How does social media affect teenagers' mental health and teens with mental illnesses?

At this point going on my phone is feels like a chore, I barely talk to people anymore I just watch tik-tok, and sometimes I don’t even know what they are saying like I just zone out and just like and scroll, everything seems so bland and boring now I can’t find anything that excites me anymore, but I still go on my phone I don't know why.” This was said by one of my friends when we were texting the other day, conveniently for me to use this piece of text to show you what social media does to teenagers. So how does this happen? Who do we get so addicted to it? How does social media affect teenagers growing minds? Since we are one of the first generations to have access to technology ever since we were born, there are a lot of effects technology has on our growing minds, There have been articles and other resources that have been talking about this but they don't talk about how it affects people with mental illnesses or whether this is the cause of stress and bad habits. How is social media acting growing teens and teenagers with mental illnesses? Social media is negatively impacting teenagers and teenagers with mental illnesses, so they are some benefits that do come with social media like making new friends, finding out people might have the same issues or obstacles in life they have two faces well there are a lot of downsides to the effects that social media has on us teens.

Research Paper by Anagha Iyer. Grade 9, Robbinsville, NJ