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Every century is dominated by certain traits and these traits have potential to change the world order never before. Smart phones, high speed wireless internet and social media are basic life line for present 21st century. At present, life cannot be imagined without internet and social media. The spread of social media is tremendously high and within no time it encapsulated entire world in their catchment. Similarly the youth generation of present has great affections with new technology and gazettes. They frequently and obsessively use multimedia and social media for their activities in such a manner that become integral part of their life (Ofcom, 2022). The ambience of different social media platforms is so attractive and addictive so that adolescents are seeking all their needs either positive or negative at these places. They may get peer recognition (Davis, 2012; Schwartz, 2012), presenting their good face and positive aspect only (Uhls et al., 2017), even consolidate their sense of belongings through online communication (Donoso and Ribbens, 2010; Valkenburg and Peter, 2011) mediated with help of device and get sense of satisfaction and well being. There is no doubt about beneficial effects of social media but several sources criticize the negatives roles and risks inflict by these social media (Elsayed, 2021). Some studies highlight the lack of any link between social media usage and depressive indicator (Coyne et al., 2020). In this scenario, so many conflicting results are reported which claims different developmental outcome regarding effect of social media on adolescents. During the literature search, it is observed that there are so many intervening variables in this area which must be addressed and considered during study survey. Present study tries to encompass as much variables as possible to address the relation between social media usage and their effect on adolescent mental health. Since this analysis is explanatory in nature which is possibly dependent on many variables and ultimately reliant on literature survey thus no specific hypothesis is formulated. This article examines the broad view of adolescence along with mental health and social media before reviewing the effect of social media on adolescents in both positive and negative aspects.

Adolescence

Adolescence is an intermediary phase of growth which marks the development between childhood and adulthood. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines an adolescent as any person between ages 10 and 19 (WHO, 2022). In many societies, however, adolescence is narrowly connected with puberty and the sequence of physical changes culminating in reproductive maturity, while in others adolescence is understood in broader terms that incorporate psychological, social and moral territory as well as the strictly physical facets of maturation (Levesque, 2018). During adolescence, separation from parents happen which may be physical or psychological or both. Although this sense of separation is a necessary to step in the establishment of personal values, yet the transition to self-sufficiency induced an array of adjustments upon many adolescents (Levesque, 2018; Patra, Gogoi and Saikia, 2021). Furthermore, teenagers seldom have clear roles of their own in society but instead occupy an ambiguous interlude between childhood and adulthood (Calandri, Graziano and Rolle, 2021). These issues most often define adolescence and the reaction may partly establish the nature of the personality in adults.

One most prominent phenomenon during adolescence is the experience of an upsurge of sexual feelings and their mental capacity to control sexual urges. The transformation of adolescence is complex array of physiochemical and psychological events induced by ever changing secretions of different hormones which brings sudden and rapid changes in physical, psychological, behavioral and sexual entities (Schulz and Kerig, 2012). Some adolescents find these intricacies to be an intense and often stressful development characterized by specific types of behavior, while for others the progression of maturation is largely calm and serene. The thought that adolescents act as rebellious, distracted, thoughtless and daring are not supposed to be unprecedented (Elsayed, 2021). During puberty young bodies grow stronger and are infused with hormones that stimulate desires appropriate to ensuring the perpetuation of the species with minimal external support and depending extensively on their progressively sophisticated and diverse array of cognitive, behavioural, and emotional judgment (Zimmer-Gembeck and Skinner, 2011).

However, some teens faces these years as more stressful than gratifying because of the imposing conditions and accompanying restrictions in this epoch of existence (Seiffge-Krenke et al., 2009). Usually it is observed that most adolescents prefer to pass time in waiting, expecting to start “really living” only after they surpass the phase. Although these activities are useful in preparing teens for their future roles in society but this isolation from “real” life can be enormously frustrating. In order to prove their existence and importance, many teenagers articulate themselves in such ways that seem ridiculous to the rest of the population (Hartanto et al., 2021). Habitually teenagers prefer to spend time in isolation without parents or other adults present at home. All those teens who opted for sedentary life style and spend little time with their parents are likely to be bored, uninterested and self-centred. On other hand, peer influence can be counterproductive by reinforcing a sense of underachievement or sanctioning deviant behavior (Halpern-Felsher, 2011; Newman and Newman, 2011). With lofty power and modest control over their lives, adolescents often realize that they have insignificant status and therefore may be driven to seek the respect that they feel they need (Smith and Christakis, 2008; Morris et al., 2011; Simons-Morton, 2011; Calandri, Graziano and Rolle, 2021). Without clear roles, adolescents may establish their own pecking order and spend their time pursuing irresponsible or deviant activities.

Mental health

Mental health is condition of human beings with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being. WHO (2022) defined mental health as “A state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, to realise their abilities, to learn well and work well, and to contribute to their communities”. Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO), in its founding document, included mental health in its definition of health: “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. It is the foremost most and basic right for a human beings and directly and indirectly crucial for personal, familial, community and socio-economic stability of region. At present, mental illness is significant contributor to global burden of disease. In persuasion and clarification Galderisi et al. (2015) proposed another holistic definition of mental health as “Mental health is a dynamic state of internal equilibrium which enables individuals to use their abilities in harmony with universal values of society. Basic cognitive and social skills; ability to recognize, express and modulate one’s own emotions, as well as empathize with others; flexibility and ability to cope with adverse life events and function in social roles; and harmonious relationship between body and mind represent important components of mental health which contribute, to varying degrees, to the state of internal equilibrium”.

