Social Media in the Pandemic

Over the past decade, social media’s influence and impact on society has grown exponentially. Social media was developed in the early 2000s, thus most high school students’ childhood has coincided with the rise of these platforms. With nearly millions of daily active users, platforms like Instagram have slowly started influencing society and hooking its users through features such as the infinite scroll, which allows you to scroll endlessly on your feed with new content as you go, and push notifications, which draw you in by taunting you with a “direct message” or “like.” 

So what happens when we go into a national shelter-in-place, and everyone is stuck within their homes? Without the distraction of what was once considered “normal life” (school, work, sports etc.), teens have spent increasingly more time on these platforms. A 2020 report from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago revealed that, according to the nearly 3,000 parents surveyed, 63% of teens are using social media more than they did pre-pandemic (TechRepublic). 

 On the one hand, this usage is justified, as social media allows you to connect with others, despite physical distance. On the other hand, excessive social media usage can be extremely dangerous. In a time that is isolating and lonely, many teens become dependent on social media to fill the voids of the pandemic. As a result of this, many teens find themselves falling down the social media “rabbit hole.” This rabbit hole has many facets: comparing yourself to others, feeling left out socially, reevaluating your own social media presence, and much more. Dr. Harold Koplewicz of the Child Mind Institute describes teens’ new existence as “plagued by loss: the loss of school, the loss of social experience, the loss of academic accomplishment, the loss of extracurricular activities, and the loss of freedom” (USAToday). While social media feels like a short-term answer to fill these gaps, this obsession ultimately elevates depression, hopelessness, and anxiety among many teens, as they experience the negative facets of the “social media rabbit hole”.

Finding the balance between healthy and unhealthy social media usage can be difficult. In lonely and unprecedented times like these, digital connection can either be our biggest ally or greatest enemy. While platforms like Instagram and Snapchat allow us to stay in touch with those we love, it is important to find alternative methods of communication as well. Some methods to finding the right middle ground include limiting the amount of hours you can access these apps, or making sure you are in a good mental space when going on them. But it is ultimately up to us to decide how we utilize social media to our advantage.