Currently overall media does not have a positive effect on the health of adolescents. The media are in a large part responsible for eating disorders and low self esteem in adolescents. They bombard us with images and articles about how we can and need to lose weight, have a better body, get more muscles, be more desirable, be thinner, be more appealing, be perfect and so forth. They force us to believe in an ideal body and lifestyle which is a lie and causes huge insecurities in adolescents and adults. Because adolescents are still finding their identity and trying to make sense of themselves and the world around them they are being pressurized by the media to be something that is unobtainable and wrong and ends up causing eating disorders, anxiety, confusion, depression, low self esteem and so forth. If the media stopped enforcing these harmful ideas and representations onto people and instead encouraged people to just be who they are and celebrate all our differences then our health, especially during adolescence, would be so much better.
If you want to look at social media then again the majority of it causes insecurities, feelings of inadequacy, jealousy, bullying, private lives being destroyed. The only positive thing about social media and health is that it allows teenagers to find a platform to voice their own opinions and make friends online which helps with social anxiety and isolation.