Mental health is not a condition or disorder but it is a complex some of mental disarray to psychosocial disabilities which manifest themselves in varied manner to person to person. Its expression is perceived differentially from one person to another with varying degrees of difficulty, distress and potentially very different social and clinical outcomes. Thus, mental conditions encompasses various degree of mental disorders and psychosocial disabilities which includes other mental states associated with significant distress, impairment in functioning or risk of self-harm (Thirunavurakasu et al., 2011; WHO, 2022). Exposure to unfavourable social, economic, geopolitical and environmental circumstances which also includes poverty, violence, inequality, perceived injustice, rejection, discrimination and environmental deprivation also increases people’s risk of experiencing mental health conditions (Galderisi et al., 2015)

Interestingly most people do not develop adverse mental health condition despite exposure to a risk factor while many other people having minimum exposure factor still develop a mental health condition. Nonetheless, the interacting determinants of mental health serve to enhance or undermine mental health (Heinz and Kluge, 2010). Risk factors can mark these disorders at all stages of life, but all those that induced at developmentally sensitive periods, especially early childhood, are particularly injurious. Some unavoidable and unfortunate conditions like harsh parenting, physical punishment, emotional blackmailing and bullying in early phase of childhood is known to increase mental health conditions among adolescents (Ahn, 2011; Slade et al., 2014).

Adolescent Mental Health

For years, the unique health issues associated with adolescence have been little understood or, in some cases, ignored but that has now changed. Adolescent health and development was made an integral part of the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (2016–2030) (the Global Strategy) because, in the words of the United Nations Secretary-General, “[adolescents are] central to everything we want to achieve, and to the overall success of the 2030 Agenda”. Globally, far too many children and adolescents live with mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety and conduct and attention disorders which are supposed to be remained largely unrecognized and untreated. It was estimated that 1 in 7 (13%) of adolescents aged 10–19 live with a diagnosed mental disorder as defined by the World Health Organization. This represents 86 million adolescents aged 15–19 and 80 million adolescents aged 10–14. 89 million adolescent boys aged 10–19 and 77 million adolescent girls aged 10–19 live with a mental disorder. Suicide is the fifth most prevalent cause of death for adolescent boys and girls aged 10–19 while for adolescents (aged 15-19, it is placed at fourth position). An estimated 45,800 adolescents die from suicide each year or more than 1 person every 11 minutes. Annual loss in human capital arising from mental health conditions in children aged 0–19 is US$387.2 billion (purchasing power parity dollars) for both treatment and loss due to suicide (WHO, 2012; 2013; UNICEF, 2021). Adolescents with mental health conditions are particularly vulnerable to social exclusion, discrimination, stigma (affecting readiness to seek help), educational difficulties, risk-taking behaviours, physical ill-health and human rights violations.

Depression and anxiety in adolescents is very common but unfortunately they can be rarely seen. This is due to the fact that adolescents are disinclined to express their feelings openly and the tendency to deny negative and self critical attitude. Secondly adolescent period is a transitory unsettle developmental period which often cause the adolescents to mask their underlying depressive feelings in a variety of disguises. The mental distress in adolescents is manifested in terms of two prominent determinants (Ahn, 2011);

1.     The first is expressed as a feeling of emptiness, a lack of self definition or a state of depersonalization.

2.     A second type of adolescent depression which is more difficult to resolve, has its basis in long standing repeated experiences of defeat.

The transitional period can bring up issues of independence and self-identity; many adolescents face tough choices regarding schoolwork, sexuality, drugs, alcohol and social life. Anxiety and depressive disorders are some of the most common psychiatric conditions afflicting adolescents. As per Child Mind Institute Children’s Mental Health Report (2015), 80 percent of kids with a diagnosable anxiety disorder and 60 percent of kids with diagnosable depression are not getting treatment. Within school settings, symptoms of depression are associated with lower achievement on tests, lower teacher-rated grades and poorer peer relationships (Roeser, Eccles and Strobel, 1998). For adolescents, depression is associated with poor health and behavioral outcomes, including higher risks of disruptive behaviors, anxiety, substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices and greater likelihood of being involved in fights (Saluja et al., 2004). Adolescents are easily addicted towards computer games, which affect the physical, social and mental health. The addiction severely affects and increases physical complains, social dysfunction, anxiety and depression among sampled youth (Zamani, Chashmi and Hedayati, 2009). At present social media and other internet related usage may also increase the incidence of these mental disorders to certain extent (O'Keeffe et al., 2011; Xantus, Saltz and Shaw, 2015).

Adolescents are easy prey for the depression and anxiety due to their physiological, psychological and social enigma as 52% increase in depression among adolescents are observed during period of 2005-2017 (Twenge et al., 2019). Prevalent use of social media in the world and its unavoidable exposure to adolescents added a new facet to the mental health. Cross-sectional and co-relational studies indicate that prevalence of depression is observed with increase of usage of social networking sites (Brunborg and Andreas, 2019; Ivie et al., 2020; Keles, McCrae, and Grealish, 2020).

Social Media:

Social media is a phrase being tossed around a lot these days but it may be difficult for people to define social media. Media is the main ways through which the large numbers of people communicate and share information. Social media is the networking and connecting linkage between more people in the virtual communities and networks through the means of dialogue, chat, comment, photo, video and audio that can be achieved in clouds without any border to break and any person to take responsibility as well as no party to own it. Briefly, Social media is all about online social networking which manifests through fascinating phenomenon of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) among mass (Spier, 2017). Social media facilitate the collaborative integration of three major modes of sociality namely; cognition, communication, cooperation (Fuchs and Trottier, 2014). The different forms of Social Media technologies includes social networking, chatting, media and video sharing platforms, internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, micro blogs, wikis etc. Technologies include blogging, picture sharing, video sharing, short videos, comments and tweets, wall-posting, emails, music sharing, instant messaging etc. Popular services and platforms include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, TickTok, Snapchat, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google, YouTube, MySpace, Reddit, Quora, Linkedin.  Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok are the most widespread and most frequently used platforms (Frey and Friemel, 2023).

