The topic of this research proposal is “Anxiety and Depression connected to use of Social Media in the 21st Century High-School and College Student Population.”
Ten Strategic Points Comments or Feedback
Broad Topic Area Social media is considered to be a driven factor that caused depression and anxiety among the students. In this regard, the purpose of this proposal is to identify the intensity of the social media on causing trouble in Students’ psychology. In addition to this, the discussion also incorporates an understanding regarding the role of the principals of the schools and colleges. Furthermore, the urban Boston region is identified as the sample location with a sample size of 10 students and 1 principal from each school. As a matter of fact, mix methodology is used in for collecting data from the samples. Therefore, it can be concluded that the proposal is accurate and follows the ten strategic points correctly. In other words the proposal aims to determine the association between the use of social media and the onset of depression and anxiety amid high school and college students.
Lit Review a.Background of the problem
i.Statistical reports suggest that the number of users who have access to the social network were 2.46 billion in 2017, and their proportion is expected to increase to 2.77 billion by the year 2019.
ii.One of the major issues of the present times that is playing a vital role in reshaping the world is the accessibility of the common public to the internet.
iii.Social media is one of the most utilized facets of the World Wide Web and exists in different forms such as, forums, blogs, business networks, social gaming, chat applications, and social networks.
iv.Due to the rapid use of social media it is become a common psychological disorder among the young and adults and hampering their natural sleep that leads to mental disorder and blockage (Woods & Scott, 2016).
v.According to Andreassen et al., (2016) poor sleep quality can cause anxiety and depression among the young and adults. Moreover, the vulnerability of continuous surfing on social media creates low self-esteem and self-centredness.
vi.In the studies, Guntuku et al., (2017) showed that depression became a common phenomenon among the students because continuous surfing on the social media leads them to develop a poor self-esteem or over confidence. As a result of that when they failed to accomplish something then it affected them emphatically.
b.Theoretical foundation
i.It can be argued that the perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness are the primary theory behind depression that leads to suicide tendency among the victims (Blease, 2015).
ii.Research evidences have also suggested that social media use is responsible for a range of problems such as, low self-esteem, poor patterns and quality of sleep, depression, and anxiety (Woods & Scott, 2016).
iii.On the other hand, Ma et al., (2016) advocated that after the advent of the social media it became a chronic disease among the youths to get suffered with the social media. In this context, Kleiman, Liu and Riskind (2014) propounded the theory of ‘Facebook depression’.
iv.Besides this, Joormann and Vanderlind (2014) puts more focus on the cognitive and socio-cultural foundations that are responsible for the indiscriminate erection of depression and anxiety.
c.Review literature
i.Limited use of the social media is necessary for the young generation in order to reduce depression and anxiety. However it has to be noted that in the modern day concept, using the social media in a limited or educed amount is not possible. This is mainly because of the fact that in the 21st century. Students often study by using the social media platforms. Majority of the schools and colleges have digitalized form of education. They have to make sure that the students are not getting addicted to the same.
ii.Families must also make sure that they are being very free and frank with their children and helping them to understand the good and the bad aspects of the social and online media. They have to make sure that the high school students and the college students must be sharing about their feelings of being active on social media.
iii.The schools and college authorities must put more emphasis on the reason behind depression and anxiety among the students. The school authorities must not use any strict or unfriendly means to deal with these problems. They must be very polite and supportive towards the students. They have to make sure that their approach is for the benefit of their students. They must also try to conduct some counseling sessions that will help the students in understanding the proper methods of using their social sites or the online media sites. These counseling sessions or the intervention programs must take place with the complete consent of the students. The school and the college authorities have to make sure that they are involving the family members of their students within these intervention processes.
iv.It requires government initiatives in order to deal with the growing negative impact of the depression and anxiety among the students. Some regulations and enactment will be beneficial to prevent indiscriminate use of social media.
v.Implementation of effective psychological evaluation process should be installed in the educational institutions because of setting up awareness regarding the adverse impact of social media.
