Sherwett Elrashidi
Beginning Statement
Social media hasn’t been around for that long. To be more specific, technology has not been around for that long either. Some people are completely new to the idea of social media, while others are very familiarized with it. This brings a lot of controversy to this topic already. Not only that, but technology can be used in so many ways, and it comes in many different forms. That brings me to the idea that it can have different type of effects on different people. A perfect example of this would be people’s mental health’s. As for technology, I will focus more on the social media aspect of it. To bring these two topics together, research will be done on how we, or “peoples” communities can help them bring together, instead of isolating them in their homes.
Previous research
In the first essay that I wrote, I found that the benefits and negatives of social media are somewhat balanced. The information that I found was specifically about teenagers. Overall, sometimes social media helped students escape reality, and allowed them to find new connections online with new people. At other times, social media puts up certain standards that teenagers might not be able to keep up with, which can negatively affect their mental health. Cyber bullying can easily always happen as well.
Research Topic Introduction
The research question I will be searching is “How can social media/technology be used more effectively to bring people with mental health problems together and help them connect (e.g. in their communities), rather than isolating them in their homes?” This topic can have serval different viewpoints, and different opinions on it. In this essay, I would like to debate/argue over the idea that there are ways for social media to be comfortable for all types of people that might have different mental health statuses. There will be 3 main points related to this essay. Beginning with manufacturing certain social media apps to be more specific towards the audience that is using it. For example, if someone only likes to see positive things, or if some people have trigger warnings about other things, it would be made specifically to fit the criteria of the person using it. The second point would be accessibility. Who should have access to see the gruesome things of the internet, when would they have access, what access would they be able to have, etc. Bringing us to our last point, support group organizations. This essay will also focus on which of these 3 methods seems the best to me, after done plenty of times worth of research on it.
What is mental health?
To begin with some background, let’s talk about what mental health is. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. In other words, it can affect the way that we act, the way that we feel, and the way that we think. No matter what stage of life you’re up to, meaning whether you’re still a child or a grown adult, mental health always matters. Now there are several things that can affect your mental health. Life experiences such as trauma or abuse that may have happened to you. There might be a family history of mental health problems as well.
What is social media?
To summarize what social media is, it is computer-based technology. It allows people to share their ideas, thoughts, and information. People can also build virtual networks with each other and communities. The way that social media was designed, gives a quick electronic communication of content. Of course, there are different types of social media. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are probably the most well-known types of social media there is out there. People view social media in different ways, meaning that some people see it as something positive and a way for people to meet new people and make new connections. Others view as something negative, where cyberbullying can happen extremely easily, and people can take advantage of you.
Manufacturing of social media
My first source is from a newspaper article (linked at the end of this paper), published by Biomedical center. The authors are Andrew Shepherd, Caroline Seders, Michael Doyle, and Jenny Shaw. This source is extremely credible and has been published from the year of 2015. This article is about a research project that has been done and has to do with the relation of the role of social media when it comes to the support of individuals mental health conditions. The way they did this research, was that they used an electronic search an identified material contributing to an online conversation with a certain #. To be more specific with how this was conducted, output from the search strategy was combined in a way, that allowed all repeated material to be eliminated. This then left the remaining textual material, and that was reviewed and studied and carefully analyzed to identify the common themes. The result was that “The present study demonstrates the utility of online social media as both a discursive space in which individuals with experience of mental disorder may share information and develop understanding.” In other words, when it comes to the engineering aspect of social media, when designed the specific way, results have shown that it can positively impact people who have mental health issues. It can bring them together as a community, and it most certainly is a place that allows people to relate to each other.
Accessibility of social media
My second source is from a magazine article (linked at the end of this paper) and is published by Monash University. The authors are Murray Brown and Chris dent. This source is reliable as well and was published during the year of 2017. This specific article talked about the type of information that Australian employers had access to. This article talks about how there can be extremely easy access to a lot of type of information that you might want. It even says “These sites generally allow users to create, download and share content, publish a profile and other personal information, and connect with others.” But when they limited access of things to see on the Internet, based off what type of person was using it, the results showed that it positively impacted them. Meaning that if someone who was more sensitive to seeing certain things because they had trigger warnings, slash trauma from seeing certain things comma it would help them out a lot. To say limiting the accessibility of social media completely, would be completely unreasonable. That is not a type of world that we live in, and therefore if there was a way to access media in a certain way for a certain type of people, it will help those people out a lot.
