research

Planning review- January(end)

Mid project review - March

Project product review - end of summer

Presentations - September

 ↳ Hand in September 2019 

project proposal

Working title of my Extended Project.

Does social media have an effect on mental health?          



My initial resources will be:  I have found a website (https://www.psycom.net/social-media-teen-mental-health) that would help me get secondary research on the topic that I’m researching. this website would help me as it would give me information on mental health within teenagers.This website source would allow me to see what other people think of this subject as well as have a good secondary research source. This source that followed gave me the information that “Those who had spent more time on social media had 2.2 times the risk of reporting eating and body image concerns, compared to their peers who spent less time on social media. The participants who spent the most time on social media had 2.6 times the risk.” This would help me gather the correct information that would help me when writing up my essay for extended project qualification.
The evidence that concludes in the website have data that would help me answer the questions as well as give me proof of what social media is doing to peoples mental health.This is a reliable source as this is run by 'Vertical Health LLC' which is a trusted website that allows people to look into mental health issues that people suffer form and give them more information that they have as well as use it to get a more understanding of the different types of conditions.
The people that run the website use it to help people get knowledge and understanding of different mental health issues, it also allows a section of information that helps people see the warning signs of different mental health issues such as depression and eating disorders.I have also researched and found a trusted source that would allow me to answer a question that I wrote down in my initial ideas which is I want to try and research what is the most common app that creates mental health within the age group. The source (https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/instagram-ranked-worst-for-mental-health-in-teen-survey/) this source would help me gather a stronger understanding of what’s happening with mental health though social media, this also gives me a secondary source that relates to the chosen subject that I have chosen.
I have found out that “The survey asked 1,479 young people aged 14-24 to score popular social media apps on issues such as anxiety, depression, loneliness, bullying, body image and ‘fear of missing out’ – where your social media peers seem to be enjoying a better quality of life.” This information would help me answer the questions as well as have a valid source that would help me get information about the subject that I have chosen.This website is trustworthy and reliable as its run by the NHS and their main reason why they post is to help gain awareness towards what is happening and allow the public to understand what is happening. I intend to use the information from this website to help get valid proof of my point I’m researching as well as use it to give me secondary research for the chosen subject that I am researching.

The courses of study or area(s) of personal interest to which the topic relates:The social media its self-interest me as I spend most of my free time on it as well as I study media so this topic relates to me as in media we have to do lots of research in social media and would help and benefit me as I already have knowledge of the chosen subject. I will try and expand this as I would be able to already know lots about the media and which is popular with different generations

my intended product:what I intend to complete my experiment through an essay on how does social media affect people’s mental health, after I have done my research I will then begin to draw my conclusions. Once I have begun to find my background information on my chosen subject I would then start to consider some questions to ask to get some primary research and get some real life context for the proposed alternatives. In this care I would ask teenagers from the chosen age range and ask them what type.


Provide details of the courses that you are currently studying:

Qualification type	Awarding body & subject
e.g A-level, Modern Apprenticeship, BTEC	e.g AQA Mathematics, OCR Computing, WJEC English
a-level	Media studies
BTEC	Cambridge national diploma in business

resources

https://www.psycom.net/social-media-teen-mental-health


https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/social-media-mental-health-negative-effects-depression-anxiety-addiction-memory-a8307196.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-46966009/instagram-helped-kill-my-daughter

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-46966009/instagram-helped-kill-my-daughter

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/17/instagram-is-supposed-to-be-friendly-so-why-is-it-making-people-so-miserable

https://www.nhs.uk/news/food-and-diet/instagram-ranked-worst-for-mental-health-in-teen-survey/

Good source! https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/05/18/how-heavy-use-of-social-media-is-linked-to-mental-illness

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/prince-william-says-its-time-16179828

 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/girl-kills-herself-after-69-15984123?utm_source=sharebar&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sharebar

https://www.google.com/search?q=studies+on+the+effects+of+social+media+at+university&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-GB:IE-Address&ie=&oe=&gws_rd=ssl

