Essay Draft 3
Chen Xinzhu
In today’s society there is an increasing trend that social media websites are causing anxiety among users. It is normal to notice that when young people posting a cute photo on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or other social media websites, they keep on checking every few minutes or hours to see whether their posts have been liked or shared. This phenomenon reflects that frequently using the social media actually makes people feel inadequate and creates excessive fear and pressure. Such social anxiety has been termed “social media anxiety disorder.” It is gradually acquired when an individual frequently uses social media, and this in turn adversely affects that person’s mental health. While the most vulnerable group would be teenagers and young adults who are usually not very self-disciplined and not always being capable to control themselves, it is the responsibility of parents and school counselors to help them better understand the negative impact of using social media and meanwhile, to conduct some effective programs for those problematic students so as to minimize the social media anxiety disorder.
Such phenomenon is especially prominent in the U.S. where half of the adults and three-quarters of all teenagers are active social networking site (SNS) users, and it has been highlighted that after alcoholism and depression, social anxiety disorder is the third largest psychological disorder in the U.S. (Hampton, Goulet, Marlow, & Rainie, 2012). Because today’s society has been shifted to be technology and internet dependent, people will be shocked if someone never use social media at all, and a recent study conducted by the University of Bergen in Norway reports that people who are more anxious and socially insecure are more likely to use the social networking site (Andreassen, 2012), an another study released by non-profit Anxiety UK indicates that people do feel anxious and uncomfortable if they are unable to log into their social networking accounts (Fitzgerald, B. 2012). These facts reflect how serious social media anxiety disorder is and the situation may become worse.
To minimize and address the negative impact of using social media, one possible solution is that parents and schools should focus on limiting the time that their children and students spent on social media, meanwhile they should encourage them to unplug for extended days. By disconnecting the young people from SNS for certain periods of time, the level of social media anxiety disorder can be reduced comparatively. Greater improvement will be obtained with longer time staying away from social media. If a child is getting no substantial return from using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter throughout the whole day, he should cut ties with social media websites purposely for certain periods of time, so as to limit the usage of social networking sites. Currently, there are some applications and tools available, which assist parents and schools to control the time that their children spend on social media networks. For instance, Rescue Time’s website is designed to control the time that users would have spent on social media to be within 4 hours per week. This program is also capable to ban certain websites, and track and log how many times one spends on particular websites that have been specified. Additionally, another useful application is Facebook Limiter, which is created to disconnect users from Facebook and YouTube. It is especially beneficial for parents who have children with serious problems of social media anxiety, since with assistance of this software, they are empowered to block Facebook entirely, restrict the time of using Facebook or make it accessible only at a specific time in a day (French, 2012). Social media anxiety can be progressively treated if a child can control himself very well and unplug from the social media websites for extended days.
There is no denying that applications designed to limit the time of using social media websites can serve to assist young people to be better self-controlled so as to achieve higher realization in solving social media anxiety. However, this may not be effectively conducted, as not every child has the equal power to control and discipline themselves routinely. Whether the social media anxiety can be effectively solved or not is mainly depending on children’s awareness and self-control capability. Therefore, educators, school counselors and parents can consider the cognitive methods and work together to develop some programs involving cognitive education so as to address this problem through a more effective manner.
“Cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) is a form of treatment that focuses on examining the relationships between thoughts, feelings and behaviors.” (Duckworth & Freedman, 2012) It is used to help young people understand and become aware of the adverse consequences of adequately using social media websites and knowing that emotions like waves are temporary and fluctuated. CBT permits changes within addictive young users’ brains, so that they can think and treat social media differently and gradually release themselves from over-participation in social media sites. Unlike the traditional therapies, CBT ensures the patient to actively work together to help the patient recover from their mental illness. (Duckworth & Freedman, 2012) Through fully carrying out cognitive behavioral therapy, young people who have similar social media anxiety issues are engaged in practical activities that are normally anxiety-causing, and proceed in a flexible and scheduled way (Richards, T.). By continuous practicing and repeating, the anxious feeling will be gradually reduced and a better outcome obtained. CBT affects young people’s brain operating processes, making them feel, think and behave differently. Children and young adults can be released from social media anxiety disorder by keeping on practicing and developing this method which treats them mentally and cognitively, and this is the root that can lead to behavioral control in using social media websites. Therefore, school counselors and psychologist can employ such cognitive strategies and develop some relative programs to help problematic children and young people release from social media anxiety disorder.
In conclusion, social media is indeed creating anxiety among young people and kids with an increasing trend. To effectively minimize this problem, educators, teachers and school psychologists can conduct cognitive therapies, strategies and concepts to train their students to be more self-disciplined and controlled in using social media websites.
(Words 1027)
References
Fitzgerald, B. (2012, December 7). Social media is causing anxiety, study finds. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/10/social-media-anxiety_n_1662224.html
Social Media Anxiety Disorder. (2015, February 7). Retrieved from: http://etec.ctlt.ubc.ca/510wiki/Social_Media_Anxiety_Disorder
Farfan Jr., G. (2012, November 18). Running Head: SOCIAL ANXIETY IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL NETWORKS Social Anxiety in the Age of Social Networks. Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/7234612/Running_Head_SOCIAL_ANXIETY_IN_THE_AGE_OF_SOCIAL_NETWORKS_Social_Anxiety_in_the_Age_of_Social_Networks
French, A. (2012, April 3). Boost your productivity by blocking yourself! Retrieved from http://www.sheknows.com/living/articles/955407/programs-that-limit-your-time-on-social-media
Richards, T. (n.d.). Comprehensive Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy For Social Anxiety Disorder. Retrieved from: https://socialanxietyinstitute.org/comprehensive-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-social-anxiety-disorder
Whiteman, H. (2014, April 16). Social media: How does it really affect our mental health and well-being? Medical News Today. Retrieved from: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/275361.php
Duckworth, M.D, K., & Freedman, M.D., J. (Eds.). (2012, July 1). Treatments & Services. Retrieved from: http://www2.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Inform_Yourself/About_Mental_Illness/About_Treatments_and_Supports/Cognitive_Behavioral_Therapy1.htm
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