As per claim of some of the exclusive website, it was claimed that the end of 2020, 78.05% of the world’s population are smart-phone users among which many persons owes more than one smart-phone. The actual number of smart-phone subscriptions exceeds the number of smart-phone users and supposed to be 6.23 billion subscriptions as of 2021 (Laricchia, 2023). Statistical report of Statista informed that global number of social media users are 4.76bn having penetration rate of 59.4%. In survey by Statista about purpose of social networking site, almost half of the users claimed it for staying associated with family and friends while others have different reasons for using like filling spare time, looking for inspiration, and reading news stories. Interestingly, several social media user stated that they access social networking site for news and demographic information which accounted for about 60 minutes per day for adults, while adolescents spent on average 49.12 minutes on social media apps daily (Dixon, 2022).

Technological advancement brings several newly developed and improved interfaces in web browsing so that the social media which utilise Web 2.0 interface. These websites are designed in such a way that rely on involvement of mass of user groups without any centralised control, continually-updated service which ensures betterment with user enhancement, comprehensive and remix content from several sources, re-modified and remixed contents of own data, network user and content togetherness more intensely along with rich user experiences (O’Reilly, 2007). This situation is more frightening ever before for parents, caregivers, educators, doctors and policy makers in terms of approach, safety, effect and outcome on psychological, mental well-being and social behaviour of adolescents.

Social Media and Adolescents

Surveys exhibited that 90% of teenagers (aged between 13 and 17) have used social media. 75% among them have at least one active social media account while 51% use them at least once daily. The fact that two third teens have their own mobile with internet connections is also highlighted and the average online walking is about 9 hours a day (Facts for Families, 2018). Social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace offer multiple daily opportunities for connecting with friends, classmates, and people with shared interests. During the last 5-10 years, the number of preadolescents and adolescents using such sites has increased dramatically. According to a recent poll concluded by Ofcom (2022), almost all children went online in 2021 (99%) using their own mobile phone (72%). Majority of adolescents (62%) confided that they have alternate profile to show their parents. Children aged 13-17 were more likely to feel positive (53%) than negative about their online use. More than a third (36%) of children aged 8-17 admitted about exposure towards ‘worrying or nasty content’ online in the past 12 months about which they always informed someone (59%). Children were more likely to experience being bullied (84%) via technology in comparison to face-to-face.

Each year, we grow increasingly connected as networks evolve and new forms of sharing emerge. Engaging in various forms of social media is a routine activity that research has shown to benefit children and adolescents by enhancing communication, social connection, and even technical skills (Ito et al., 2008). Thus, a large part of this generation's social and emotional development is occurring while on the Internet and on cell phones. The extensive use of Facebook by its users makes it an interesting to study it further, according to the study conducted by Vancouver based social media and promotion agency, Popcorn, half a million comments are posted every minute, around 300,000 updates posted and 140,000 photos are uploaded every minute. Twitter has around 120,000 tweets rolling out per minute (Arora, 2014).

Effects of social media:

Social media has both positive and negative impacts on youths. It depends on the usage of the social network. Hacking, pornography, sexting, cyberbullying, anxiety and depression along with suicidal tendencies are few bad things that are possible through these social networks but in contrary social media can play a vital role in the capacity building of youths. The technologies like blogging, uploading, sharing can help in building reputation and bringing in career opportunities and monetary income and updating health care system. Since, in social media youths get the facility to present their ideas in front of the virtual communities it helps to increases their confidence level. Thus, self-disclosure and self-presentation are the main facility that the social media can provide. Social media provides the platform for any youth to advertise themselves and to show their hidden talent in front of the world. Through social networks, youths can participate in various trainings, conferences, seminars, campaigns within and outside the country and thus can broaden their horizon in any topic through their active enrollment. Apart from all these, the major positive contribution of social media towards adolescent is managing the teen ego, peer recognition and feeling of being understood which is lacking ever before in real word due to various social and personnel enigma. As per normal observation social media imparts both boon and bane for society. Since the effect of social media is supradyadic in nature as several above mentioned factors are contributing their role in mental health, the effects cannot be generalized or treated as dyadic.

The main risk to preadolescents and adolescents online today are risks from each other, risks of improper use of technology, lack of privacy, sharing too much information, or posting false information about themselves or others (Barnes, 2006). These types of behaviour put their privacy at risk. One of the biggest threats to young people on social media sites is to their digital footprint and future reputations. Indiscriminate Internet activity also can make children and teenagers easier for marketers and fraudsters to target. These may also speed up the mental health issues among adolescents. Ray and Malhi (2006) from India reported that children having exposure to violence through media had poorer school performance and its impact on their psychosocial adjustments is detrimental. The usage pattern and perception towards social media have specific demographic differences among user and non-user in which gender play significant predictor but race and parental education had no significant correlation (Hargittai, 2007).

Sexting phenomenon does occur among the teen population; a recent survey revealed that several teens have sent or posted nude or seminude photographs or videos of themselves. In a study, 15% of all youth having 80% female subjects reported being targeted by unwanted sexual solicitation, while 32.5% of adolescents reported being harassed, either by threats or aggressive comments. Among targeted adolescents, solicitations were more commonly reported via instant messaging (43%) and in chat rooms (32%), whereas harassment was more commonly reported in instant messaging (55%) than through social networking sites (27% and 28%) respectively (Ybarra and Mitchell, 2008). Additional consequences include school suspension for perpetrators and emotional distress with accompanying mental health conditions for victims. In many circumstances, however, the sexting incident is not shared beyond a small peer group or a couple and is not found to be distressing at all (Lenhart, 2009) but its consequences lead to further mental illness directly or indirectly.

