SH4053QA Report: Social Media Influence on Young People's Health

This report assesses the impact of social media on young people's health and well-being, focusing on a specific report by Goodyear, Armour, and Wood (2018). It explores the reasons for selecting this report, provides an overview of its content, and examines the authors' arguments regarding the positive and negative influences of social media on youth health. The report highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the chosen article, particularly concerning data reliability and potential for misleading information. Furthermore, it discusses how the knowledge gained from the article can be applied in the future by health and social care students, emphasizing the importance of understanding social media's role in shaping health-related behaviors and attitudes among young people. The report concludes by reinforcing the dual nature of social media's impact, both as a source of health information and a potential risk factor.

SH4053QA Academic Skills
and Literacy finding and
presenting information

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Title and author of article/ book chapter/ report..........................................................................3
Reason of choosing this item.......................................................................................................3
Brief overview of the content present in the item........................................................................4
Main arguments of the authors....................................................................................................5
Main strength and weaknesses of the report................................................................................6
Ways this knowledge could be applied in the future being a health and social care students.....7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Social media are the interactive technologies that facilitates the creation as well as
sharing of different information, ideas as well as thoughts on specific concept or topic through
virtual communities and networks. The social media platforms play significant role in
influencing the people as well as enhancing the health and well-being among them. The present
report will assess the report “The impact of social media on young people's health and well-
being” (Goodyear, Armour and Wood, 2018). The report will provide the reason of choosing this
report as well as information present in the selected report. Further, the arguments of author,
strength & weaknesses of report as well as it future implications will also be described in the
present report in concise manner.
Title and author of article/ book chapter/ report
The title and author of the selected report is as follows:
Title: The impact of social media on young people's health and well-being.
Lead Authors:
Dr. Victoria Goodyear
Professor Kathleen Armour
Hannah Wood
Reason of choosing this item
The physical & mental health and well-being among young people are directly linked
with their behaviour, confidence and self-esteem. High level of well-being helps the young
people to protect their life from diseases, became more productive and active. It was researched
that the social media platforms have impacted the health and well-being of the young people in
positive way. But majority of reports, journals and articles cover the information that the social
media platform has negatively affected the health and well-being of young people. That's why to
assess the positive as well as negative impact of social media on young people health and well-
being, this specific report by author Dr. Victoria, Professor Kathleen and Hannah has been
selected for the present project (Goodyear, Armour and Wood, 2018).
This selected report or items is helpful for the users to understand the positive impact of
social media on people well-being and also the potential harm. The social media content

regarding the balance diet, exercise, meditation has encouraged the young people to remain fit.
However, on the other hand, the overspending of time on social media has affected the people
mental health, causes anxiety, make them irresponsible etc. Hence, this item has been selected to
spread the awareness of health related social media content positive impact on overall physical,
mental health, behaviour, thinking of young people.
Brief overview of the content present in the item
The report, “Impact of social media on young people health and well-being” stated the
positive impact of social media as well as the potential risk of social media health-related content
to young people health and well-being. The report has stated the ways in which young people are
engaged with the health-related content on social media platform. It was found out from the
research that nearly half of the young in the sample that is 46% have seen change in their
behaviour because of health-related social media contents. However, 43% of the sample has
stated that social media contents related to health has positively affected their lives (Sedgwick
and et.al., 2019).
The selected item or report has also stated the different types of content such as peer
content, recommended content (e.g. YouTube), automatically sources content etc. which is
created, assessed and share by young people on social media. The impact of which the awareness
of health and well-being is highly increased among the young people of UK. The social media
content is the key to influence the young people's health and well-being. The project has included
1346 young people in the UK fall under the age range of 13-18 years (Goodyear, Armour and
Wood, 2018). It has also included the six digital as well as animated case study videos to assess
the experience of young people on health related social media content.
The report has also presented that the social media offers exceptional opportunities to the
young people so that they can learn about the nutritional diets, exercise as an indicator for living
health lifestyle. However, it has also presented that various content on social media such as quick
weight loss pills, crash diets etc. have negatively affected the health and well-beings of young
people.

Main arguments of the authors
It is analysed from the research report, that social media play major role in influencing
the mind set and way of thinking of young people. It was previously viewed by the scholar that
the social media put only negative impact on the health and well-being of young people. But in
the recent research project, it was argued by the authors, that the health-related social media
content have positive impact as well on the heath of young people. It was stated by the scholar
that health related social media content encourages or motivated the young people to follow
healthy lifestyle, consume healthy foods as well as practice daily exercise (Scott and Woods,
2019). 63% of the young people of UK think that social media is the best source for the health
information.
It was also presented by author in their research project, that 53% of the young people of
UK uses social media (such as SnapChat, Instagram and YouTube) to access health related
information such as food intake, minimum sleep, daily exercise time, appropriate body image.
Further, it was also analysed through the research that 46% of the young people have changed
their health-related behaviour after seeing social media content to became healthy and fit
(Goodyear, Armour and Wood, 2018). The poor health increases obesity, mental health problems
and anxiety among young people.
However, on the other hand, it was critically reviewed by author that social media content
includes fake information related to diet, exercise which leads to poor immunity system and
death among young people. It is because of such inappropriate health related content young
people started follow water diet, lack sleep, more exercise etc. The impact of which the overall
health and well-being of people get negatively affected.
Moreover, the author has also stated that young people of UK follow only those social
media health related content which is presented by any celebrities, official organizations and the
credible information having more than 200K likes. This interpreted that young people are aware
that which information they need to follow and which not in order to adopt a healthy lifestyle.
The body shape share by the people on social media motivates the young people to eat healthy
food and do daily exercise with the aim to enhance the overall health and well-being (Goodyear
and Armour, 2021). Hence, it is commented by the author in the selected report that social media
health related content plays crucial role in impacting the health and well-being of young people’s
in positive. It is recommended by the scholar that social media is one of the powerful educative

