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Essay / Social Media Effects Essay - 1208
The media creates a lot of these negative connotations about mental health, such as people with mental illness are violent, unpredictable, and don't get better. The films also give viewers false information about mental illness. Some common myths claim that teens with depression are just going through a phase, that mental illness can be seen as cute or mysterious, or that people with mental illness are incapable of leading fairly normal lives. These stigmas and more are things that some people on social media are trying to get rid of. Many people, groups, or organizations are spreading the truth about these stigmas on the social media sites that teens use most. Regularly publishing articles about these myths helps raise awareness and understanding of mental illness around the world. The truth that many high school students will suffer from mental illness and commit no crime, or the truth that mental illness can improve, is widely held. People learn about the types of mental illnesses, what they are, and how to help a friend or even themselves if they are going through something like this. After a study carried out by In One Voice on social networks to try to prevent false stigmatization was carried out, many positive results were obtained. The study results indicate that "these results partly confirm the skepticism we and others have previously expressed about the ability of brief anti-stigma media campaigns or mental health education to achieve and to sustain significant improvements across a range of outcome areas” (Livingston et al., 2014, p.989). There has been a significant reduction in negative stigma on social media, and we hope it will lessen over time.