Researchers have proposed a new phenomenon called “Facebook depression,” defined as depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites, such as Facebook, and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression (Davila et al., 2009; Selfhout et al., 2009). Acceptance by and contact with peers is an important element of adolescent life. The intensity of the online world is thought to be a factor that may trigger depression in some adolescents. As with offline depression, preadolescents and adolescents who suffer from Facebook depression are at risk for social isolation and sometimes turn to risky Internet sites and blogs for “help” that may promote substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices, or aggressive or self-destructive behaviours.

Adolescents are finding that they can access online information about their health concerns easily and anonymously. Excellent health resources are increasingly available to youth on a variety of topics of interest to this population, such as sexually transmitted infections, stress reduction, and signs of depression. Adolescents with chronic illnesses can access web sites through which they can develop supportive networks of people with similar conditions (Lenhart, 2010). Cyberbullying is deliberately using digital media to communicate false, embarrassing or hostile information about another person. It is the most common online risk for all teens and is a peer-to-peer risk. Cyberbullying is quite common phenomenon, can occur to any young person online and can cause profound psychosocial outcomes including depression, anxiety, severe isolation and tragically to suicide (Hinduja & Patchin, 2010). Ray and Jat (2010) concluded that media has a disturbing potential to negatively affect many aspects of children’s healthy development, including weight status, sexual initiation, aggressive feelings and beliefs, consumerism and social isolation on the basis of reviewing several reviews worldwide. They also emphasise potential for positive effects on child health. A specific gender bias study by Khalil (2010) pointed out that girls have fatigue as most common form of symptoms. Somatic symptoms are major among mental health issues among girls. The symptoms include unexplained fatigue, decreased energy, psychomotor changes and lack of concentration, weight change and suicidal tendency.

Carroll and Kirkpatrick (2011) reviewed the effect of social media and the impact it causes on the adolescent behaviour. In their opinion the social networking sites are beneficial for the youth of present but some major risk are also highlighted by them. The major issues of social media are disturbed mental health, cyberbullying, sexting, relationship abuse, sexual solicitation, predation, loss of privacy and digital divide. Kuss and Griffiths (2011) highlighted the issue of online social networking addiction. On the basis of evidence, it is found the social networking addiction may be responsible for the psychological problem and it may be potential danger for the adolescents’ mental health. During study, social networking usage pattern indicate that differential behaviour of extrovert and introvert personalities. Extroverts appear to be social enhances but introverts may indulge in narcissism. Negative correlation consist decrease in real life community communication, low academic performance and relationship struggle and impending compulsion towards drug abuse.

Das & Sahoo (2011) highlighted and raised several psycho-social issues of social networking sites. They opined that today 1.5 billion people across the world have their profiles in social networking sites. Everything looks nice when you create a profile on social networking site, but how you feel when someone starts blackmailing using your personal data. Your boss threatens to fire you for posting comments on social sites. You feel compulsive to check your profile during work hours. Social networking sites become a reason for anxiety and addiction. It starts affecting personal relationship with spouse and family members. Such sites make private life and public life of an individual a digital document. Conclusively it has proposed that growth of social networking sites shows a significant change in the social and personal behaviour of Internet users. Social networking sites have become an essential medium of communication and entertainment among the young adults. Though it has started to affect the daily activities of normal human beings, the popularity of social sites is not going to reduce in near future. Everything in this world can be used for a bad purpose as well as for good. However, nefarious act of mental health issues and cyber criminals has to be brought to the forefront while choosing wisely for the benefit of developing social bonds across the geographical borders.

In non-linear study about various literatures, Ahn (2011) opined about consolidation of various traits to understand the holistic developmental view of adolescents rather than any specific character like mental health, social capital, privacy, safety, psychological well-being or educational achievement. He further suggested the researcher to address the problem in integrated manner. As per his opinion, the research clearly shown that technical feature and infrastructure of particular community imparts user behaviour along with interacting and ever-existing social, psychological and emotional characteristics of participating adolescents. The social outcome of any platform can be judged on the basis of these human factors which are interacting with influences of individual net worth and their communication behaviours along with the cultural background.

In interesting article about interactions and involvement of paediatricians as third stake holder, O'Keeffe et al. (2011) discuss about the impact of social media on children in light of concerned families and paediatricians. Major issues in adolescents of present era have aroused due to bemused and excommunicative tendencies of parent. They neither satisfy the need of their technology savvy teen nor comprehend the fact that online life is actually extension of offline living. Majority of beneficial activities are highlighted namely; socialization and communication, charity, artistic and musical endeavours, creating knowledge resources along with gaming and accessing resources for health concerns. The role of social media in enhanced learning through diversity is also enlisted. Besides the beneficial activity, serious concerns of social media are raised as it creates profound psychological turmoil which leads toward social isolation and sometimes suicide. The areas of concerns are cyberbullying, online harassment, sexting, Facebook depression, loss of privacy, digital foot printing and influencers mediated apprehensions. In this scenario, COPPA regulations and paediatricians role are utmost important as they may become a mediators for both the stake holders in terms of managing the social networking sites induced mental disorders. They can guide parent, explains the jargons and become spokesperson of adolescents creating a humble bridge among them.

Social networking site are also involved in bringing the change in society and raised the protest behavior of youths. It helps in addressing the political grievances and provides the psychological resources during protest activity (Valenzuela, Arriagada and Scherman, 2012). Social media facilitate youths also in terms of monetary income as they provide facilities of online jobs. Several web base application in collaboration with social networking sites are being used very popularly for the part time job opportunity presently.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) activity and content along with their online communication have flourished on the Internet now-a-days. Research designate that many youth with self-injury behaviour go online to connect with others who shares their own through text and videos platforms. Although there is remuneration to this behaviour in terms of acceptance of peer support, these actions can initiate these young people to risks, such as NSSI corroboration through the sharing, as well as, risks for triggering of NSSI urges (Lewis et al., 2012).

