The Relationship between Social Media and the Increase in Mental Health Problems. 2023

Hasan Beyari
Department of Administrative and Financial Sciences, Applied College, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah 24382, Saudi Arabia.

Social media has become an indispensable aspect of young people's digital interactions, as they use it mostly for entertainment and communication purposes. Consequently, it has the potential to have both positive and negative effects on them. Deterioration in mental health is one of the side effects stemming from social media overuse. This study investigates the relationship between social media and the increase in mental health problems in Saudi Arabia. The population considered for analysis includes young people from Saudi Arabia, with a sample size of 385. A closed-ended survey questionnaire was used to collect data on different social media features and criteria. Using the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP), the researcher analyzed data to compare the effect of different social media features on mental health. The social media features included in this paper are private chats and calls, group chats and calls, browsing posts, games, media sharing, adverts, likes/comments/followers, and pages. The researcher adopted entertainment, information, social interaction, privacy, esteem, and communication as the criteria in the AHP process. Among these criteria, the study found that entertainment was the most significant, while privacy was the least significant. Findings suggested that likes, comments, and followers were the biggest contributors to poor mental health (total utility = 56.24). The least effective feature was 'games' (total utility = 2.56). The researcher recommends that social media users be cautious when interacting with social media features, especially likes, comments, followers, media, and posts, because of their significant effect on mental health.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D008603 Mental Health Emotional, psychological, and social well-being of an individual or group. Mental Hygiene,Health, Mental,Hygiene, Mental
D010179 Pancreas A nodular organ in the ABDOMEN that contains a mixture of ENDOCRINE GLANDS and EXOCRINE GLANDS. The small endocrine portion consists of the ISLETS OF LANGERHANS secreting a number of hormones into the blood stream. The large exocrine portion (EXOCRINE PANCREAS) is a compound acinar gland that secretes several digestive enzymes into the pancreatic ductal system that empties into the DUODENUM.
D003142 Communication The exchange or transmission of ideas, attitudes, or beliefs between individuals or groups. Miscommunication,Misinformation,Social Communication,Communication Programs,Communications Personnel,Personal Communication,Communication Program,Communication, Personal,Communication, Social,Communications, Social,Miscommunications,Misinformations,Personnel, Communications,Program, Communication,Programs, Communication,Social Communications
D004644 Emotions Those affective states which can be experienced and have arousing and motivational properties. Feelings,Regret,Emotion,Feeling,Regrets
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000293 Adolescent A person 13 to 18 years of age. Adolescence,Youth,Adolescents,Adolescents, Female,Adolescents, Male,Teenagers,Teens,Adolescent, Female,Adolescent, Male,Female Adolescent,Female Adolescents,Male Adolescent,Male Adolescents,Teen,Teenager,Youths
D061108 Social Media Platforms that provide the ability and tools to create and publish information accessed via the INTERNET. Generally these platforms have three characteristics with content user generated, high degree of interaction between creator and viewer, and easily integrated with other sites. Folksonomy,Mobile Social Media,Mobile Social Networks,Social Media Messaging,Social Tagging,Social Medium,Twitter Messaging,Web 2.0,Folksonomies,Media Messaging, Social,Media, Social,Messaging, Social Media,Messaging, Twitter,Mobile Social Medias,Mobile Social Network,Social Media Messagings,Social Media, Mobile,Social Network, Mobile,Social Taggings,Tagging, Social,Web 2.0s
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