social networks

Social networks affect young people and children.

link between poor mental health in young people.

A 16 year old boy was referred to him after he injured himself and ended up in A&E.

"My first thought was to put him on antidepressants, but I had a conversation with him and it seemed to me that his use of social media was having a negative impact on his health."

So, Dr. Chatterjee suggested a simple solution: the adolescent should try to disconnect from social networks, limiting himself to just one hour before going to bed.

Over the course of a few weeks, you should extend this to two hours in the evening and two in the morning.

"He reported a significant improvement in his well-being and, after six months, I received a letter from his mother saying he was happier at school and integrated into the local community."

That and similar cases have led him to question the role that social networks play in the lives of young people.

"Social media is having a negative impact on mental health," he said. "I think it's a big problem, and I think we need some rules. How do we educate society to use technology to help us rather than harm us?"

He is not alone. A group of child welfare experts from The United States recently wrote to the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to shut down Messenger Kids, a messaging app developed for children, saying it was irresponsible to encourage tweens to use the platform.

He cited evidence of teenagers reporting severe mood swings due to social media use and girls as young as 10 years old facing body image issues due to images being bombarded on platforms such as Facebook, owned by Instagram.

A 2017 study by the Royal Society of Public Health. asked 1,500 young people between the ages of 11 and 25 to track their moods while using the five most popular social networking sites.

He suggested that Snapchat and Instagram were the most likely to inspire feelings of inadequacy and anxiety. YouTube had the most positive influence.

Seven in 10 said Instagram made them feel worse about body image and half of 14-24 year olds reported that Instagram and Facebook exacerbated feelings of anxiety. Two-thirds said Facebook made cyberbullying worse.

The study led Shirley Cramer, executive director of RSPH, to call for three specific changes:

• a pop-up notification when a young person has spent a certain amount of time online
• a watermark on photos that have been digitally manipulated
• school lessons on how to use social networks in a healthy way

She concluded, "Social networks have become a space in which we form and develop relationships, shape our identity, express ourselves and learn about the world around us, it is intrinsically linked to mental health."

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Consultant psychiatrist Louise Theodosiou says one of the clearest indications that children spend too much time on their phones is their behavior during a session with a psychiatrist.

"Two or three years ago, it was very rare for a child to answer their phone or text message during an appointment. But now it's common," said the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital physician.

She has seen an increase in cases where social networking is a contributing factor to teen depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. These problems are often complex and varied, ranging from excessive use of games or social networking sites to feelings of inadequacy brought on by a constant bombardment of images of other people's lives on social networks, to cyberbullying.

"In the last fortnight I have had two children request additional appointments because of online bullying," Dr. Theodosiou told the BBC.

"Some children deliberately lose or break their phones just to end up with distressing messages."

Teens who dare to express alternative views, particularly about "diverse sexuality," expose themselves to the risk of a torrent of abuse on platforms like Twitter, she says. And online bullying can have a more intense effect than playground taunts.

"At school, any offline bullying would be limited to that environment, but on the computer at home it starts to feel like you're being bullied in your own room," Dr. Theodosiou said.

One of the groups he is most concerned about, one he describes as "thankfully, rare," are kids who have simply stopped going because of their online addiction to social media, gaming platforms, or both.

Often, these children refuse to travel to appointments with a psychiatrist, so a range of professionals have to make home visits to treat the problem. It can take months to persuade them to leave their rooms.

"These children live in a fictional world, sometimes to the detriment of their physical health. They may have poor physical health, such as toothache, but they still don't want to leave their virtual worlds," he said.

Dr. Theodosiou has seen firsthand how difficult it can be for parents. She has heard that some sleep with the home router to make sure children can't connect to the wi-fi network in the middle of the night.

Even for those children whose use of social media can be considered normal, there are still dangers in the way the Internet has become a conduit into the lives of friends and celebrities.

"Young people have a need to compulsively look at others and get upset because they feel their lives are not like that," Dr. Theodosiou said.

"My sense is that they think their friends have better lives than they do, even though they are only seeing an idealized version of others' lives."