Summary
i.Gap: It is important to procure a framework regarding the evaluation of the mental stability and the reaction of the authority. The earlier researches were mainly done talking about the negative impacts of social media usages that causes depressions and anxiety. However there are also some applications through which the high school students can also get rid of their depressions and their anxiety. There are several tensions that may arise in their lives and they might not be able to share them properly with their parents or anyone around them. In such cases it is obvious that they can try to find some outlets through the social media. However the earlier researches have not really dealt with this part. Thus, we will be dealing with this in our future researches.
ii.It has also been seen that, previously many of the researches were mainly done by using the qualitative method. Thus, there is a problem that those researches may not have taken the opinion or the feedbacks of the students in this current scenario. It is for this reason that we have thought of using the qualitative method in this and also in the rest of the researches that will be coming up in future.
iii.Prior Studies: The previous researches and literatures are addressed the reason behind the anxiety and depression among the youths and the adults but failed to address any remedies to prevent the indiscriminate use of social media.
iv.Quantitative study: The research puts emphasis on the quantitative study by collecting data and information from the students and college and school authorities. Previous researches have been done by using the qualitative method. As a result of this, we have taken the quantitative form in this research.
v.Significance: The purpose of this proposal is not only identifying the intensity of the social media on students’ psychology but also figure out the possible remedies in order to prevent psychological disorder among the students due to use of social media.
Problem Statement The relationship between social media and psychology of the students is unknown and subjected to further research and based on it the report will discuss whether there is any adverse impact of social media on the students.
Research Questions a.R1: What are the impacts of social media on the psychology of the students?
b.R2: What are the impacts of social media on the self-esteem of high school and college students?
c.R3: How does the use of social media affect sleep outcomes among the high school and college students?
Sample a.Location: Boston
b.General Population: Students using social media
c.Target population: All students from high schools and colleges in urban Boston
d.Sample: 10 students, each selected across ten high schools and colleges from urban Boston Number of observation for each school: From each school and college, 10 students will be selected and categorized into different groups.
Describe Phenomena (qualitative) or Define Variables/ Hypotheses (quantitative) a. H1A: There is a significant relationship between the growing anxiety and depression of the students and the role of social media in it.
b.H1A0: Social media does not play any role in the onset of anxiety and depression among students.
c.H2A: Social media lowers the self-esteem of the students
d.H2A0: Self-esteem among students is not influenced by their usage of social mediaH3A: Night-time use of social media results in poor sleep quality among the students. However there can also be the same effect that the students can suffer during the day time. Depression is something that can affect the individuals at any point of the day and not only during the night time.
e.H3A0: There is no relationship between the use of social media and sleep outcomes
Methodology & Design The research will be a quantitative study where the statistical analysis of the responses provided by the student will help in establishing the correlation between social media use and the primary outcomes. The students will be provided online version of three different diagnosis scales and/or questionnaires, each for one research objective that will contain closed ended questions, and help in coding their responses in numerical and statistical forms.
Purpose Statement The purpose of this research is to understand the impact of social media on the student behaviour such as, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and sleep patterns.
Data Collection Approach The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale will be used for data collection.
Data Analysis Approach a.Following administration of the questionnaires to the students, their responses shall be collected.
- Mean and standard deviation will be calculation for each variable namely, sleep quality, anxiety, depression and self-esteem.
Correlation coefficient will determine the association between the variables
References
Andreassen, C. S., Billieux, J., Griffiths, M. D., Kuss, D. J., Demetrovics, Z., Mazzoni, E., & Pallesen, S. (2016). The relationship between addictive use of social media and video games and symptoms of psychiatric disorders: A large-scale cross-sectional study. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 30(2), 252.
Blease, C. R. (2015). Too many ‘friends,’too few ‘likes’? Evolutionary psychology and ‘Facebook depression’. Review of General Psychology, 19(1), 1.
Guntuku, S. C., Yaden, D. B., Kern, M. L., Ungar, L. H., & Eichstaedt, J. C. (2017). Detecting depression and mental illness on social media: an integrative review. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 18, 43-49.
Joormann, J., & Vanderlind, W. M. (2014). Emotion regulation in depression: The role of biased cognition and reduced cognitive control. Clinical Psychological Science, 2(4), 402-421.
Kleiman, E. M., Liu, R. T., & Riskind, J. H. (2014). Integrating the interpersonal psychological theory of suicide into the depression/suicidal ideation relationship: A short-term prospective study. Behavior therapy, 45(2), 212-221.
Ma, J., Batterham, P. J., Calear, A. L., & Han, J. (2016). A systematic review of the predictions of the Interpersonal–Psychological Theory of Suicidal Behavior. Clinical psychology review, 46, 34-45.
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Statista. (2018). Number of social network users worldwide from 2010 to 2021 (in billions). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/.
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Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). # Sleepyteens: social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Journal of Adolescence, 51, 41-49.
Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). # Sleepyteens: social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Journal of Adolescence, 51, 41-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.05.008
