About 4.8 billion+ people use social media. Some think that it could be bad for your mental health for several reasons, while others think that it’s fine and harmless to use social media, but is it really?

Euro News said that they found “no evidence that heavier social media use or more frequent gaming increased symptoms of anxiety or depression over the following year.” Although pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov said “There is mounting evidence showing high rates of social media use among individuals with mental disorders, including studies looking at engagement with these popular platforms across diverse settings and disorder types.” Both articles focused on how mental health could affect your mental health, but both had different opinions on the topics.

Social media could increase feelings of depression and sadness. Others think not, saying that social media doesn’t do anything for mental health.

I asked a couple of students here at Roosevelt High School how they felt about whether social media affects mental health, and here’s what they had to say about it. The student Bella Zarate had a couple of words on the question. She said, “I think that social media affects some people’s mental health because sometimes when like you see other people online, you could sometimes compare your self woth them and you might feel less than what you really are. Also, you could feel FOMO when you see others having a better time than you, and when they hang out with friends and stuff.

The other student here at ERHS had something to say on this topic, Micha Terret agreed with Bella, saying, “I also think that social media could affect your mental health because social media could feel like a spiral of emotions and thoughts,s and sometimes it’s not good to always be scrolling and scrolling instead of talking to others and socializing.”

Both students agreed with pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.com, stating that social media does affect mental health.