Before officially starting their morning routine, many teen girls will lay in bed scrolling through Instagram or Tik Tok, and they catch up on the texts they got while they were sleeping. Many teens our age will hear about this and call it “normal” but what they fail to understand is the negative effect social media can have on teen girls' mental and emotional health. “People who post their body on social media make me judge myself like any girl does. You can be confident until you see other girls on instagram and then you wish you looked liked them,” says Lilly Post.
Social media affects teen girls’ mental health more than teen boys because girls have a need to fit in and they don’t want to miss out on the latest styles. Society makes you think that you need to look a certain way to be pretty or just to fit in. The biggest influences on that are TikTok and Instagram; almost every single teenager has an account on one or the other. TikTok and Instagram are platforms where you can post just about anything you want. Girls with flat stomachs and abs, pretty girls showing you all the expensive makeup they use, and what girls eat in a day are all popular video topics on those platforms. Those videos encourage girls to change their view on their own body, to change their way of doing their makeup, and change how and what they eat in a day. Social media influences a lot of beauty standards, which is not fair for everyone in the world with different body types and different cultures.
If you could go back in time and not get social media, would you do it?
“I kind of like social media, but some of these apps get exhausting.” Amanda Roling.
“Social media brought me a lot of friends, but social media has its downsides.” Lilly Post.
“I like Instagram, but I wouldn’t get Snapchat just because of all of the mean stuff people say behind the screen.” Sydney Fecht.
There is and will always be a love-hate relationship with social media, but it is what our generation grew up with. We know it has a negative impact on mental health, but it is so ingrained in our generation’s culture that it’s hard to break away from.