Lydia Underwood is a fourth year honors student from Leawood, KS majoring in nursing. Lydia’s current thesis project is an extended literature review that explores the mental health effects of social media on adolescent mental health.

Author: Lydia Underwood | Major: Nursing | Semester: Fall 2023

My name is Lydia Underwood and am a senior in the College of Education and Health Professions majoring in Nursing at the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing. I am currently in my second semester of research. Once I graduate in May 2024, I intend to work in Kansas City as a registered nurse at The University of Kansas Healthcare System on a Renal and Organ Transplant Progressive Care Unit. My faculty mentor is Emily Richardson who is a professor in the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing.

For my thesis I am writing an extended literature review that examines the differences between the impact of active social media use and passive social media on adolescent mental health. Through my research, I have found that there is a significant lack of knowledge of the long-term mental health effects social media can have. Social media has only become more prevalent in society during this century, and I believe it is important to know the negative effects it could have on mental health to protect future generations. I choose this topic because I noticed myself becoming more anxious when I am on social media for extended periods of time. With the mental health epidemic in the United States, I wanted to research how social media could contribute to this current issue. I choose adolescents as the age group for my research because the current generation of adolescents have had access to social media earlier than any other generation in the past, so I believed they would experience the largest influence of social media making them more vulnerable to depression and anxiety. During my preliminary research I found articles examining the different types of social media usage including active and passive, leading to the selection of this as my topic. I found Instructor Richardson as my mentor for this project because we both share a passion for mental health and are aware that it can be detrimental to mental health.

While doing this research, I was able to take a step back and realize that a lot of my own social media habits are harming my mental health inspiring me to change the way that I use social media. Through my research, I learned that many factors could change the degree to which social media impacts mental health such as time spent on social media, gender, and the intentions an individual has when using social media. This led me to conclude that the impact of social media on mental health is not white or black, but rather a very individual issue. This created a challenge when writing my review because majority of my research did not reach a conclusion that active use or passive use was worse for mental health, I overcame this by finding other articles and examining other factors that could cause social media to negatively impact mental health. My faculty mentor helped guide me through my research and the process of completing my rough draft, which I submitted at the conclusion of the Fall 2023 semester. I have not yet traveled for a conference, but I would like to present my thesis during the Spring of 2024 if given the opportunity. Next semester I am looking forward to completing a final draft of my extended literature review and defending my thesis with my faculty mentor and committee member, Terria Hawley.