RESEARCH PAPER GUIDE
Professor: Alma Carpio
Name: Jennifer Vazquez
Date: 08/05/2018
Exercise 1.1: Discovering the Subject of Your Interest or Issue of Inquiry
Social media can be an important tool; but, research has shown that it leads to some
negative emotions as well. I have personally been affected by these negative thoughts and
feelings as have some of my friends and family. I am interested to find out if it goes beyond
those negative emotions and causes depression or suicidal ideation. My interest in this subject
comes from the widespread use of social media with youth and high depression rates among the
same age range. It is interesting to see if one causes the other, or if they truly correlate without
causation.
Some of the components that are important to this research initiative would be usage of
social media. Does more time spent on social media translate to higher rates of depression?
Through my research, it would be important to note the effects across different age groups and
how big of an effect social media truly has on depression rates. That brings up another
component that would be of interest: severity. Would the depression go beyond a minor ailment
and cause suicide? I became curious about this question after realizing that my negative
experiences with social media were not just relevant to me; it affects many users.
Exercise 1.2: Understanding the Personal Viewpoint
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My previous knowledge is primarily personal. I have experience with the situation,
because I have experienced it firsthand. As far as research knowledge goes, I have little. I know
that research has shown that social media can lead to some negative emotions and can cause
issues with self-esteem (CBHS, 2017). I also have knowledge on different social media
platforms and know people who use these services at different rates. Some use social media
frequently while others tend to use it on an as-needed basis.
Having personally gone through some negative emotions while using social media,
including issues with self-esteem, it is easy to see how someone could become depressed. I felt
like I was comparing myself to all the people I saw on social media. Everyone seemed like they
were having a great time in life—always happy. But I wasn’t always happy. So, I felt worthless;
feeling like I had to work all the time and never had time to enjoy the things other people were
doing, like taking vacations or spending time with family. This has influenced me to research
this issue because I want to know if the issues I have could get worse with prolonged use of
social media. Could we just be seeing the beginning of a terrible trend?
Although I have some personal experience, I do not have enough to be biased in the
research. It is my opinion that social media does cause some severity of depression. But, my
view will not get the way of a fair and unbiased study.
Exercise 1.3: Selecting the Focus of Your Study
For this study I am going to be focusing on individuals. Depression is an individual
experience and so is social media. Both are done alone, so they should be studied as such. I plan
to study a wide range of age groups and socioeconomic levels and I’ll take into consideration the
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amount of time spent utilizing social media functions. So, I will research both newer users of
social media and people who have been using the services for a long amount of time.
My interest in the subject comes from young adults, so if I need to narrow my scope, I
can focus on that primary age group. This group has high usage of social media and high rates of
suicide and depression. Also, it may need to be mentioned that this study, although focused on
social media, also needs to include a ‘control’ group that does not use social media. It is
important to have something in which to compare the research of depressed social-media users.
Exercise 1.5: Developing Your Interest Statement
The focus of this study is the response of an individual to social media exposure. I will be
looking primarily at the negative emotional response experienced by some users, and I will
connect it to depression and potential suicide risk. To perform this research I will be pulling from
psychological studies that include both severity of depression in relation to suicidal ideation and
social media’s relation to depression. To remain unbiased in this research, I will also present
opposing viewpoints. There are studies that show how social media can reduce depression, so it
would be important to evaluate those resources throughout this process as well. The Huffington
Post’s article entitled How Social Media Helped Me Fight Depression, is just one piece of
evidence to support my opposition. This resource is a personal plea, and I plan to use first person
resources as emotional interest in my study. Since this topic is so emotional and personal based,
it is important to not only focus on the cold-hard facts, but on the emotional journeys of
individuals as well.
Research and Null Hypothesis:
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My research question is: Does increased social media use have a corresponding effect on
depression rates among those who use it; and, does severity of depression increase as usage
increases, leading to suicidal ideation?
My null hypothesis is: Depression rates rise in correspondence with social media usage
and increased usage leads to worse depression and potential suicide.
