SOCIAL MEDIA DEPRESSION

In this generation of social media revolution in regards to multimedia, there is no doubt that many people are connected to social media platforms such as Facebook, twitter, Instagram or WhatsApp extensively for the purpose of communication, connecting with other people around the world and to be informed. Social media of today has become a way of life to this 21^st century generation people around the world that without it, there is nothing much to be done making people become lazy. In fact children as young as three years old have their own iPads and phones (mostly in developed countries like UK, USA) that they are even able to access social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube, they are further referred to as “Social Media generation” implying on the excessive use of social media sites (Charlotte Kirk-Patrick and Roxanne Steijn 2014). According to (Pelt 2016), social media depression can be caused by users seeing status updates, wall posts, tweets, photos and selfies that may make them feel unpopular on social media sites, she further stated that social media can contribute to depression on three ways which include, bullying, comparison with others and influencing self-worth.

Bullying in this case can happen when friends post insulting statements about others, upload embarrassing photos such as nude pictures and also give negative comments on their posts (Pelt 2016) so that the victim feels bad, in a such away someone feels so sad hence become depressed, this may definitely lead to mental disorder of someone by feeling that he or she is not loved. Comparison with others is something common to everyone but this depends on how and why someone compares him or herself to the other, in this case teenagers start comparing themselves by seeing the posts of their friends on Facebook such as vacations, birthday parties, weddings and start feeling jealous and bad as why they can’t afford what their friends are affording hence become depressed. In addition to that, influencing self-worth, this can also refer low self-esteem where by someone feels unhappy and negative about oneself for example when oneself posts something on Facebook and doesn’t get likes, this may cause him or her depression in a sense of self-worth from the friends not liking his or her posts, nevertheless this can be avoided by reading inspiring books and watching movies.

Social media depression and social media bullying is real and it is there to stay.