Social networks are an increasingly important part of daily life for both adolescents and adults who maintain a virtual relationship with others sharing interests and goals. Very often, they disclose more about themselves online than they do in person. However, cyberbullying and cyberostracism can be problematic for adolescents and sensitive individuals, who might be negatively affected by social networks. Some studies have shown an increased risk of depression, whereas others suggest beneficial effects through enhanced communication, social connection, and self-esteem. Although social networks in general could be a new source of psychological stress and trigger exacerbations in depressed asthmatic individuals (D’Amato et al., 2012).

Pantic et al. (2012) found direct link between depression and online social networking usage. During study it was found that high time spent on online social sites accelerate the depressive symptoms and reduce the sleep time of the adolescents. In some studies regarding psychiatric disorders in Western UP, it was found that gender, age and economic condition do not play any significant role in onset and development mental disorders. Urban and rural background does not affect the prevalence outcome (Sarda et al., 2013).

McPherson et al. (2014) concluded that family and community social capital is key factor for the mental and behavioural problems among adolescents. The constructed results exhibit that mental health is associated with social media but positive parent – child relation, extended family support, social support system, neighbourhood, religiosity and school environment are utmost important to counter the social media induced mental disorders. In another study regarding impact of social media, Shabir et al. (2014) found that majority of respondents confirm the influence of social media on the quality of life being positively used in the field of education. The negative impacts include deterioration of social norms, damage of study, floods of unwanted and unethical messages, pictures, video clips, anti religion post creating hatred, influencing the political awareness and disturbing relations of countries.

Labrague (2014) find the indirect relation between Facebook usage and mental disorder. During the study positive correlation was found with Facebook intensity scale and depression, anxiety and stress. Although the Facebook itself cannot induce negative emotions but prolonged use of Facebook increases the depression and anxiety indicators and disturbed emotional state of the subjects. Ryan et al. (2014) highlighted the popular use of Facebook as relationship continuance, time surpass, amusement and friendship. It may also be used for escape from negative phase and for mood elevation. These activities might be habit forming and induced adolescents as habitual or excessive user which may be compulsive and addictive. Examination of Facebook addiction studies provides the evidence in support of Facebook addiction. It appeared that gender, frequency of use, duration of use and content of use play prominent role in Facebook addiction. Females prefer to maintain their existing friend base but males always expand to new users. Frequency of use might be associated with surveillance gratification, entertainment gratification and content gratification.  Facebook addiction involves other factors like low psychological well-being, loneliness, non-socially motivated use, fear of missing out to impart their share. Survey highlighted about inability of social skill model to measure Facebook addiction due to multifaceted approach in Facebook addiction. In this scenario, inconsistencies in addiction measurement make it difficult to propose compelling arguments. Thus, strengthening of assessment and measurement must be achieved before facilitating any theory or conclusion.

Study of cyberbullying on mental health of youth with special reference to wide range of internalizing symptoms was performed in conjunction with a measure of self concept. Results indicated significant increase in Depressive inventory for the respondent (47%) who encountered media bullying as compared to respondent without bullying. Values of mean total depression scores and mean total anxiety scores of victims are high and statistically significant as compared to respondents without bullying, while mean total of self-concept scale T-score value are lower as compared to non-victims. These findings indicate that presence of cyberbullying had an association between depression, anxiety, and self-esteem/self-concept among respondents (Xantus, Saltz and Shaw, 2015).

Effects of social networks on mental health of adolescents are vague and plausible because the studies are conducted in diverse pattern and the data collection traits and methods are varied to certain extent. The study is in preliminary phase, literature is in childhood and rigor deficient in design due to un-harmonised planning pattern and poorly designed questionnaire. Even though some preliminary and putative association between social networking site activity and mental health measures are demonstrated. The planning, questionnaire and data collection method should be harmonised and validated before drawing any consolidated and concrete conclusion, except all the data collected till date is important as it has a potential to provide large amount of limited but collective responses (Toseeb and Inkster, 2015).

A self-reported cross-sectional systematic review about interaction between social networking sites and mental health, mixed finding between social media use and anxiety as well as depression are reported. The finding suggests that social networking sites are correlated with mental health and well-being on the sub-text of values including social, emotional and cognitive in nature. The consequences of correlates and relation depend on influence of positivity or negativity within the social networking sites as well as outside of the virtual world. Highly anxious and depressed users have contradictory engagement and interaction styles. Unenthusiastic interactions, pessimistic expression, frequent social comparison, social network addiction, problematic site use, rumination and brooding are bench marks for the anxiety and depression. Some evidences suggest that there is inconsistency between insight of interaction quality, social support and actual communication of social interface which may attenuate the possible positive influence on social sites. Sudden changes in number of users are unrealistic approach to judge the anxiety and depression instead of identity profile expression and language of user post are treated as high value indicators of mental illness. Contrary, positive social aspects like positive interaction, social support, social connectedness and positive peer experiences are protective factors for social network users. Overall, social network usage may not affect psychopathology but depend on subjective well-being of the user. Usually adolescents with mental illness have associated with impoverished social network and changes in mental condition leads towards change in individual profiles. Conclusively, it is suggested to monitor the content and quality of interaction is good indicator for the detection of mental issues in early phase (Seabrook, Kern and Rickard, 2016).

The growth of social media is in early phase having total span of approximately quarter of century and limited studies are concluded and work on impact of social media is limited but some trends are beginning to emerge. One prominent change in perception as of early social media posts indicating refuge from real life to present which has been changed towards more competent and reinforced relationship. At present social media poses beneficial and harmful activities which have to be addressed separately. Social networking sites promote adolescents towards identity development having better self-esteem and proper self-disclosure, enriched social capital including social support and social recognition, aspirational development consisting promoted resource utilisation and enhanced peer engagement along with peer support as well as peer approval. On the other hand, social networking sites are blamed to induce cyberbullying, sexual content, substance abuse, violence and exposure to inappropriate contents. Other objectionable activities induced by social networking sites are self-esteem, objectified self concept and gender stereotypes. Mobile phone and social networking sites impart in reduced sleep cycle which may ultimately leads towards sleep induces issues and mental illness including depression and anxiety (Uhls, Ellison, and Subrahmanyam, 2017).

