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Social Media + Mental Health: A Survival Guide

Social Anxiety is Teen Vogue's new series that explores how social media impacts our mental health.

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Teen Vogue
    • Mental Health
    • Teens
    • Social Media
    • TikTok
Social Media + Mental Health: A Survival Guide
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    How can and should you follow that lead and prioritize your social media safety? We talked to people about key measures you can take to stay safe.

    Dissociative Identity Disorder on TikTok: Why More Teens Are Self-Diagnosing With DID Because of Social Media

    Dissociative Identity Disorder on TikTok: Why More Teens Are Self-Diagnosing With DID Because of Social Media

    Until recently, it was rare for a young patient to come to psychologist Naomi Torres-Mackie, PhD, head of research at The Mental Health Coalition, with a formal self-diagnosis. It was even rarer for several of those patients to land on the same serious, trauma-related condition. But lately, Torres-Mackie has seen several patients who cite social media as the reason they believe they have dissociative identity disorder, a condition induced by trauma so severe that the mind forges multiple identities to cope.

    To explore the real-life impact of social media, members of the This Teenage Life podcast described how filters make them feel. You can hear more about their experiences with filters while listening to the This Teenage Life podcast here on Spotify or wherever podcasts are found.

    Being a teen has always been challenging, but for those coming up in the age of social media, there is a new way that body image and self-esteem are being impacted. Platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok inundate us with the carefully curated lives of others, making us covet not only their lives, but their appearances. With social media filters that alter and beautify features, young people are being introduced to unrealistic beauty standards that hurt the way they view themselves.

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