Impact of Social Media on Young Minds: Causes and Strategies to Minimize the Impact in the UK

Dissertation & PHD
Thesis
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Table of Content.
TITLE..............................................................................................................................................2
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................3
Background of the Research........................................................................................................4
Rationale of the Research............................................................................................................4
Significance of the problem.........................................................................................................5
Statement of the purpose.............................................................................................................5
Research Aim...............................................................................................................................5
Research Objectives.....................................................................................................................6
Research Questions......................................................................................................................6
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW..................................................................................6
Notion and role of social media among population in the UK....................................................6
Causes and impacts of social media on the young mind in the UK............................................9
Strategies or ways used to minimize the impact of social media on the young mind within UK
...................................................................................................................................................12
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY................................................................14
Research philosophy..................................................................................................................14
Research approach.....................................................................................................................15
Research strategy.......................................................................................................................15
Research Design........................................................................................................................16
Data collection...........................................................................................................................17
Sampling....................................................................................................................................17
Reliability..................................................................................................................................18
Validity......................................................................................................................................18
Ethics.........................................................................................................................................19
Limitation of the Research.........................................................................................................19
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS..........................................................20
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS............................................25
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................29
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TITLE
“Impact on social media on a young mind".
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Social media mainly refers to the collective term that is used among various websites as well
as uses those to concentrate over the communication that is effective and can lead to produce a
great influence over sharing the effective information among the huge population. Due to use of
various applications, it can lead to produce a great influence over the people where the young
generation is greatly influenced. In this, there are great number of publics who are generally
greatly influenced via the social media. At this point, the social media generally gets into their
mind where they usually like to share everything which are occurring within their life. The
concept of social media has particularly made to get socialize with the other in few seconds in
order to save the time to get linked via various platform. In addition to this, there are numerous
cases that are effective as well as can lead to produce great influence on the delivery of various
thoughts within their mind. There are various young people who are influenced due to getting
various different perspectives about different topics. It can lead to produce both negative or
positive impression over any of the person or any substance as well. In addition, these are quite
effective as well as can lead to produce a negative influence over their mind which are greatly
linked with their altering behaviours and thoughts as well. The concept of social media generally
has a great impact on over the young generation where they specifically like to stay smart as well
as generally seems to look better than any other people. In order to achieve such types of
impression, they usually perform various activities that may be not positive for them or other and
sometimes these can lead to the high consequences as well (Jones and Davison, 2021).
It is generally determined that adolescence is a stage of both the social and cultural
formation, it is generally the most critical juncture for the children and the youth as well. If there
were no appropriate guidance, care as well as the follow-up from the adolescent families as well
as their school, the teenagers in their quest to improve a sense of the specific social identity,
generally spend most of their time in thinking, can review as well as reflecting upon the general
behaviours and values as well which are being observed. In this, individuals should decide how
they can succeed in the friendships with their peers, can exercise their social roles as appropriate
as well as can choose among the various beliefs, notions and options which will provide them a
sense of various and independent existence mainly working to raise their own future. Within this,
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the crisis of the social identity is generally considered as a main issue among people that should
tackle during their adolescent period. In addition, the crisis generally starts with the initiation of
the personality development where individuals might ask a numerous question to themselves like
who they are? what exactly their role in the society? How they can succeed? How do they prove
their existence and many more. Therefore, teenagers may find themselves faced with numerous
questions, the contradictory demands as well as the notion, which usually force them to deal with
various conflicts more specifically in the light of mental, psychological, physical, mental and the
family alterations. If these such alterations are negative, it will automatically outcomes in the
failure of the individuals to positively form their identity, in addition to facing various issues like
the social role disorders, the identity confusions or the adoption of the negative identity, mainly
harming individual’s life and their future as well (Freberg, 2021).
From various sources, it is being determined both the children and teenagers can benefit
from enhancing the communication, technological skills as well as the social linkage. A social
media is generally an essential aspect within the nation. In general, the social media is effectively
illustrated like any of the interactive medium or application that efficiently allow individuals to
positively communicate digitally as well as could be differentiated from the conventional media
such as television by the pathway which the users can both access as well as create content.