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/negative-effects-social-media/

initial ideas

My ideas for research and development of my project I am interested in exploring and researching what influence social media has on mental health within teenagers, I am intrigued as this is an important subject and is growing health issue towards the younger generation. I would like to find out more about what’s causing mental health within social media on a broader scale, and how it could affect the younger generations reputation. I have chosen to research mental health and how it’s affecting teenagers aged 12-19, I would like to find out what the main health issue that is in this age group suffers with and If it has any relation to social media. Within this age group I would like to research and see who’s more prone to develop mental health males or females, the different gender difference with would allow me to broaden my research and create more data to analyse. I am focusing on trying to see what is the most common social media app that causes the most mental health, such as snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. As there are many social media apps I will only choose the four to research and investigate the common types of ways that mental health is created. I would like to aim to see if there is anything that can help prevent the mental health issues that is happening and help create a happier place for social media. I will begin to study the common ways that start mental health disorders that are influenced by social media, this would let me explore and give my opinion if the social media is a good or bad place for the younger generation to be on. To research is particular subject I would have to use a lot of social media as people before me have researched this specific thing, I would be generating mostly secondary data but I will be researching some myself which would be primary data. I will be researching field as well as desk research this is where I would be collecting data to analyse from my computer where I would be gaining information that would help me get a better result to answer my question. I will also be researching field data where I would be creating a questionnaire, where I will ask members of the public which are within the age range questions about what they personally think about social media. I will be asking questions that would help me analyse If social media is a prime target for bullying as well as create mental health issues. To collect this research, I would have to google as well as get primary data results from the public. A problem that I fear that would restrict me from getting the most relevant information is that there will be too much content for me to investigate. As such I have come up with several possible resolutions to this such as: Firstly, I will limit myself to a few particular mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts. This would allow me to get a more diverse research and also help me as it would cut out a vast portion of the content that is available and considerably limit the results. Secondly, I plan to remove most social media app that my research is limited within snapchat, Instagram and Facebook. Which the limited apps this would allow me to save time as well as get more precised results, the solution will have the same effect as that of choosing a particular mental health issue, by constraining my research by just the right amount. Thirdly, I will look at only a portion of the interviewees which I will only be collecting data that is in the age range of 12-19. With so many different people having mental health I will only be looking at teenagers as this is a growing issue as well as the most common age to experience mental health that is caused by social media. This would be the final measurement that I take in condensing my project, this is because I fear this may come too close to making me unable to fulfill the criteria of the EPQ as I wouldn’t have much variety in my research.  Furthermore, I think this would help enable me to receive a good grade in the EPQ and would be beneficial towards my grade and help me secure a place at university. I began researching some preliminary research before thinking of my final subject, this would help me to choose if I could get the information as well as results indicating if it was a good idea for the topic. I will complete general research on mental health that is created by social media, and the statistics and figures with my results. This research will help define the direction of my research, illustrating whether the topic is too broad for me to create a 5,000-word essay for my final project. As a sense of direction of the research I will use two approaches to my research, which is primary hand and secondary research. Primary hand would involve me looking in depth at a particular social app as well as mental health issue. The secondary research approach would be getting information that Is already collected by other people and I would get the results and use them to help me with my analyzing. Both methods would help me to get research and help with the data analyzing. I aim to use a range of sources, to collect data from these range from websites, blogs, magazine articles, to help reinforce arguments I make from my primary analysis. After reading the source I will extract the relevant information that I require and put it in a word document so it’s easier to find when I need it. It will also help me as when I need to write it up its easer to look at and take a conclusion as all the data Is in the same place. I will evaluate and discuss how useful they were, and where I got the evidence from. I intend to construct a questionnaire that I will get a variety of individuals to answer, this would allow me to get an insight on modern day views and see their personal opinion whether they think that social media is a big cause for the mental health within the age range.

My summary of the comments and advice from my supervisor My supervisor commented on the broadness of the information that I must collect and read through in order to find relevant and suitable data for my chosen topic. We talked about this topic's relation to the modern days society and I could relate as I’m in the age group that I’m studying. Furthermore, I was advised that I will need willing percipient  that would offer to complete my questionnaire in order to create good results. I feel I will be able to find the research as well as create a good understanding of my chosen topic. I discussed with my supervisor that I would need to keep track of my research in order for me to easily reference the relevant content of work.

Modifications I have made as a result of my discussion with my supervisor The most significant change that I have made after discussing my chosen topic with my supervisor Is that I generated a hypothesis that I find interesting as well as relate to due to the age I am researching within mental health in social media. I considered in my initial concerns that I may have too much to research as there is a lot of information that I would need to look though as well as it having to be genuine. Furthermore, I have decided to research from more relevant subjects rather than un necessary information, this makes it more useful than if I were to approach the hypothesis with more of a variety as this wouldn’t get a more accurate results and which I may analyse worthless information, wasting my time, which is therefore making for ineffective time management. my supervisors commented on the direction on where I was going to go within my research and what sort of results I expect to get from researching. What conclusions I expect to come to as well as the overall information. I have taken this into consideration and made my research smaller meaning I will only research certain things to make my data more accurate and more to the point.