subject research

1. Social Media
Social media refers to a computer-based technology that facilitates the sharing of ideas,
thoughts and information through virtual networks and communities. Social media is the
internet based and gives users quick electronic communication of content, personal
information, videos and photos. Social media users normally access the media through web-
based apps on desktops or download the services that offer the same social media services.
The early development of social media began with simple platforms, one of the earliest
forms of social media SixDegrees, this social media platform was the first online business
that was created for people, using their real names. SixDegrees is also ‘widely considered to
be the very first social networking site’. As it included many new features such as profiles,
friends list, by 2015 22% of the world spent their online time on social networks. As of
October 2020 4.08, billion people were active on their social media accounts daily. Social
media has both positive and negative impacts on people’s mental health, I would like to
show both sides in my documentary. The increase in the use of social media over the last
decade has caused a huge spike in the amount of time people spend online and on their
phone. In 2020 it was found that young people in the EU spent up to 2-3 and a half hours a
day online.
Mental Health
Social media can be used both in a positive way but also in a negative way, it can be used to
simply contact friends/ family members but can also be a subject to bullying or used to
spread false rumours. In a study that was completed by Pew, it found that young people see
social media as a negative thing rather than a positive. In today’s society many people rely
on social media such as snapchat, TikTok, Facebook to find a way to connect with friends
and family. With social media having good sides there also is bad elements to it. With the
overuse of social media, it can cause serious mental health problems like anxiety and
depression, if people are spending an excessive amount of time on social media, they may
start to experience a feeling of sadness, dissatisfaction, frustration or loneliness. One way
that social media can have an effect on your mental health is feeling changes about your life
or appearance. Many people online and celebrities like to show their life in a more
extravagant way that it actually is and manipulate the image to make it seem better. As well
as changing images of places some influencers manipulate the way their body looks in
images to make themselves look ‘better’ in today’s society standards, this has caused many
people to become insecure of their own bodies and how they look. Another way that social
media ha effected the users negatively is cyberbullying, about 10% of teenagers have
reported being bullied on social media and other online users are vulnerable to other
offensive comments. One of the social media platforms that is the worst for bullying and
hateful comments is Twitter, Twitter can cause hateful rumours and abuse that cause major
emotional harm to a person.
However, social media can also have positive effects on a user, one of the positive effects is
staying in contact with friends. During lockdown this was one of the main uses of social
media as we couldn’t see people in person so the only way, we could have talked to people
was through social media. With social media and online services like Google we have quick

2. access to any information that we want that would have been harder to find without it. Not
only is their quick access to information but there are also many sources to find the
information from. Another positive effect that social media has on people is spreading news
throughout the media, this could be serious news like crime cases or local news that they
would need to know in their community.