Although entirely public-based study can propose a correlation among the use of social media as
well as academic discomfort among adolescent, the impact of such technology may differ among
people include a reduced risk of harm. From various researchers, the girls mainly prefer to invest
more time on the social media platform than the boys, they generally have more publicity about
the cybercrime or cyberbullying and have a propensity to revel in more well-being implications
which is quite consistent with the current findings generally depict that the depressive signs and
symptoms, the suicidal thoughts and self-harm have significantly enhanced among young girls.
Despite of negative aspects, there are some of its positive aspects as well that are well linked
with the use of social media mainly consist the opportunities for entertainment, artistic
expression and the discovery of personality as well. Within the most positively stated benefit of
the social media use in the social interconnection with consisting about 81% of the adolescents
generally claiming that the social media efficiently aid them to feel at home. It can also give
effective resources for some of the young generation in order to obtain the online social
encouragement, more specifically to access to same peer societies. In addition to this, the social
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media platform can allow individuals to share or effectively connect with others. The social
media can offer its users with the platform in order to get formulated. Its intrinsic effectiveness
that generally associated to a person’s own capacity to effectively recognize as well as
participate in the politics and the external effectiveness or having the confidence in
accountability of the political officials and the industry to demand of citizens as well. The
teenagers must use social media in order to encourage the social consciousness and compassion
as well. The well-known social networking sites can enable the people to get in contact with the
friends. The social media sites effectively support the teenagers and youngsters to live their life
modest (Nagle, 2018).
Background of the Research
The investigation concentrates over the impact of social media on the young generation.
Within this, the technology along with innovation are mainly considered to be a basic importance
for the human living and individuals should know effectively that how these things can be
handled accordingly. It is generally crucial to teach the young public about the use of social
media in order to improve within their careers as well as the self-enhancement. In this, the
technology generally has been managed in order to secure within the body system, the human
brain and even emotions also. A social media can encourage the deceptive messages, posts and
the images which can effectively grow to conflict among them. These such posts are
deteriorating the relations and connections among the nation as well. As the young generation is
not mature enough, they are becoming the victims of the cybercrime or cyberbullying as well.
This can impact over the young generations mental, emotional and the physical well-being and
also can lead to self-harm and depression in some of the cases. It is because there is a lack of
security and confidentiality on the social media framework, it is quite possible that the third party
can misuse the core sensitive data or information (Dedeoğlu, Taheri, Okumus and Gannon,
2020).
Rationale of the Research
Since the beginning of the social media, it generally has managed to work its pathway into
most of the people’s everyday living. It is where a person can able to stay connected with their
peers from the years ago as well as has evolved into a place where an individual can keep up
with the groups as a part of or even the group chats with other colleagues as well. It is because,
there are lots of benefits and disadvantages as well to the social media which have enabled a
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person to stay connected with each other. Both such positive and negative aspects have extended
to the teenagers with various studies and the report generally evaluating the benefits which the
social media can have for both the children and adolescent people. Some of the negative aspects
regarding the provided topic can involve depression, anxiety, lack of self-esteem, not having
established relationships with peers and family members and absentees from the academic aspect
as well. Whereas, some of its benefits can involve an enhanced communication skill, having
potential connections with family and peers which are usually not available to the previous
generation as well. Due to this debate, the general lack of consensus on the influence that the
social media has generally over the mind of young generation has caused an interesting
relationship among individuals who generally think that the social media is the main cause of
various youngsters’ well-being and emotional issues as well as those individuals who generally
think that the benefits of the social media can outweigh such potential problems. This particular
has been caused the positive aspect as well as benefit of participating in the social media to not
be utilized while also downplaying the existence of the actual harm as well as the negative
aspects of the social media and the living in a digital age (Damico and Krutka, 2018).
