dysmorphia has been prevalent within social media long enough to give rise to sub-terms such as Snapchat Dysmorphia. Snapchat Dysmorphia is a term which is defined as the need to heavily edit/filter one’s own images to better fit social media portrayals while also resulting in urges to undergo cosmetic medical procedures in severe cases (Rizwan et al., 2022).  Due to the increasing grasp of social media on Gen Z individuals’ lives, body dysmorphia has become a regular feeling among people with frequent social media usage with studies showing that 93% of over-indulgers suffer from body dissatisfaction (Rizwan et al., 2022). 

This is 

Social Media and The Brain

Social media meets the three ingredients for behavioural addiction which are compelling goals beyond one’s reach, irresistible and unpredictable positive feedback, and strong social connections (Zubair & Raquib, 2020). Social media inspires hard to achieve goals by providing an endless potential for follower counts or by using algorithms to bombard individuals with unrealistic celebrity lives. It also provides irresistible and unpredictable positive feedback in the form of likes, comments, and shares which have the chance to consequently go viral resulting in a barrage of positive reinforcement and dopamine release (Zubair & Raquib, 2020). This therefore causes individuals to be hooked at attempting to go viral once more just to feel the same dopamine rush. The last ingredient for behavioural addiction which is strong social connections is evident through the unrestricted and limitless potential for social validation and approval as well as the ability to maintain social ties with as many people as an individual can throughout the globe (Zubair & Raquib, 2020). 

The negative chemical aspects associated with social media use reveal themselves more subtly and come in the forms of dopamine deficiency and cognitive decline. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter produced within the brain that serves as the motivation chemical and plays an important role in many cognitive processes such as sleep, attention, pleasure, rewards, and mood regulation (Macit et al., 2018). Engaging in activities which usually result in a form of reward such as listening to music or seeing a crush results in a dopamine release which acts as a reward by providing a sense of euphoria and motivating the individual to repeat such action (Macit et al., 2018). The body does however build tolerance which means that it will require either a greater form of the stimulus or longer stimulation in order to promote dopamine release (Macit et al., 2018). This dopamine drain and tolerance build-up can result in a form of subconscious addiction formed due to the endless scrolling involved with social media. Dopamine has evolved to be released through unexpected rewards by acting as a positive reinforcer in order to recreate the likelihood of the reward occurring again (Macit et al., 2018). The issue with this is that as tolerance is built over time, dopamine will be released solely due to the thought of the action itself rather than the reward (Macit et al., 2018).

Different expressions of dopamine were also found to influence individuals’ attention span forming a sensitive relationship between the two (Xing et al., 2022). Dopamine’s relationship with attention is quite fragile, with a deficiency or excess levels evident in causing mood disorders (Xing et al., 2022). This links social media’s dopamine excitatory loop effects to a weakened attention span which is evident through a 2020 study which found that Gen Z’s attention span is 6 minutes and could be as low as 8 seconds when using a digital device in comparison to Millenials’ 10-minute attention span (Schenarts, 2020). 

Due to the nature of social media, it provides an abundance of possibilities and experiences while also containing content which can only stretch as far as one’s imagination which in turn feeds the brain’s desire to experience new things and engage in rewarding behaviour (Whelan et al., 2020). This means that the longer social media is used, the more the reward becomes hollow and turns into a subconscious dopamine draining trap inevitably manifesting as social media overuse and addiction (Whelan et al., 2020). This is due to the nature of social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok’s dopamine driven algorithms which are designed to encourage maximum engagement by keeping individuals hooked onto these platforms for as long as possible (Thompson, 2023). Social media overuse has even been compared to opioid addiction in the way that it negatively impacts productivity by damaging reward pathways in the brain which in turn reduces individuals’ abilities to maintain focus as well as motivation to perform any task that does not provide instant rewards for minimal effort (Thompson, 2023).

Social media has also been linked to symptoms of mild cognitive impairment as well as early stages of dementia with prolonged use (Manwell et al., 2022). Excessive use of social media was found to alter the grey matter as well as the white volumes in individuals’ brains contributing to a risk of early Alzheimer’s onset as well as ramping up the risk for dementia (Manwell et al., 2022). Grey matter is a tissue present within the brain which is made up of nerve cells which play a role in movement and the nervous system’s ability to regenerate itself in response to injury or experience (Timmler & Simons, 2019). This has given social media the term digital dementia due to the neurodegeneration in regards to memory and attention once overused which often happens too easily (Manwell et al., 2022). Manwell et al. (2022) also compared individuals from the 1950s who lived life with no screen time to today’s teenagers which spend an average of 6 hours a day on the internet and found a two-four fold increase in Alzheimer’s disease within individuals born after the 1980s linked to the rapid evolution of digital technologies. 

Conclusion

This conference paper has presented the harms associated with social media overuse which tends to happen too easily. Although social media has provided many new ways to be in touch with strangers and family around the world, over-indulgence tends to do more harm than good especially in the long run. Long term dangers of social media overuse included early onset Alzheimer’s and a risk of Dementia. The algorithms play a big part in negatively impacting users through addiction enabling measures. These hook individuals on the platforms for as long as possible which over time drains their attention and negatively affects their mental state. Since social media is still a relatively new thing, regulatory measures in the future could prevent societal cognitive decline as well as an influx of mental health problems for today’s youth as well as future generations.

 

 

 

 

References

 

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