We all know and understand how social media has completely taken over our lives. Despite knowing all the adverse effects of them, we are not ready to leave or even reduce the usage of these platforms. A recent study also confirms their impact on the mental health of the teenagers and which one is the worst of them all.
The study was conducted by the Royal Society of Public Health along with the Young Health Movement to find out how these social media platforms affect the brains of the youngsters. It was found out that Instagram and Snapchat are the worst and most dangerous for the teenagers, while, on the contrary, YouTube showed positive results.
Instagram is a Facebook-owned photo sharing app that allows the account holder to share their photos, videos, ephemeral Stories, and more such stuff with their followers. Instagram has over 700 million active users worldwide. Snapchat is a similar app with ephemeral stories, and many of the Instagram features, including the Stories, are a copy of Snapchat’s features. It also has a significant number of daily active users.
According to the study, Instagram induces negative health and wellbeing related issues like low self-esteem, lack of sleep, and poor body image. Snapchat, on the other hand, makes youngsters feel left out or bullied. Both being image-based social media platforms, they contribute to the increased feeling of anxiety and inadequacy among the young users.
The two research teams involved conducted this study on 1,500 youngsters aged between 14 and 24 in the United Kingdom. The study ranked the five most popular social media platforms in a list from most positive to most negative. It was found that YouTube is the most positive platform, which was followed by Twitter and Facebook. Snapchat and Instagram made to the last.
For helping the youngsters out, the researchers have suggested a few measures to reduce such adverse effects. There could to a popup to remind the user of overuse of the app, or the social media platform monitor the youngsters’ posts to find out about their mental health.