Significance of the problem
The significance of the issue such as impact of using social media on the mind of young
generation as the social networking has drastically altered the pathways in which people
generally interact with their peers, their associates and family members as well. Although, the
Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and many more social sites can play a significant role in day to day
life, it can also pose a major or critical privacy risks as well. When using these such social media
sites, it is quite essential to know as well as can understand the privacy risk that is purely
involved in it. On the other hand, Cyber bullying generally takes place on several social
networking platform and can blow down the pages. So, it is important to make the public or
young generations understandable that there are some benefits of using the social media, but
apart from that there are also some of the lacks of using excessive social media that can impact
one’s living, health and lifestyle as well (Nayak, 2018).
Statement of the purpose
The main purpose of doing the research is to aware the public about the impact of social
media within the young generation and over their mind as well. The main objective of the study
is to analyse the specific impact of the social media on the youth’s mind. It generally also to
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assess how the youth can use the social media in their daily living as well as its influence on the
youth in terms of their entertainment, educational learnings, an inquest of job opportunities, lack
of skilful communication, improving the skills as well as online shopping also. The social media
generally make a specific contribution on the online which can connect a group of the society
which can interact and the exchange of knowledge and understanding. In addition to this, young
generation can effectively utilise the social media in order to spread the social awareness as well
as its kindness. Furthermore, the social networking sites can effectively aid the young generation
to connect with their peers as well and can also enable the young generation to live a life
unchecked by the small talks.
Research Aim
To analyse the causes and impact of social media on the young mind in the UK.
Research Objectives
 To understand the notion and role of social media among population in the UK.
 To determine the causes and impacts of social media on the young mind in the UK.
 To examine the strategies or ways used to minimise the impact of social media on the
young mind within UK.
Research Questions
 What is the notion and role of social media among population in the UK?
 What are the causes and impacts of social media on the young mind in the UK?
 What are the strategies or ways used to minimise the impact of social media on the young
mind within UK?
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
Notion and role of social media among population in the UK
As per the view of Keles Betul, McCrae Niall and Grealish Annmarie, (2020) social
media stands for several internet-based networking systems which help users to connect and
interact with each other via verbal and visual methods. The Pew research Centre, 2015 showed
that 92% of teenagers are actively using social media. The increased use of social media among
young generation in UK showed its need for evaluation as it can be responsible for problematic
behavior of young people. Young people have different notions in regards to the role of social
media, as it is having both positive and negative impacts over the health, behavior, psychology,
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environment and social health of an individual. The Researches have claimed an associative link
in between social media and several psychological problems in young people. The systematic
review from 11 studies based on use of social media and the depression in young people showed
a significant statistical relationship in UK. A single user has multiple accounts on multiple social
sites which is referred as multitasking. Multitasking is shown to be predicting mental disorder
symptoms, the number of social media accounts a user have is correlated with their anxiety
levels. Role of social media not only accounts for the mental health disorders in young
generations of UK, it is seen that social media enable young generations to strengthen their
bonds with their existing acquaintances and to create new relations online. This has contributed
in reduced feeling of social isolation and loneliness, and also it has indirectly improved the
mental health conditions of young people. People with low social support are more likely to be
getting the mental health disorders rather than people with high social support from family,
friends and neighbor. The quantitative social support through social media do not accounts for
being the positive aspect as quality is important than quantity. The review claimed that effect of
social media is distinguished as per the demographics as the social media might have a negative
notion for female young generations whereas, being the positive notion for the male young
generations. Further, it was seen that the psychological risk factors for depression, distress and
anxiety was related with the time duration spent on social media and addictive or problematic
use of social media.
UK government's incorporation of electronic communication networks in order to
support the public health behavior has created wide utilization of ICTs and social media. The use
of ICT and social media in achieving better health related outcomes is considered to be effective.
The role of social media and technologies within health care system occur to invite the public
and young generations to take charge of their own well-being. To establish such, Government
health authorities and private health agencies of UK have used telephonic services like NHS. The
objective of this initiative is to increase the reach of health literacy among young people in UK
which can empower the patients with their health issues (UK policy on social networking sites
and online health: From informed patient to informed consumer? 2015). Social media
technology in healthcare system of UK is being used to publicize the data in NHS and to collect
the insights. The social networking generations have demand of information at every step of
health care which can be fulfilled by using the social media technologies in health care system.
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