Social media addiction can harm a teen in many ways. If your child is experiencing negative mental and physical health effects from social media use, turning to teen social media addiction treatment can help. Contact Foothills at Red Oak Recovery at 866.300.5275 to learn more about social media abuse and treatment options.
What Is Social Media Abuse?
Social media abuse is the misuse of social media sites. The “high” that interactions online provoke can lead teens to return to websites repeatedly. Often they do this so much that it negatively affects their relationships, health, and grades.
Social media use can affect the same areas of the brain as recreational drugs. This provides a surge of dopamine that the brain associates with a reward and strives to repeat. This leads to the development of dependence.
Teens, especially those with co-occurring mental health conditions, are most at risk of social media dependence.
Social media abuse can lead to a number of adverse effects, including:
- Failure of interpersonal relationships
- Attention problems
- Sleep problems
- Low self-esteem
- Development of anxiety
- Development of depression
Turning to social media addiction treatment services is important to treat social media abuse, as with other types of substance use disorders.
How Social Media Addiction Treatment Services Help
The most effective social media addiction treatments can offer many benefits for teens with this type of disorder.
Learn New Coping Skills
Teens who turn to social media to deal with anxiety, depression, or other mental health disorders can learn how to cope with the symptoms of these illnesses without relying on social media. Treatment services can show them how to recognize triggers and stressors and what to do about them so that they do not fall back on social media.
Recognize Negative Thought Patterns
Social media addiction treatment can teach teens how to recognize the unhelpful thought patterns that may lead them to rely on social media for self-esteem boosts or for the dopamine rush it offers.
Understanding how their thoughts can influence their moods and behaviors can help teens make the necessary changes. The proper treatment program will offer cognitive-behavioral therapy sessions and dialectical behavior therapy to help teens develop the skills they need to manage triggers and use healthy coping skills.
Boost Self-Esteem
Instead of relying on the high that social media use triggers, teens who participate in treatment programs can boost their self-esteem by doing more positive actions. Experiential therapy, like equine therapy and exercise therapy, can be the best way to increase self-confidence.
Build Community
One of the reasons many teens develop a social media use disorder is that they feel isolated and lonely. By participating in treatment services, a teen can have group therapy sessions that help them understand that they are not alone.
Group therapy allows teens to build a supportive community made up of peers and adults they can turn to for advice.
Learn Communication Skills
Sometimes teens assume that social media helps with communication skills. However, social media harms such skills. Social media can erode interpersonal communication skills, which can cause significant harm during the adolescent years.
When undergoing treatment, teens can learn how to communicate more effectively, understand the motivations of others, and manage their own responses to stimuli.
Social Media Addiction Treatment at Foothills at Red Oak Recovery
For teens who struggle with a social media use disorder, breaking free from the cycle of addiction can depend on turning to the right treatment provider. At Foothills at Red Oak Recovery, we offer behavioral therapies and experiential therapies that can help teen boys deal with this disorder.
At our center, professionals are ready to help. Contact Foothills at Red Oak Recovery today at 866.300.5275 to learn about social media addiction treatment services.
