Psychological Impacts of Social Media Across Intersectionalities of Race and Gender

Social Media has become an integral part of our daily lives, especially among high schoolers and college students. A question all teenagers have to face is whether social media is a positive addition to their lives or a negative one, and how race and gender can affect experience. We used Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Springer, and Oxford Academic to perform a literature review. Problematic social media use is strongly correlated to negative mental health experiences. In regards to adolescence, social media can intersect with adolescent development factors and gender sociocultural aspects to raise potential issues. Multiple studies found that viral videos of the detainment of undocumented immigrants in cages, as well as police killings of unarmed citizens, contributed to PTSD and depressive symptoms. For children of color, exposure to topics about race and gender are double-edged swords: they help to introduce people early to important issues that get them to think critically, but they expose them to racism and cyberbullying before they might be ready for it, either due to age or maturity. For the majority of the population, social media inconclusively correlates to mental health outcomes. At-risk youth, due to personal and social issues, should limit social media use and prioritize addressing these issues first. All problems are likely to get worse before they get better, which is why it may be necessary for there to be an age cap to mitigate the harmful effects of social media.