Social media apps, such as TikTok and Instagram, are getting more and more popular among teenagers and children, and people are starting to see signs of addiction. Being on social media – and phones as a whole – has affected many teens and how they deal with their responsibilities regarding school, chores at home, etc.

Lots of teens are caught constantly checking their phones to see if they’ve gotten any notifications, becoming nervous if they aren’t on their phones for a long period of time, or just struggling with getting their everyday tasks done.

Studies have found that the more teens use social media, the more they are at risk of having depression and/or anxiety. Comparison to people that others see online can cause these things, as well as seeing something you’d like to do that you feel you ‘can’t’ do because of time, money, equipment, etc.

Body image plays a huge role in affecting people’s self-image, causing lots of teens to have eating disorders where they binge-eat and then purge, which turns into a repetitive habit that lots of people might not even know they have. With technology today, people can edit their bodies and faces in photos, which they usually use to make themselves appear more attractive. This leads to people seeing them online and comparing their own appearance to the people in the TikToks, reels, or story photos/video that they see, and can cause insecurities regarding what they want to look like versus what they look like, and a lot of these insecurities are things people can’t really change.

Works Cited:

Amirthalingam, J., and A. Khera. “Understanding Social Media Addiction: A Deep Dive.” Cureus, vol. 16, no. 10, 27 Oct. 2024, e72499. PubMed Central, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11594359/.

“TikTok: The New Era of Social Media.”Brown Undergraduate Journal of Public Health, 13 Dec. 2021, sites.brown.edu/publichealthjournal/2021/12/13/tiktok/

Karina Garchitorena, Staff Writer

Sophomore Karina Garchitorena is a staff writer for the 2025-2026 Colonel News site. She likes watching movies, cats, and drawing.