Supporting Our Valued Adolescents: A place to learn, share your strength, be positive, and grow.
It could be a notification about anything: a text from your best friend, an email, or a DM on Instagram. No matter what it is, getting that alert via vibration and/or ding! can send a wave of brief panic through...
We use the Internet to learn about, essentially, everything. All it takes is opening up the browser app of your choice or opening up a new tab, googling whatever you’re interested in, and immediately getting hundreds upon thousands upon millions of results. This can be, without a doubt, overwhelming. There’s so much information to parse through and consider, and sometimes you may find yourself going to social media sites you’re comfortable and familiar with and do the research there.
I was recently on spring break. I was so excited to be able to take some time off from my classes to see my family, pick up a few shifts at my hometown job to make a little extra money, and relax. I made a grave mistake, however: I decided to scroll through Instagram.
How many social media accounts do you have? A Pew research study from 2021 found that about 75% of adolescents aged 18-24 use Instagram and Snapchat, and an additional 50% use TikTok, creating considerable overlap between the multiple social media sites that adolescents may be using.
It may be hard for some to remember the last time that they got a proper, full night’s sleep. Schoolwork, jobs, and extracurricular activities are just a few things that can contribute to an adolescent’s hectic and busy schedule. Simply put, there aren’t enough hours in the day for people to do everything that they want, and they often sacrifice the time they should be using sleeping to get everything else done.
You’ve likely heard the phrase over and over again: don’t believe everything you see on social media. This could apply to pretty much everything online, from the content that people choose to post, how they choose to post it, what they include and leave out, and who they choose to share it with.
Social media can produce high levels of stress and anxiety. Sharing and posting aspects of your life with others is the purpose of social media, but it can lead to negative outcomes. These negative outcomes can cause a mental health concern or it can trigger an existing disorder.
Chances are, you’ve probably been guilty of caring about how well your posts are doing if you’re on social media. There’s just something so satisfying about seeing the number of views, likes, and comments build up, especially in the first few minutes of a post going live.
It’s not uncommon to be anxious to meet new people or be in a new, unfamiliar environment. It’s also not uncommon to feel terrified before performing something in front of a crowd, whether it be alone or with others. It’s also not uncommon to even feel a little bit nervous meeting people you’re comfortable with and know pretty well.
While it’s impossible to tell everyone that you’re following on any of your social media platforms what they should be posting, it can sometimes be tempting to. This is true now more than ever: there are common themes of the kinds of posts that you’ve likely seen on your feeds, and while some are more helpful than others, it can get overwhelming, stress-inducing, and quite frankly, just not the type of content that you want to see right now.
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