Is social media exposure good or bad?

It is a combination of both.

Benefits:  You will see more of the social media benefits under: rewards of social media.

Drawbacks: Social media can cause anxiety and depression for adults and youth.  It can be seen that specific personalities tend to have more of a predisposition to be depressed or anxious while using social media.

Besides depression and anxiety you or your children may be exposed to cyber bullying, facebook depression, or online risk taking behavior, such as talking to strangers that can result in many negative outcomes.  These outcomes range from self-esteem problems to talking to cyber predators.

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Is having more accounts better or worse for your mental health?

Studies have shown that depression levels increase along with more social media sites used.  A study documented in “Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among U.S. young adults” found that compared to those who used 0-2 social media platforms, participants who used 7-11 platforms had substantially higher odds of having increased levels of both depression and anxiety (Primack et al. 2017 ).  It is important to not overwork your social media presence. If you are trying to take care of 5 plus social media accounts maybe it is best to rethink which ones are the most important and shrink your list to 1-3 social media webpages. The one drawback of this study was that they did not take into account of the amount of time spent on the various sites just the overall number of social sites used by the participants.

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Social media is here to stay so whether it is good or bad your best bet is to know your personality and your children’s personalities so you are able to monitor and help them (or yourself) if you notice any warning signs.