Treatment For Social Media Addiction In Teens
With many teens in America owning a cellular device, many parents are finding limiting and controlling social media use nearly impossible. Talking openly with your teen, setting limits and boundaries, and developing a social schedule are all ways parents can encourage their teens to live a healthy and balanced life.
For some teens, the social media addiction has already begun to affect other parts of their lives. Teens who are depressed, anxious, or exhibit other behavioral symptoms along with social media addiction may be candidates for more extreme measures.
Shepherds Hill Academy offers a unique solution to combating social media addiction. A Christ-based therapeutic boarding school, Shepherds Hill Academy boasts a proven wilderness component to offer healing to teens with social media addictions. The 12 month program at SHA is a wakeup call to teens who are living solely in a virtual world. The program includes a rustic living environment, free of modern conveniences, peer pressure, and most importantly, mobile devices.
Teens participating in the program at Shepherds Hill Academy will focus on developing healthy habits and behavior in order to live a productive and successful life. Through individual counseling, group therapy, equine therapy, and a fully accredited educational environment, teens are given some of the best resources available. A strict 5 to 1 student to staff ratio ensures your child is safe, mentored, and meeting their personal goals.
Should I Worry About Social Media Addiction
Social media addiction is a growing concern for many, even if the condition is not yet recognized by medical professionals. As smartphones connect people from around the globe, many are beginning to worry about the drawbacks. People are often glued to their phones, continually refreshing their social media feeds. Is there a point where social media use escalates too far and becomes social media addiction? Is social media addiction even a real condition? If so, who is susceptible, and what are the solutions?
Get Help For Your Social Media Addiction
While using the internet and spending time on social media is a big part of our society today, it is important to be conscious of the amount of time spent doing both things.
You can begin with a digital detox or by setting new habits for yourself around social media use. You can also join a support group that deals with social media addiction.
Recommended Reading: How To Break An Addiction
The Top 3 Countries With The Most Tiktok Users
TikTok is a popular social media platform, with more than 300 million users. On iOS, the App has 30.8 million daily active users, while on Android, it has 14.43 million daily active users. TikTok has a large audience in the United States, with approximately 136.5 million users. TikTok has nearly 99 million users in Indonesia, followed by the United States. Third place went to Brazil, which had 74 million TikTok users watching short videos.
Quote
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
ABOUT Us
WLFA is all in to create a strong online community in which you can share your ideas and learn more about the world of social media. As every business or individual knows the power of social media when it comes to creating a business online or when it comes to promoting your offline business. We are here to help you by sharing some of the best and relevant tips and strategies that you can follow.
Useful Links
Usage: Before The Covid
A study from 2009 suggests that there may be individual differences that help explain who uses social media and who does not: extraversion and openness have a positive relationship with social media, while emotional stability has a negative sloping relationship with social media. A separate study from 2015 found that people with a higher social comparison orientation appear to use social media more heavily than people with low social comparison orientation.
Data from Common Sense Media has suggested that children under the age of 13 in the United States use social networking services despite the fact that many social media sites have policies that state one must be at least 13 years old or older to join. In 2017, Common Sense Media conducted a nationally representative survey of parents of children from birth to age 8 and found that 4% of children at this age used social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, or Musical.ly “often” or “sometimes.” A different nationally representative survey by Common Sense in 2019 surveyed young Americans ages 816 and found that about 31% of children ages 812 ever use social media such as Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook. In that same survey, when American teens ages 1618 were asked when they started using social media, 28% said they started to use it before they were 13 years old. However, the median age of starting to use social media was 14 years old.
Also Check: How Long Does It Take To Be Addicted To Heroin
Social Media And Relationships
While social media can promote healthy relationships and communication between family, friends, and acquaintances, significant social media use can also alter familial relationships and behaviors.
Out of all age groups, teenagers are most susceptible to social medias destructive and addictive nature with excessive usage. This age group is also vulnerable to feelings of social isolation and depression from the social comparison that social media fosters. This can further manifest itself in family relationships and communication between parents and adolescents.
Most families these days provide their children with technological devices like cell phones or tablets, allowing them to connect to social media early on. Some families even communicate through social media messages within their households, which can create complex relationship structures within a family.
Brigham Young University posted a Masters thesis from one of its students. The author analyzed the impact of digital attachment and social media on users offline interpersonal relationships and emotional well-being.