Social media is frequently used for communication and very much popular in college and university students. Social anxiety is prevalent in society to varied intensity and became a reason for depression which negatively effects physical and psychological complexity. These all causes are interlinked and supposed to be induced by social media for which study was conducted by Riaz, Ishaq and Abbasi (2018). It is found that there is no correlation between social media use and social anxiety. The study does not overrule the existence of social anxiety but indicate that there are other variables in minor level hidden in social dispersion which may imparts the spark for the onset of anxiety and depression. In study of middle school students about social media, it was found that use of social media started at very tender age and 40% students accept unknown invitation while other 40% confirmed that their social media use do not monitored by parents. Students encountered certain concerns like inappropriate posting and pictures, hacking, feeling hurt, lack of privacy, bullying and stalking.

New world order brings ever increasing social media in main stream and social networking sites impart critical places in life of young generations with various challenges and opportunities. As the use of social networking sites are increasing, adolescents are at risk of cyber-victimisation, online dispute, vulnerability towards crime, social isolation and detriments, misinformation and waste of time, stress related issues, privacy issues, self-harm, depression and suicidal tendencies. Even though, today youth is well aware having evidence-based approach towards social media and enthusiastically perform effective use of social sites through systemic intervention and validated characterization to reduce networking damage (Singh and Guruprasad, 2019). The correlation between use of social media and the academic performance of teens (grade 7^th students) is found. There is significant variation of test score of mathematics with respect to social network use time. Students having spent less than an hour have better performance as compared to students having social networking sites more than 7 hours. During study it is also noted that the student usually prefer to socialising followed by gaming in social network sites before involving in academic activities, thus it is advisable to supervise students closely at the time of social media use (Igcasama et al., 2019).

In longitudinal, cross-sectional, randomised-intercept, specification curve analysis, indicated that social media does not convey enduring effect on life satisfaction of adolescents. With help of some meta-data, it also exhibit that the study of social media and adolescents’ mental health may not provide the actual result and are more nuanced as previously assumed. Mostly effects are tiny, trivial and statistically insignificant when applied under best statistical practices, otherwise chances of false positive relations may not be ruled out. Gender specific results are also obtained as girls are more susceptible to social media usage with respect to inversely life satisfaction aspect (Orben, Dienlin and Przybylski, 2019).

Social media has often been correlated to a range of debatable and spurious negative outcomes. A study was planned to deal within-individual change in social media usage with respect to within-individual alteration in depression, conduct problems, and episodic heavy drinking in a sample of adolescents. Findings concluded that positive and modest relationship are observed in increases in time spent on social media which are associated with amplification in depressive symptoms, rise in conduct problems and boost in episodic heavy drinking (Brunborg and Andreas, 2019).

Sushma, Satheeshkumar and Kumar (2019) reported 48% strongly motivated and well-being respondents in qualitative questionnaire based study. 38% users involve in social media for sharing posts, while 26% respondents use for communication and connect with friends and family. 28% of the respondents benefitted by entertainment and fun and 20% utilize it for learning. On the other hand, respondents claimed about cyber theft (40%) followed by health issues and waste of time (20% each) as major negative aspect of social media.  

A quantitative, cross-sectional, non-specific, gender unbiased study regarding social media use and mental health revealed that 75% reports have inclusions of social media and some pathological aspects. During the survey, the holistic approach is missing with specific focussing on certain issues; majority of them are negative aspects with depression as dominant traits. Other mental disorders considered in studies are general mental health or psychiatric issues, eating disorder, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, sleep disorders, self-harm and suicidal tendencies as major issues. Loneliness, fear of missing out, low self-esteem are the minor non-pathological issues covered in study. The study does not focus on any specific social networking site but Facebook being the dominant site followed by Instagram and Twitter. Usually the studies are tending towards negative traits and start their hypothesis with guilty verdict and media trial even though specific relation could not be observed. The mental issues of adolescents associated with social media use start with introduction of social media itself and possible reason behind this may be due to phenomenon of moral panic which usually resurges with introduction of new technologies. It seems that the direction of the association and supposition that social media use affects mental health. The support in the theory gained from the fact that mental health problems (rise in anxiety and depression) of adolescents are increasing in last two decades so the use of social networking sites. Mental health problems among youth may be induced due to so many variables but social media victimised even though concrete correlation has yet to come. In this scenario, studies including individual differences, potential intermediates, complex arrays, more specific aspects of social media and longitudinally designed test must be considered for better and judicious results (Schonning et al., 2020).

During study about effect of social media on well-being of adolescents, 44% adolescents did not feel any change in well-being set up but 46% felt better while 10% reported worse condition. The study implies the person specific effects of social media which can be correlated with active and passive societal media use along with between-person and within-person correlations. At between-person level, active and passive social media usage are not associated with well-being, while within-person level, weak but significant positive correlations are found between social media use and well-being (Beyens et al., 2020).

