Is social media bad for mental health and wellbeing? Exploring the perspectives of adolescents
Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, cilt.23, sa.4, ss.601-613, 2018 (SCI-Expanded, SSCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 23 Sayı: 4
- Basım Tarihi: 2018
- Doi Numarası: 10.1177/1359104518775154
- Dergi Adı: Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.601-613
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Social media, mental health, adolescents, information, wellbeing
- Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Despite growing evidence of the effects of social media on the mental health of adolescents, there is still a dearth of empirical research into how adolescents themselves perceive social media, especially as knowledge resource, or how they draw upon the wider social and media discourses to express a viewpoint. Accordingly, this article contributes to this scarce literature. Six focus groups took place over 3 months with 54 adolescents aged 11–18 years, recruited from schools in Leicester and London (UK). Thematic analysis suggested that adolescents perceived social media as a threat to mental wellbeing and three themes were identified: (1) it was believed to cause mood and anxiety disorders for some adolescents, (2) it was viewed as a platform for cyberbullying and (3) the use of social media itself was often framed as a kind of ‘addiction’. Future research should focus on targeting and utilising social media for promoting mental wellbeing among adolescents and educating youth to manage the possible deleterious effects.