Results showed that the longer someone would spend on social media, the more likely they were to experience decreased quality in their personal relationships and see a negative impact on their emotional well-being.
Excessive social media users most common negative emotional effects included depression, frustration, and social comparison.
Risk Factors For Addiction To Social Media
Spending too much time on social media is a risky venture for any teen. However, some teens are especially at risk of becoming addicted.
- Female gender While boys are more likely to become addicted to gaming, girls are more likely to gravitate toward social media.
- Low self-esteem Teens with low self-esteem are more likely to be uncomfortable with face-to-face interactions and use social media as an escape.
- Depression and anxiety These emotions commonly increase as a result of face-to-face and online social interactions. This increases the likelihood of teens escaping into social media, especially for those with social anxiety.
- Impulsivity and disinhibition Poor impulse control and sensation-seeking lead teens to do whatever feels good at the moment without regard for consequences, making them vulnerable to addictions in general.
- Poor body image Poor body image is most prevalent in girls, who often post edited, idealized images of themselves. Any resulting positive feedback fosters addiction as these girls live vicariously through their idealized selves on social media.
- Extraversion Extraverts tend to establish more social connections online.
- Introversion Introverted teens tend to be more passive online, liking and commenting on existing posts rather than starting their own. This is often a reflection of their offline difficulties initiating relationships.
You May Like: How To Overcome Addiction Alone
How Does Social Media Addiction Affect Teens
Social media addiction not only directly affects a teens brain processes and chemicals, but other areas of life. A study found that the more teens used Facebook the more their overall satisfaction with life declined.
Studies suggest that when a teen focuses solely on themselves and showing off their best self they actually reduce self-esteem. Facebook and other social media activity has led to symptoms of both low self-esteem and narcissism.
Teens tend to compare themselves to others online. This is particular dangerous as it not only lowers self-esteem but can also lead to depression, eating disorders, self-harming behaviors and substance abuse.
Social media prohibits a teen to be fully absorbed in an activity. Referred to as flow state, the brain is constantly interrupted from a flow of rest and relaxation with social media posts and updates. This restricts and inhabits the teens ability to fully rest and relax in their activity.
What To Do If Your Child Has Been Harmed By Social Media
If your child has been harmed by social media, you are not alone. Social media companies have known for years that their products are harmful, yet they have continued to promote their products to young people while refusing to take effective measures to make their platforms safe.
This is egregious, and they will never stop harming children and young adults until they are held accountable. Contact us today if social media has harmed your child.
Recommended Reading: How To Get Over Alcohol Addiction
How Do You Know If You Have A Social Media Addiction
A person can suspect having social media addiction if they spend increasing amounts of time and energy on social media. Another major indicator of problematic social media use is its negative impact on an individuals life and personal relationships.
Because social media is now the priority in an addicts life, they may start neglecting responsibilities and ignoring real-life relationships to engage with social media users. This interference in daily life functioning ultimately leads to a poorer quality of life.
Social Media Usage By Country
The results might surprise you when looking at internet users that are active on social media in each country.
| Country | |
| Sweden | 82.1% |
The UAE has a huge number of social media users compared to the rest of the world. 99% of all internet users in the UAE actively use and visit at least one social media website.
South Korea, Taiwan and the Netherlands are also big social media users.
The big English speaking countries such as the US and England dont feature in the top 15 countries in the world. Surprising!
Read Also: Ways To Help Drug Addiction
Ii Why Should We Use Social Media Less
Spending more time on social media can negatively impact our mental health and increase the risk of anxiety and depression, negative body image, loss of self-worth, and poor sleep patterns. Watching the unrealistic portrayal of beauty, success and lifestyle can make you feel like you’ve not accomplished anything in life.
Social Media Usage By Age
Gen Z and Millennials are the biggest social media users of all age groups.
There seems to be a trend that as you get older your social media usage tends to drop. This makes a lot of sense because the younger age groups are the ones that grew up with social media.
This is the breakdown of total users in each age group:
| Age Group | |
| 65+ | 45% |
Read Also: Has Anyone Died After My Strange Addiction
Negative Effects Of Social Media On People And Users
If you’re a heavy social media user, it’s wise to think about the negative impacts of social media on you and your peers.
If you can’t imagine your life without social media, you’ve probably fallen victim to the strong power that social networking sites have over the public. Chances are that you’ve also experienced some of the negative effects social media has on people.
