A social media platform is a modern web-based technology that enables us to create websites, and accounts to share our thoughts and feelings, and post visuals and audiovisuals. 
This communication tool started with computers and developed with applications on smartphone and tablets (M. Hudson. 2019).

Social media has changed the way people interact with one another by offering more convenience but less quality.
The most frequently asked question today is, “Has social media a good or bad impact in our lives?”
There is no answer to this question, it all depends on our perspective and how we perceive it. 

Nowadays, social platforms allow us to get in touch with people reducing communication barriers and to disseminate messages, news and information in an easier and quicker way.

However, social media may lead to negative consequences when individuals cannot control the usage of it.
Indeed, they can be an addictive enemy that is also considered as a sickness that people can hardly get cured from; this leads to a high percentage of depression and anxiety among youth.
While we spend 3 hours or more on any social media platform, our brain starts only concentrating on what is new and who posted what, but we do forget the beauty of the world, and our mood gets affected and changed easily (WebHostingMedia, 2018).

We as a society keep on checking social media because we have a fear of missing out of something that may be important or unimportant; so we constantly hunt for approval and attention through likes and comments (S. N. Ali, 2012).

The aim of our campaign is to dig deeper to discover both the positive and negative sides of social media to seek an understanding of how we can use these platforms in a sensible manner to avoid negative consequences that may affect our mental health due to the inappropriate usage of social networks.

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Relevant Data in MENA

As stated in the annual report of Mohammed Bin Rashid School on Government in 2014, almost 42 percent of the Arab population uses the Internet on a daily basis.
Therefore, the Arab World has the highest rates of online social media development and penetration.

According to some research conducted in MENA (Middle East and North African regions), Twitter is the second most popular social media after Facebook, with 54 percent subscribers of the Internet population in the Arab World. There are 6.5 million Twitter subscribers in the Arab World of which 3.7 million of them are active users.
Moreover, the Arab World has the second biggest community in the use of YouTube with a penetration rate that ranges from 75 percent to 80 percent. One hour of video is uploaded every hour from the MENA. In particular, the UAE occupiesthe first place in the Arab countries in using YouTube with a staggering statistic of 83 percent of its population.

Moreover, the UAE records high penetration on social media, compared to other GCC and MENA countries, rating as the country with the third highest amount of social media – active users (8.5m) after KSA at second place and Egypt recording the highest number.
The annual growth in mobile social media use is 6 percent yearly. 

As stated by GMI (2019), there are 9.52 active social media users in the UAE and the top active social media platforms are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Linked-in, Google+ and Pinterest.

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According to Media Lab’s report about social media platform usage in the UAE for the year 2019, the most used social media platforms are Facebook, with 8.80 million users (82 percent), followed by Instagram is being accessed by 3.7 million monthly active users. As for chatting services, WhatsApp is the most popular application with 82 percent of the population using it, and Snapchat, which is a popular picture sharing app popular among the youth particularly, is used by 32 percent of the population. (Figure 3)

 

FIGURE 3 - UAE SOCIAL MEDIA STATISTICS 2019

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As shown in figure 4 below, it is important to discover which apps are used the most by the youth, as research reveals the different social media platforms impose different effects on users. For example, a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a warning that Facebook could trigger depression in children and adolescents, populations that are particularly sensitive to social rejection, while Instagram is said to lead to body image issues more according to a study conducted by the University of New South Wales. Although these studies are conducted elsewhere, millennials typically consume social media following the same pattern and are somewhat similarly affected. 

In order to analyze the relationship between social media usage and mental health disorders, we must look at how attached the youth are to these platforms and how dependent they are on them.
According to a survey conducted by the Abu Dhabi Education Council, 69.7 percent of students in the UAE use social media 5 or more hours daily and have been bullied online at least once. 41 percent of students have also reported that they have gone for extended hours without food or drink, as a result of being attached to social media, while 56 percent admitted to attempting to quit social media in the past 12 months but have failed to do so.
The aforementioned data and statistics indicate that social media usage is very prominent in the UAE, creating a good opportunity to study whether it is in any way linked to mental health disorders (The National, 2019).

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FIGURE 4 – INFO-GRAPHIC BY MEDIA LAB 2019

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Social media plays a controversial part in developing the thought processes and building confidence in students, adolescents, and it makes them insecure with their appearances and public dealing.
The lack of confidence and feeling of not fitting in society leads them to depression and anxiety; while the feeling of competition damages the overall personalities of these children, so they never bring the best out of themselves.

Nowadays, the trend of counselors in the schools and colleges is a sign that children need therapy and that the signs of mental disorders are unavoidable in the students and youth. This situation is alarming, and instead of deteriorating the society, the media should play a healthy role in a positive personality building and upbringing of the youth (Thomas, 2018).