final podcast - 15, lauryn ramos

Lauren and Cecily discuss the impact of social media dependency, particularly on mental health. They mention a study that found young adults who used more social media sites had a higher risk of depression and anxiety. They attribute the rise in mental health disorders among Gen Z to their reliance on social media, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. They also discuss the spread of false news and misinformation on social media, as well as the positive impact on businesses and the economy through advertising. They conclude that the negatives of social media dependency outweigh the positives, as it hinders social skills and contributes to mental health issues. Hello everybody. My name is Lauren Ramos and this is my English 1302 podcast. My name is Cecily Garcia. I am her cousin. I'm also a student here at Tech. I'm a freshman. Yeah, we're both freshmen. And so today, my topic is social media dependency. You kind of know what that topic is? Yes. So, to start us off, what is your angle on the uses of social media? How I view it, I feel like social media can really be positive or negative. I want to say mostly negative, but it really just depends on how you as an individual or other people as individuals use it and what information you put out there for the world. Okay. Do you think social media dependency is the main cause of mental disorders? Yeah, I feel like that's probably one of the main reasons for why so many, especially our younger generation, I feel like there's a lot of people who use social media to dictate how they view themselves. And I feel like that can instill a lot of self-consciousness and insecurities. So, yeah, I would say that social media has a big part in mental health, especially with younger generations like our generation. So, leading off on that, I want to tell you about this research that I did. And so for the research, the website is the Psychiatric News, and I'll leave the link in my outline. But it's basically this study, and so they had like 11 social media sites. And so it was like the main ones, like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, all those. And so basically they gathered these people. So it was like, I don't want to give you the wrong amount. They gathered 1,787 young adults, and they made them take the survey. And the survey showed that those who used 7 to 11 of those sites had more than three times the risk of depression and anxiety than those who only used 0 to 2. And so, sorry, that's not funny. So adding on to that, this was for Gen Z, by the way, if I didn't mention that. So that survey was on Gen Z young adults. And so basically Gen Z were at the peak of the mental health disorders like depression, anxiety, the thoughts and all that stuff. And so I feel like part of that reason, and something we can talk about, is because personally I think it all started whenever COVID hit. Because if you think about it, once COVID hit, we were very young, actually. How old were we? We were probably like 14, 15. We were barely in the teens. And we basically grew up on social media since then. That's when social media really hit. Before that, TikTok really wasn't a big thing. And so I feel like us being technically more basically raised on social media, it's just caused us to have all of these false images and body concerns and mental health disorders. And I feel like that's the main reason why Gen Z has the peak of it all. More than the millennials, more than the baby boomers, etc. Yeah. No, not really. Yeah, I agree. Especially because we were all in quarantine all the time. That's all we could do. All we could do was feed off of it. The only interactions that we got with the outside world, literally the entire world, was through our phones. Which is kind of sad because it really ruined how we interact with people in person and how we communicate, the knowledge that we get, the information that we get. And so, sorry, do you have anything else to say for that? Not really. No, not really. I feel like you kind of touched on everything. Okay. The next one was the spread of false news, which I think is also a really big one. And false news, false visuals, and stuff like that. Do you have anything you want to add to that? I feel like I'm going to use the solar eclipse as an example. On the 8th, when we had the solar eclipse, everybody all over social media, not even just TikTok, because I know TikTok is one of the mainstream social media that we use for news, basically. If I need to Google something, look something up, and I don't want to just go to Google, I literally just go to TikTok and search it up. When this solar eclipse came, there were so many people on TikTok and Facebook, especially, only because it was older generations that were kind of speaking out about it. But everybody was like, oh my god, the world is going to end. Not to tie this into religion, but everyone was like, oh, Jesus is coming, the end times are coming, we're all going to die. And I feel like, it's just crazy. And a lot of people, I want to use the word naive, they're so naive and so easily persuaded. And believe everything they see on social media. And it's crazy, because that can go from a little small thing to this huge ordeal. And it gets out of hand really fast. Yeah, that's true. So tying into misinformation, we'll kind of go on the positive side. The only thing that I have to say that's positive about this is that the businesses and the economy really benefits off of social media. And I say that just because of basically advertising. And so there's another article that I read that stated that companies in the US alone obtained 60 to 80% of their revenue just solely from advertising. Yeah, and I feel like that also kind of connects into COVID. You couldn't just go out and shop. And so I feel like COVID is when everything kind of started to develop. People were like, oh crap, people can't just go out and go to the store and buy what they want. We need to bring our products and our stuff online so that people have access to that. And then I feel like it just skyrocketed from there. We literally just go online shopping. If we need something, we go on Amazon. If we need something, go online and go look at a boutique. That was the only option. Yeah, and then I feel like that kind of ties back into the negative part because that's basically what addiction is. We spend so much time there, and that's all we