Jonathan Hsueh

Psychological Impacts of Social Media Across Intersectionalities of Race and Gender

Started July 5, 2023

Abstract or project description

Abstract: Introduction: Social Media has become an integral part of our daily lives, especially among high schoolers and college students. A question all teenagers have to face is whether social media is a positive edition of our lives or a negative one. Big events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Katrina [1] show that race has a big impact on the type of quality and value we get out of social networks. Additionally, with the issue of cyberbullying and body image stereotypes [2], it is clear that gender plays a big role in your experience on social media, both positive and negative. How is the experience of social media different across race and gender? This paper discusses recent findings and well-established facts to piece together how social media is experienced differently for different races, and how the experience is different across gender.

Methods: Google Scholar was the go-to source for research papers. Our content came from a wide variety of websites, with ScienceDirect, Springer, and Oxford Academic to name a few. The way we found our content was through three different rounds of data collection; the first search query was “Social Media psychological impact,” where we found 60+ papers. Using the included factors of within 5 years, social media’s differing effects among different ethnicities, and in high school and college, we kept around 30.

Findings: People of color often struggle to form high-quality social networks due to lack of resources. When Hurricane Katrina hit, many poorer people from those communities couldn’t get donations or help from their networks [1]. People of gender minorities and with mental issues use social media as a preferred mode of communication since they can’t communicate well in other forms. People with mental health issues use social media to connect with others with the same issues and to find help. It runs the risk of prioritizing online communication over real life, and social media body comparison is extreme. Also, cyberbullying, despite being anonymous, is still a big blow to mental health [2]. A week break from social media is shown to improve mental health, wellbeing, and anxiety [3]. Cyber bullying is shown to have a relation between depressive and suicidal idealations, and the financial or other ‘status’ of perpetrators. [4] Higher levels of depressive symptoms were associated with more frequent negative emotional responses to social media. [5] If someone had a bad encounter on social media, say they saw a photo that made them jealous, or a social interaction went the wrong way, it almost always led to depressive symptoms. Interestingly, positive emotional responses did not withhold depressive symptoms; instead, it delayed signs of depression. Positive emotional responses did not guarantee a positive experience, and it did not safeguard you from depressive symptoms. In this study, gender didn’t make much of a difference. Less evidence of heterogeneity correlating to age, gender, and year of publication. All subjects’ tests showed a correlation between problematic social media use and depression, anxiety, and stress. [6] It’s very likely that no ‘group’ is safe from the negative effects (depression, anxiety, stress) of problematic social media use. Females obtained significantly higher scores on social media addiction than males (SMA) [7]

Conclusion: For children of color, exposure to topics about race and gender are double-edged swords: they help to introduce people early to important issues that get them to think critically, but it exposes them to racism and cyberbullying when they aren’t ready for it, due to age or maturity. Problematic social media usage has an almost exact causation to depressive symptoms, regardless of age, gender, or year. Young people are especially susceptible. Due to the omnipresence of depressive symptoms towards emotional reactions on social media — with young people almost always having an emotional reaction — they are most at risk of mental health issues. Social media has many positive impacts: providing a safe space for people with disabilities to communicate, connecting high-risk individuals to mental health services, and generally connecting with others. However, young people should limit their social media usage or cut most of it out. An age cap might be necessary to mitigate harmful effects of social media.