With social media playing such a big part in our lives, could we be sacrificing our mental health and well-being as well as our time?

  Around 40% of the world’s population uses online social media. Social media can potentially increase physiological problems such as stress, anxiety, depression, and self-esteem.

“In my opinion social media does affect people, (and) it tends to affect people in negative ways. It’s addictive and it distracts people from things that are more important,” junior Helen Bogdanets said.

  A huge con to social media is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying occurs when individuals use technology to write aggressive, embarrassing, or hateful message to/about peers in order to intimidate, harass, or shame them.

  Life Wire did a study that showed the way teens deal with cyberbullying and 66% respond to the bullying, while 13% did not want to attend school the next day.

  Tips to help decrease cyberbullying could be to tell the person to stop, reach out for help, and protect your accounts by having them private and don’t let random people follow you.

  From an adults perspective social media does have an enjoyment factor, it’s not all bad. Although the time it takes up may affect work and school time.

“Social media is good for entertainment, but the instant gratification is bad for when you need to have perseverance to finish a job” history teacher, Jim Gardenhire said.

  Although social media can potentially increase physiological problems, there are ways social media can impact us positively. The pros of social networking include having the ability to connect to other people all over the world, and access to easy and instant communication.

  “I think a pro to social media is (that) you can catch up on your friends lives and see what they’re all up too. I think this is a pro because it’s fun to post stuff about yourself and see what your friends are involved in, or what’s going on in their lives,” junior Julia Moss said.