resources that have to be use in schools, colleges as well as homes to educate young people about
the health.
On the other hand, it is also analysed from the other article “social media and young
people’s mental health” that social media develop anxiety, stress and depression conditions
among the young people. It was reviewed by author in the article that the use of social media
among the young people are increasing on a daily basis to gain emotional support. But cyber
bullying, body shaming and many other inappropriate information on social media has created
depression and demotivation feeling in the young people (Chester and et.al., 2020). The impact
of which they have stated isolating themselves. It is because the young people feels that their
body are not favourably compare with the perfect body.
Further, from the article “impact of social media and screen use on young people
health’s”, it is analysed that the use of social media benefits helps the young people in term of
friendship, support, creativity, learning as well as health advise. While on the other, author has
argued that use of screen and social media created heath related risk for the young people. This
risk can be overthinking, anxiety, overeating, weight gain, depression and lack of sleep (Impact
of social media and screen-use on young people’s health. 2021).
Main strength and weaknesses of the report
The article focusing on one of the area of today's digital world, social media have great
impact over the health and well being of individual in both positive and negative manner. There
are certain strength and weakness of this article, these are:
Strength: Strength of every article lies in topic chosen by the author, the strength of this
article lies in topic as social media impact over health and well being of individual. This article
provide clear detail how social media impact health of individual, content posted on social media
platform help individual to reduce health related risk. This article also highlight influence of
health and well being awareness with the help of social media, supporting with facts and figure,
this article have provide inside details over health and denoted with percentage.
Weakness: Weakness of every article lies in type of data included, weakness of this article
lies in inclusion of data and information. Considering published source of information is one of
the best option for collecting and including data but in the case of current topic, data may lead to

misleading information. Weakness of this article can be seen when type of content is highlighted
on social media, majority of individual or social media user do not have better life just because
of social media content. Another weakness lies in reliability of data, here there are two variable;
first one is social media and second is health and well being which means data of both variable
will be different crating gap in the study and impact the validity of article impacting the area of
knowledge.
Ways this knowledge could be applied in the future being a health and social care students
From the current article, the knowledge that I had developed is related to the social media,
which put direct impact on young people's well-being and health, in varied terms. It has been
determined that majority of young people in the recent time, engaged themselves with social
media. As it developed understanding, behind the reason of conducting this practice, and that is
information collection. In the today's era, individual person prefer to utilize social media, in
order to collect useful and essential as well as beneficial data, related to health, and other areas.
Through, the current article, I had developed my knowledge about changing behaviour and
understanding among young people, which happens because of social media utilization. It is fact
that social media in today's time put positive impact on young people development and growth. I
had identified and understand that it drives their attention toward searching for guidelines related
to health, including mental and physical. Along with that, I had also gained knowledge about the
negative consequences of social media usage, as young people are addicted to use that, which put
adverse impact on their health.
All the above knowledge that I had obtained from article, can be applied in the future while
conducting number of practices and activities as higher secondary school student, who is
accountable to put a lot of effort to study appropriately, for purpose of achieving higher scores. I
will use social media, for education purpose further, in term of gathering information related to
subject which I study for. By using social media, I can find out those pages or accounts, where
academic information, data and other resources are accessible, which I can utilize to achieve
aims, either short, long or medium terms.

CONCLUSION
After summing up the above information, it has been concluded that social media heath
related content is one of the key to spread health awareness among the young people. The impact
of which young people of UK and other countries can adopt a healthy lifestyle. From the selected
report, it has been concluded that social media impact on young people health and well-being is
more positive rather than negative. The inappropriate information might cause risk to young
people health but the people are aware to believe only credible information. Lastly, the
comparison between other sources or article has been also covered in the present project to gain
insight on positivity as well as negativity of social media to young people health.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Chester, T. and et.al., 2020. Social media and young people's health. Paediatrics and Child
Health. 30(11). pp.404-406. Available through<
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335549577_Social_Media_and_Young_People'
s_Mental_Health>
Goodyear, V. A. and Armour, K. M., 2021. Young People’s health-related learning through
social media: What do teachers need to know?. Teaching and Teacher Education, 102,
p.103340.
Goodyear, V., Armour, K. and Wood, H., 2018. The impact of social media on young people’s
health and wellbeing: Evidence, guidelines and actions. Available through<
http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/3070/1/The_Impact_of_Social_Media_on_Young_People
%E2%80%99s_Health_and_Wellbeing_%28FINAL_15TH_JAN%29.pdf>
Scott, H. and Woods, H. C., 2019. Understanding links between social media use, sleep and
mental health: recent progress and current challenges. Current Sleep Medicine
Reports. 5(3). pp.141-149.
Sedgwick, R. and et.al., 2019. Social media, internet use and suicide attempts in
adolescents. Current opinion in psychiatry. 32(6). p.534.
Online
Impact of social media and screen-use on young people’s health. 2021. [Online]. Available
through:< https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmsctech/822/822.pdf>
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