Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Dr. Ernest Dankwa, a psychology lecturer at the University of Ghana, has highlighted the detrimental effects of social media, particularly Instagram, on young people.
The UG don claims that social media posts especially that of instagram leads to low self-esteem, unreasonable expectations, and feelings of inadequacy.
In an interview with Andy Asante Okyere for Radio Univers, he admitted that some people are overly sentimental and affected by what others say. As a result, if such a person posts a photo on Instagram and someone purposefully comments negatively on the photo, it may cause the person to have suicidal thoughts.
“If you read about world suicide research, scholars have published that social media platform like Instagram is one of the most dangerous for suicidal cases,” the psychologist said.
“Because Instagram is a picture-sharing site. So is about body image, there are people who are enticed by what people say about them. So, when such a person posts a picture and receives a negative comment, maybe, not once or twice, it then results in suicidal thoughts. That’s called cyberbullying. Such cases are worst in the developed countries because a lot of the youth have committed suicide based on what people probably told them on social media,” he stated.
He went further to state that, “not only social media allows for self-expression. It is also linked to high rates of bullying, anxiety, despair, and Fear of Missing out (FoMo) in young people.”