want to do. That's all we want to do day in, day out. And so I feel like the business and economy kind of know that, and so they're kind of taking advantage of it. Yeah. And so I feel like that's just another— Because we've gotten so accustomed to literally being on our phones 24-7. Yeah, exactly. And we can't even go in stores because we're like, oh, we'll just do it online. We don't have to see anybody. Yeah. And so I think that's the issue. Social media dependency really has a major, big impact on the way we interact in person and human interaction. Yeah. And so another thing is the—so not false news, but the way news spreads kind of. And so I have this visual, this example that I made up, and so I really don't have any— Anyways, so I have this visual that I made up. So let's say something so—sorry, it's about news. I'm trying to figure out how to say this. So let's say a product like Sprite. Let's say Sprite accidentally had these bad, harmful chemicals in them that if you drank it, you're going to die immediately. So let's say in today's time—or no, let's say back in the time when there was no social media, no news, like no live news really, which I guess there kind of was, but like where you got your news from a newspaper or something. So let's say you went home that day with your Sprite, popped open like two cans, you and your whole family drank it, and then like two days later, whenever the mail comes, like that's whenever you finally find out and read about it, you know? And so I feel like the benefit part with social media is that you'll get news faster. So like let's say you go buy that Sprite, like literally ten minutes later, like whenever they find out, like you can look at your phone and you have the world at your fingertips. You can look at your phone and find out instantly and be like, oh, maybe I don't want to even buy it or maybe I'll just throw it out, you know? Yeah, but I feel like the such fast like spread of news can also be negative. Especially like I know like a while back, like on social media, like everybody was like, they were talking about like a decision that like somebody like a governmental, I don't even know, person, figure, like made a decision or said something like to the public and then like people turned that around and was like, oh, like he said this, he said this, he said this. It's going to start a war, like I feel like the fast spread of information like causes like panic. Yeah, and I also feel like information coming from social media and news can't really be reliable unless you like dive deeper into like the sources and stuff like that. So like even see if it's credible enough to believe, which I think is like another negative thing is like anybody can post anything nowadays and like you said, we're so naive that we'll believe like the first thing that we see, you know? Yeah, and it's like so hard to find like credible sources because you, I mean, you know, like when you're doing like a project and like you can't look at Wikipedia or you can't look at like, or like your professors like encourage you to like look at websites that and look.org. Yeah, or like the lock. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of exactly where I was going with that. And so I feel like overall, like social media and dependency, social media dependency does have its positives, but I feel like the negatives outweigh the positives way more like entirely. Like I feel like, because like positively like, oh, like you can get information faster. Like, oh, I can shop online. Like stuff is more accessible. Yeah, but then things is more accessible. Being so dependent on that not only like increases your social skills, it like just brings down the community in general or like as a whole, because like, let's say like everybody's doing that, then you're going to have a weakened, broken community. Yeah. And then I also feel like whenever we rely so much on what we see on social media, like the body images or like what we think is beautiful is or what famous people look like and how skinny they are. Like, I feel like that causes just so many mental health disorders like depression, anxiety and mental health. I mean, mental health care workers really don't understand it fully to their best, you know, so it's kind of hard for people to find that help. Yeah, I feel like that's like a whole nother different like conversation that could just go on forever. And how like social media and how like people on social media can like, even if they don't mean it like in a negative way, like big like creators or big celebrities like go on social media and they post all this stuff. And then like, like the Kardashians are like people like take it into like, oh, well, celebrity, all the celebrities look like this and all these big like creators look like this. Like, I need to look like that, too. And then, like you said, it's a domino effect of horrible thing. And then, yeah, stuff like depression happens, anxiety, like you get self-conscious, you get insecure. Yeah. Then you like worry about like what other people are thinking about you, you worry about what you post on social media, you worry about how people perceive you. So like, it's just. Yeah, it's just really dangerous. Social media dependency is a really dangerous road to go down. And so I feel like we should just make the community, especially adults of Gen Z. Because Gen Z, like I said in that study, is most impacted by this. So I feel like we should let the parents and providers and Gen Z know so that they can prevent this from happening to Gen Alpha. That's a whole other thing to Gen Alpha's iPad kids. But maybe we can get into that on a different project. No, literally. But yes, I think it's just really good to inform the parents of young adults just so that they can be aware of it and they can try and just see like all the impacts that it has. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, that's my short podcast. Shorter version. And so, yeah, well, thank you for listening to my podcast and I hope you gave me a good grade. Hopefully I hit all the points. But we did a longer one. I'm sorry. I'm just talking to you now. But we did a longer one and it was like an hour long. So then we had to redo it. But this is the shorter version and I hope we hit all the points that we need to. Please. Thank you, Cecily, for doing this. Please give her an A for effort. Thank you for having me on your podcast. Bye. Bye.