Unfortunately, the bad effects of social media are all too real for a lot of us. Let’s look at the negative impacts of social media on real people, which happen every day.
The Loneliness Pandemic: Finding Balance And Staying Connected
Do you know about the increasingly deadly affliction all societies are facing right now? Im not talking about Covid-19. Im talking about Loneliness. A study of 308,849 people found that loneliness increased the chances of all-cause mortality by 50%. This is a greater risk factor than obesity.
Be it as it may that many if not all of us are now in danger of serious digital overload, stress, burnout and all other negative consequences of using digital technology and social media too much were still human, and we need to stay connected to feel good and thrive.
Make time to connect with people, and if you cant be together any other way, use the technological tools we have at hand today to stay in touch.
To that, you might find the following hierarchy of modes of communication useful:
Needless to say plan and spend more time on 1 & 2 than you would on 3 & 4, and so on.
Final tips:
Stay connected my friends, use technology to your advantage and maintain a healthy body and mind. To that stay connected to your Purpose, to your People, and to your True Self. Its the only way to start building towards a better and happier You, and a better and happier World.
Read Also: How To Cure Phone Addiction
Social Media And Mental Health
Research has shown that there is an undeniable link between social media use, negative mental health, and low self-esteem. While social media platforms have their benefits, using them too frequently can make people feel increasingly unhappy and isolated. These negative emotional reactions are not only produced due to the social pressure of sharing things with others but also the comparison of material things and lifestyles that these sites promote.
On Instagram and Facebook, users see curated content: advertisements and posts that are specifically designed to appeal to users based on their interests. Users may see others posting about their great jobs, excellent partners, or beautiful homes and feel happy or inspired as a result. Others, however, may see these pictures and feel jealous, depressed, or even suicidal due to the fact that their own life is not as perfect as those that they see on Facebook or Instagram.
Social Media And Social Depression
We see social media as a great way to communicate and socialize, but most of us did not realize that social media secretly link to the Depression. Depression is a common mood disorder that affects the way we think and feel. One of the characteristics of depression is low self-esteem, and it can easily come from the unrealistic body figure comparisons and harsh judgments from the social media. According to a 2017 study by The Royal Society of Public Health indicted Snapchat and Instagram were the two to inspire feelings of inadequacy and anxiety in the age group between fifteen to twenty-five. Seven out the ten said Instagram made them feel worse about body image and half of the age group in between fourteen to twenty-four reported Instagram and Facebook exacerbated the feeling of anxiety.
Read Also: How Can Behaviors Be Addictive
Social Networking Addiction Among Hong Kong University Students: Its Health Consequences And Relationships With Parenting Behaviors
- 1Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
- 2Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
The use of social networking sites has been growing at a staggering rate, especially among university students. The present study investigated the prevalence of social networking addiction , its health consequences, and its relationships with parents’ Internet-specific parenting behaviors in a sample of Hong Kong university students . Adopting the 9-item social media disorder scale, 21.5% of the participating students met the criteria for SNA. Students with SNA showed longer sleeping latency, more sleep disturbance, poorer academic performance, lower levels of life satisfaction, and higher levels of depression than did students without SNA. Parental reactive restriction and limiting online behaviors of the participants were associated with higher risk of SNA. The findings suggest the severity of SNA and its negative consequences among Hong Kong university students. While parental behaviors limiting children’s use of SNSs were found to increase the occurrence rate of SNA among university students, longitudinal studies are needed to further examine this causal relationship.
What Is Social Media And How Does It Work
Social media is a broad term that refers to online platforms and tools that allow people to interact and build relationships with others. These interactions can take many different forms, including creating and sharing content, commenting on posts, liking and following other users, or participating in online groups.
While social media can be a useful tool for staying connected with friends and family, some people may develop an unhealthy obsession with it. This can lead to social media addiction, which is a type of problematic internet use that is characterized by excessive or compulsive use of social media platforms.
Screen time refers to the amount of time a person spends looking at a screen, such as a computer, phone, or TV. The average person spends about four hours a day on social media, and children age 8 and under spend an average of two hours a day on screen-based activities.
The amount of time people spend on social media has increased significantly over the past decade. In 2010, the average person spent about two hours a day on social media. By 2018, that number had nearly doubled to four hours a day.
Recommended Reading: Types Of Therapy For Addiction
