Mental health, when speaking about mental health those involved are effected in some shape or form. The question is, what causes it, what causes children to have poor mental health? While reading an article social media is brought up into being, or potentially being a factor. This isn’t just due based off of what is have said but the idea of how when technology and social media use was on a rise so was children’s mental health. But why? According to the article, “social media can also cut into time that kids spen on activities that make them feel good, like exercise and hobbies.” (C.miller, does social media cause depression, p. 4) It has been said many times that some good outdoor time, fresh air, sun light and nature help stimulate the mind and how people feel, increasing mood stimulants that cause happiness.
Other things to observe when it comes to social media and how it takes effect or potentially takes effect on children’s health is, the lowering of self esteem. Due to the idea of reaching out to friends online rather than in person can cause a social problem in youth, according to Caroline Miller, ” social media is bad for teenagers self esteem. Seeing lots of perfect pictures online might make kids ( especially girls) view themselves negatively.” (C.Miller, p.3) This incident can lead to depression and possibly self hate. Social media has shown in the article that not only it is a distraction, which can be a good thing, but it’s also a way of making sure children don’t “properly” socially react with one another. Being a distraction can cause issues with homework, and school assignments. This can lead to poor grades which can lead to feeling bad due to bad grades and lead into depression for feeling as a failure.
As a person who is studying to become a future educators, this opens my mind to many things, like how to cope or understand what is going on in children’s minds. This also shows me as much as we are becoming technology dependent, we need warning labels and need to now teach our children to over come another set if obstacles that our parents or grand parents learned to over come without social media being involved. The idea of walking away is no longer on option as children are now yest needing to sit in their room and continue the conversation from earlier, quietly due to texting is now on option. This can be informative for those educators who either need to understand some more what is going on and what may happen or those who are in denial.
References : c.miller, 2021, Does Social Media Cause Depression?, Child Mind Institute retrieved from: childmind.org
Mental Health and Our Children 