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The Positive Side of Social Media

Authored by Danielle Sidman

2024 Summer Teen Advisor at the Digital Wellness Lab

When discussing mental health, social media often emerges as a topic of concern, particularly regarding its negative impacts and the suggestion that reducing exposure could improve youth mental health. However, my research over the summer while serving as a Teen Advisor to the Digital Wellness Lab, focused on the positive aspects of Instagram, and how adolescents can leverage social media to support their wellbeing. I created this poster to illustrate the positive side of social media.

The Positive Side of Social Media: • Three Positive Outcomes: Social wellbeing, Positive mental health, Self-rated health → How to Achieve These Outcomes: Being mindful of social media and phone usage allows users to achieve a positive outcome • The Best Part of Social Media: Positive relationships and social capital, self-concepts, coping, happiness, positivity, and growth • Curating your feed: 1. Training the algorithm (Apps want to show you things you will interact with) 2. Hiding or blocking negative creators or posts

The author of this article is a young person who has been engaging with the Digital Wellness Lab about topics of young people’s safety and wellbeing within digital environments. The opinions and ideas described here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions, research, or recommendations of the Digital Wellness Lab, Boston Children’s Hospital, or associates.

References

Bekalu, M. (2020). Social media use can be positive for mental health and well-being. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/social-media-positive-mental-health/

Digital Wellness Lab (2022). Our Latest Pulse Survey Results Are In!. https://digitalwellnesslab.org/articles/our-latest-pulse-survey-results-are-in/

Ferguson, S. & Wade, D. (2024). Is There a Relationship Between Social Media and Body Image?. https://www.healthline.com/health/social-media-and-body-image

Vaingankar, J. A., van Dam, R. M., Samari, E., Chang, S., Seow, E., Chua, Y. C., Luo, N., Verma, S., & Subramaniam, M. (2022). Social Media-Driven Routes to Positive Mental Health Among Youth: Qualitative Enquiry and Concept Mapping Study. JMIR pediatrics and parenting, 5(1), e32758. https://doi.org/10.2196/32758