References
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Common Thoughts in People with Depression or Low Self
Esteem. (2009, September 14). Retrieved from http://www.aliceboyes.com/depressionlow-self-esteem-thoughts/
The impact of social media on emotional health. (2017, May 17). Retrieved from
https://www.cbhs.com.au/health-well-being-blog/blog-article/2017/05/17/the-impact-ofsocial-media-on-emotional-health
Hadley, S. M. (2017, November 27). How Social Media Helped Me Fight Depression. Retrieved
from https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/how-social-media-helped-me-fightdepression_uk_5a19b255e4b0bf1467a846dd?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cH
M6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_cs=0Uuglw1Qv4pVdPE1-_nsjg
Running Head: Negative effects of social media
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Negative effects of social media
Name: Jennifer Vazquez
Professor: Alma Carpio
Date: 08/24/2018
Negative effects of social media
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Introduction
Over the past few decades, social media has tremendously depicted to be a useful tool for
channeling communications global wide. Some of the frequently used platforms include Yo
uTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook (Brooks, 2013). With the advancement of technology,
approximately 80% of people globally have access to smartphones which makes it easy for them
to access social media platforms. Despite all the positive impact social media has brought, it’s
arguably true that it has brought negative emotions to its users (Brooks, 2013). As depicted
below is a case study of whether an increase use of social media has a resultant effect on the
rates of depression among those who use it.
Body
Depression is an emotional discomfort that is correspondent from social media usage and to
some extend it leads to potential cases of suicide. Exploring the darker side of social media, you
will be astonished to learn that young adults aged 13-17 are at high risk of suicide ideation as a
result of increased depression rate. The use of social media by young people has a negative
impact on their mental health (Brooks, 2013).
Ethical issues
Negative effects of social media includes; Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), is a phenomenon that
suggest that an individual born at the era of social media platform should have access to at least
two or three different accounts so as not to “miss out” (Gibson, 2016). Social media has become
an integral part of people life. Fear of Missing Out is a negative emotional state which involves
behavior, physiological appearance and thoughts of the affected individual.
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Another negative effect of social media is anxiety and depression. Research shows that young
people aged 13-18 years spends more than 3 hours on social media per day which put them at
high risk of poor mental health disease such as psychological distress (Gibson, 2016). Spending
too long on social media platforms could affect your mood. Moods can be caused by social
media envy. Platforms such as Facebook or Instagram are full of family and friends posting new
pictures and updating their status (Gibson, 2016). We may at one point felt jealous or have
envied our friends who had many likes and many friends than you had.
Suicidal ideation
The feeling of envy many at times brought about the idea of suicide, since one fills that he/she is
alone and no one carry for him. Suicidal ideation for the young adults is mostly as a result of
cyber bulling. Cyber bulling often leaves deep mental scars to those affect and easily drives them
to commit suicide.
Age group using social media
Young adults portrays the age affected by the use of social media. A research carried out showed
individual between the ages 13 to 24 years have been negatively affected by the use of social
media. The most used Social media account by young adults is the snapchat and instagram with
approximately 71% visit the accounts multiple times.
Social media addition is among the waste effect of social media which will not only ruin you
sleeping pattern but also cause general addiction to social networks. Too much time spent on
social media causes an individual to have trouble while sleeping. Root of speeding much time on
social networks could be as a result of addiction. When a person is addicted to social media
usage, he/she will constantly be looking at their social media accounts.
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Potential bias of social media
Social media has some biases and misinformation infect which at times are accidental or
intentional to the users. Such bias includes; (1) Bias in the brain, mental biases instigate in the
way the brain processes data and information that we encounter in our daily chaos. Curiosity can
be triggered by trend of fake news on social media and cause distress (IGI Global, 2018). (2)
Bias in society, when people want to connect in the social media, they use social biases to guide
their selection of friends.
Ethical standards arising from social media usage have a potential revolution on mobile health
applications, healthcare and global health. Ethical standards emphasis on the positive impact of
social media to help mitigate and navigate away all the negative emotions associated with social
media (IGI Global, 2018).
Conclusion
In conclusion Depression rates are in correspondence with negative social media usage. An
increase in social media usage leads to depression.
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References
Brooks, S. L., & Washington State University. (2013). Social media usage: Examination of influencers
and effects.
In Gibson, S., & In Lando, A. L. (2016). Impact of communication and the media on ethnic conflict.
In Issa, T., In Isaias, P., & In Kommers, P. A. M. (2016). Social networking and education: Global
perspectives
IGI Global,, & In Information Resources Management Association,. (2018). Social media marketing:
Breakthroughs in research and practice
Running Head: PSYCHOLOGY
Professor: Alma Carpio
Name: Jennifer Vazquez
Date: 08/20/2018
PSYCHOLOGY
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Flowchart research design
The differences that exist between
groups
Are the groups under the research
study preassigned or not (YES)
Quasi-experimental
The project proposal
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