Keles, McCrae and Grealish (2020) reported effect of social media measuring depression, anxiety or psychological distress along with some confounding variables (e.g. age and gender) and mediating and moderating factors (e.g. insomnia, rumination and self-esteem). Results of the studies are not utterly consistent but general correlation between social media use and mental health problems are found being depression as the most commonly measure. Time spent including repeated checking for messages, personal investment and addictive or problematic use have been found to be important aspect for depression, anxiety and psychological distress emerged but particular attitudes or behaviours (e.g. social comparison, active or passive use of social media, motives for social media use) may have a greater influence on the symptoms of psychological distress than the frequency of social media use or the number of online friends. However, most authors noted that the observed relationship is too complex for straightforward statements. Insomnia and other sleep-related factors, rumination and perceived social support are most frequently reported as mediators of the relationship between social media use and depressed mood. It is further recommended that investigations of these factors along with personal traits, socio-cultural factors and roles and expectations from adolescents in family and society and environmental factors should be inducted in further studiers. Although some studies found that influence of age and sex have no effect on the relationship between social media use and mental health problems, other studies show that girls and younger adolescents are more prone to depression and anxiety.

Meta-analytical studies were conducted about specific association between social media use and depressive symptoms amongst adolescents which revealed that high degree of heterogeneity along with little but significant affirmative correlation were present. It was also suggested that focused should be specific on understanding which types of use may be harmful (or helpful) to mental health, rather than focusing on overall use measures that likely reflect highly heterogeneous exposures (Ivie et al., 2020). Deepa and Priya (2020) conducted descriptive study among top 2 deemed universities in Chennai with a sample of 90 respondents including information on demography, pattern of social networking usage, social relationship and health effects. The results found that significant associations and positive correlations between social media usage and feeling anxiousness on social networking sites than in real life.

Social networking sites are highly vibrant platform for communication which affecting teenagers physically and mentally in both constructive and destructive manners. Positive aspects for adolescents are education, relationships, future prospect and ecommerce activities, while adolescents are cruelly victimised through cyberbullying, sexting, hacking, frauds and scams which leads the youths towards serious psychological consequences like despair, isolation, anxiety and suicide (Goma and Shankar, 2021). In descriptive phrase, questionnaire based, convenient sampling study performed among college students reported that 50% non-dependent, 8.3% moderate and 41.7% dependent respondents found. No effect of social media found on respondents but dependent user on border line as per addiction point of view (Kurian et al., 2021). In interesting study about disagreement between parents and adolescent over social media revealed that major disagreement is in the area of academic performance and socialization perspective. The parents highlighted the ignorance of study, delay in important activities, unknowingly wasting time over social networking sites in chatting and sharing photos and videos, and loss of interaction in real surroundings which were seems to be justified. On other hand, adolescents claim that they use social media platforms for exchange of notes, learning and showing creative activities (Patra, Gogoi and Saikia, 2021).

Psychological effects of social media on adolescents have major focus of present time. Many literatures found association between use of social networking sites and depression and anxiety but majority of results are inconclusive. These studies only focus on time spent on social site irrespective of other factors like gender, emotional self efficacy, psychological well-being and life satisfaction which also contributed as intervening variables. The results exhibited that higher social media use promoted higher depressive symptoms along with lower well-being and life satisfaction among girls with lower emotional self- efficacy, while high social media use elevated higher affective well being and life satisfaction for girls with higher emotional self-efficacy (Calandri, Graziano and Rolle, 2021).

In path breaking opinion, Hartanto et al. (2021) proposed that anxiety bouts and depressive symptoms force heavy social media use in order to alleviate negative thoughts, fulfill unmet psychological desires, stay engaged, escape from idleness, sense of belongingness and social acceptance. Authors opined about this thought to validate with other well planed and focussed longitudinal studies which manifests in reverse order to understand the relation of mental disorders and use of social media among adolescents. It is also indispensable to understand the factors that push individuals toward damaging social media performance, in which social media use is more an indication than a cause.

Boer et al. (2022) multilevel analyses showed that life satisfaction is unchanged within-person level changes in different types of social media use, while within individuals, the associations ranged from negative to positive across adolescents, which could not be explained by adolescents’ engagement in upward social comparisons. At the between-person level, the higher social media usage resulted in the lower level of average life satisfaction subjected to condition that associations were confounded by adolescents’ SMU problems. Overall, no curvilinear associations were found along with the heterogeneity of effects which can be better understood and distinguished among social media walking intensity and quality of content, social media driven problems, and disentangle within-from between-person effects.

The descriptive analysis performed by Jolly (2022) indicated a mean score of 56.75 for K-GSADS-A, indicating above average levels of social anxiety and a mean score of 18.73 for SONTUS, indicating high social media usage in general but correlation coefficient analysis illustrated that there is no significant association between social media usage and levels of social anxiety among adolescents. Contrary to the above study, another randomised quantitative analysis was made which claimed considerable strong alliance between adolescents' social media exposure and their social well being. The major issues aroused during study were fear of missing out (FOMO) and social anxiety. Furthermore, addictions to media are common among adolescent followed by social isolation and impact on family ties. A few of the respondents informed about cyberbullying, however its impact are considerably low (Kaur et al., 2022). Similarly, Olola, Asukwo and Odufuwa (2022) performed study using descriptive survey research design with simple random sampling technique among students in Minnesota, United States of America. The study confirmed the significant effect of the social media on the psychological wellbeing of adolescents. The psychological effects of social media use among students include depression, stress, anxiety, emotional isolation, low self-esteem, memory loss, and self-harm.

Seo and Kim (2022) performed interesting study during the pandemic SARS-CoV-2 (COVID era). As adolescence represents a pivotal transitional period characterized by an increase in social relationships, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its transferral of in-person interactions to online spheres is a crucial component of adolescent mental health in 2022. During the lockdown period excessive social media usage guided towards increase in cyberbullying and eating disorders, comparative social media perception and more passive, autonomous enjoyment. The effects of social media on adolescent health are obsessive, unwanted, comparative behaviour on social networking sites, body perception and body imaging could lead to negative impacts on adolescent mental health, utilizing social sites to engage in meaningful content or social relationships might proceed towards the construction of positive, ‘safe online spaces’ during the instability of the COVID-19 pandemic. As this study examines the overlap between online and offline spheres through the lens of body image and perception, where social media often mediates the space between isolation and in-person interactions, the nuances of adolescent mental health are becoming more and more visible through their imprints online.