Support group organizations
The third article is from a website that I found, and essentially is a support group organization. This is a credible source, because this group has been around for decades, and have helped many people over the years. The reason why I chose the support group organization, is because it is from New York and that’s where I’m from. “NAMI – NYC” helps families and individuals that are affected by mental health illnesses. What I like about this support group organization, is their different services. What I mean is that they have a helpline, support groups all over New York City, including ones that are online, and they have businesses, organizations, or school presentations. They also have created a hashtag known as I will listen. The meaning behind it is that people should learn to listen with an open mind and without judgment. If we can get more support group organizations throughout different cities and different states, I think it will be extremely beneficial to people with mental health issues. On top of that we need to make sure that it’s extremely easy to access, and people should easily learn about these support group organizations.
Best Method
The best method in my opinion would have to be support group organizations. This is for an extremely simple reason. It costs the least, takes the least amount of time, the least amount of effort. What I mean by this is that when it comes to engineering of social media, specific type of people is trained to do that. This can take an extremely long time, and it can be extremely costly to hire these people who specialize in this. When it comes to the accessibility of social media, sometimes it might be hard to control certain things on the web. What I mean is that people can find ways around, and systems can get cheated. But when it comes to support group organizations, yes it takes time, and yes it takes effort, but out of all three choices it is the most rational choice.
Opposing viewpoint/Rebuttal
On the other hand, some may argue and say that social media cannot be changed to benefit those with mental health issues. In the scholarly source that I am using, research has been shown that when reducing social media use to 30 minutes a day, it lowers your level of anxiety stress and depression and loneliness. People argue that social media leads to lack of sleep and can affect people’s thoughts in a very absurd manner. In the scholarly source presented, it talks about how five and ten people have been to health issues, and that social media is doing no good in helping these mental health issues. The source starts off as talking about what mental health is. Then it talks about should how it affects different people in different countries. It quotes “There is an urgent need for action to reduce the burden of mental health disorders worldwide, and one way that this can easily be done is to limit the use of social media all around the world.” this shows that this article agrees with the idea that the limit of social media itself will help those with mental health issues.
However, although limiting social media would be a good idea, that would also get rid of the many positives that social media has. As stated before, social media can create new connections for people, people can relate to other people, and people can educate themselves selves and can inform themselves about things going on in the world, and people can help other people. When it comes to limiting the use of social media, it will most definitely get rid at least of half of these positive benefits that it has. It is not reasonable to say to limit social media, because things can be done as stated before that can help social media be beneficial for those with mental health issues. Some people really look forward to social media, and they can control themselves in a way already in which they don’t become addicted to it.
Ending statement
I found all sources, through ccny academic one file, which is a huge online database. I chose a specific filter when it came to what kind of article is it that I wanted to find. Then I simply search up key words to the topic that I am researching, in specific that would be “Using social media to support those with mental health issues.” All the sources I chose were viable because they not only were relevant to the topic at hand, but the articles I chose helped bring all my ideas together. The newspaper article specifically supports the idea of the engineering behind social media. The magazine article focuses on the accessibility part of my project. The website will help me focus of the support group organizations aspect of my research paper. This research paper allowed me to view different opinions about a controversial topic, and I found this topic very interesting to me. It allowed me to dive into research that I’ve been wanting to do for a while, but didn’t really have a good reason to do it.
Sources cited:
Model essay – https://iancui.commons.gc.cuny.edu/inquiry-based-essay/
Newspaper –
https://go-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=6&searchType=BasicSearchForm¤tPosition=1&docId=GALE%7CA541409270&docType=Article&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=ZONE-MOD1&prodId=AONE&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE%7CA541409270&searchId=R2&userGroupName=cuny_ccny&inPS=true
Magazine –
Website –
Welcome
Scholarly source –
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41345271?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=social%20media%20cannot%20help%20people%20with%20mental%20health%20issues&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dsocial%2Bmedia%2Bcannot%2Bhelp%2Bpeople%2Bwith%2Bmental%2Bhealth%2Bissues%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ae3e381a41164fd8676604a3ace1e1de3
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