During cross-sectional study about new and differentiated determinants of social media use and well-being in terms of internalizing symptoms of gender specific adolescent boys and girls, social media use and playing games were positively associated with internalizing symptoms. The effect of social media practices are conditional on gender, indicating that social media used for chatting and self-presentation are only associated with internalizing symptoms for girls. In this scenario, young girls might be especially vulnerable to display internalizing symptoms. Study also highlighted the importance of research going beyond evaluation of time spent on social media to examine how different kinds of social media activities are associated with well-being (Svensson, Johnson and Olsson, 2022)

Achmad et al. (2023) emphasised the importance of socialization and healthy and wise use of social media for adolescents. The results of the study illustrate that social media impose a positive and noteworthy persuasion on the lifestyle of adolescents in the city of Bandung by 43%. The practical limitation on learning activities could be observed as students' heavy dependence on social media in content accessing for more time as compared to study or to support the lifestyle. Another concern was raised about disturbance in sleep pattern and deficient sleep might reduce the productivity and performance.

Bonsaksen et al. (2023) highlighted the importance of general self-efficacy for study and evaluation of mental health conditions among adolescents. The findings engrossed that total time spent on social media as well as negative social media-related experiences are related to depressive symptoms in Norwegian adolescents. Multivariate linear regression analyses demonstrate that time spent on social media are linked with depressive symptoms in general but are more strongly associated with depressive symptoms in case of negative social media associated experiences (β ranging 0.09–0.22, all p < 0.001), and their inclusion weaken the initial association between time on social media and depressive symptoms. General self-efficacy is openly related with lower symptom levels but does not transform the associations between social media use and depressive symptoms.

Correlational study on addiction showed that the gender specific findings as 58% females among 11% of the total participants are significantly addicted to social media. Considerable correlations surfaced between the self-report measure of social media addiction, self-esteem and anxiety. Low values of self-esteems assumed to higher social media surfing, high usage of social networks and playing video-games were treated as supplementary indicators of addiction. There are high inconsistencies between the perceptions of anxiety using social media (85% did not sense any change while 15% perceived a reduction in anxiety). On the other hand, approximately 70% respondents are neutral to perception of loneliness but 22% of the total sample reported feeling less alone. Highly addicted adolescents exhibited low self-esteem along with high state anxiety and trait anxiety (Ciacchini et al., 2023). Yang (2023) proposed that being overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable motivation to log on to or use social media, and devoting so much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas might be treated as social media addiction. On the basis of various literatures, it was proposed that social media instantly provide the dopamine induced gratifications in weaker self-control ability user who have more difficulty in changing thought away from beloved stimulations is the root cause of addiction. These traits might be inculcated through negative family environment where happiness is missing, negative friendships, lack of peer relationships which positively restrained negative emotions, early case of depression or anxiety which induces easy addicted to social media and stress in life which compel user to involve in social media to stay away from stress full thought. The effect of social media addiction included poor academic performance, loss of sense of belongingness towards family and school and affects mental health through attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression.

Using a well-being framework to investigate use of social media among adolescents should be performed in various aspects apart from focusing on the ill-being perspective. Results of the hierarchical regression investigation showed that positive social media experiences and reciprocal inspirations are positively associated with flourishing along with self-esteem, perceived school environment, self-reported level of physical activity and alleged socio-economic status. In contrast, gender, schooling institution, age, apparent stress and personality illustrated no significant associations with the outcome. On the contrary, sensation of ignoring, people with slight regard for emotions, feeling excluded and ill-being (DSM-V) were negatively related to flourishing (Marciano and Viswanath, 2023). It is recommended to operate social media in such a way that promotes flourishing which helps in influencing adolescents’ development and should be included in child development curricula aiming to encourage a good use of social media through positive online social relationships and inspirational contents.

Popat and Tarrant (2023) reviewed the complex outcome of social media on adolescent wellbeing, from the perspectives of teenagers themselves. On the one hand, social media fosters connection and support, social capital, providing support and validation, learning from others about dealing with difficult situations, encouraging open conversations around difficult topics, reducing isolation and aiding recovery of mental health difficulties. On the other hand, social media use can enforce negatively on wellbeing and mental health, damaging self-esteem through experience of judgement, attention to markers of popularity, and appearance comparison, concerning privacy or appropriateness, and ‘stress’ posting could have negative longer term consequences. Teenagers highlighted unease about social media impacting harmfully on real life relationships, causing anxiety, sleep disruption, cyberbullying, online exclusion, and the impact of viewing distressing content. Authors claimed about the relationships in terms of composite and intervened arrays of social engagement and peer support, self-expression and validation, appearance comparison and body ideals, pressure to stay connected including social exclusion fear with disconnection anxiety, exposure to bullying and harmful content Privacy concerns. These parameters may act positively or negatively on the basis of the relation among user and their digital surroundings and on-line friends.

Descriptive survey with randomised sampling study reported that 100% of school-going adolescents use various forms of social media in their daily lives with usage time varying from 1 hour to 3 hours daily. The use of social media had a positive impact on psychological well-being of adolescents irrespective of usage time and demographics indicators such as gender, academic grade, age. However, the results indicate that 93.5% adolescents use social media for academic purposes followed by enjoyment, communication, information exchange, and friendship-building purposes (Roy, Das and Barman, 2023).

A systematic search is made on Google, Google Scholar, Pubmed, J-Gate, Research Gate with help of key words like Social media, Adolescents, Anxiety, Depression, Mental health from the period 2006 to 2023. In general all those papers and review articles are selected which involved the effect of social media on adolescents in light of mental health.

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