Social Media Addiction Causes Major Mental Health Crisis Among Vietnamese Youth – VnExpress International

Khan lives with his grandmother because his parents often go on long trips. Therefore, he has the right to freely use his phone and computer.

The mother decided earlier this year to work closer to home to better care for her son, so she decided to focus all her resources on getting him into a specialized secondary school.

But Hang’s mother noticed that his grades were slipping. And they were for a while. He was always irritable and tired, and he began to withdraw from social interactions.

Khan’s story, which is just getting started, shows how social media addiction can affect the minds of young people. This digital dependence cuts through the complexities of personal and academic life, and the most hopeful end is an intervention and support system aimed at restoring and restoring a healthy future.

One day, Khan’s mother accidentally checked her phone and found her son connected to self-harm groups on social media. His family decided to confiscate his phone. But then Khan tried to commit suicide.

Luckily, he didn’t make it, but that’s how he ended up in the hospital.

“Blood Calms Me”

“I like seeing accidents and blood because it calms me down,” Hang said while being treated at the Mai Huong Psychiatric Hospital in Hanoi’s Hai Ba Trung district earlier this month. He also told doctors that he could not leave social media.

After numerous examinations and tests, Hang was diagnosed with social media addiction and severe depression, and had to be admitted to treatment.

Similarly, the 16-year-old daughter of a woman surnamed Hong, who lives in Thanh Huan district of Hanoi, was hospitalized last year for anxiety disorder due to social media addiction.

Hong said her daughter was glued to her phone 24 hours a day until she ate, went to bed or bathed. He spent the whole night on the Internet “waiting” until it hit him when he was most exhausted. However, all it takes is a “ping” from the phone to wake it up instantly.

Hong later restricted her daughter’s phone use to three hours a day.

The girl did not take it well.

“When she wasn’t allowed to use her phone, she was always angry, and she used to use her phone all the time when I wasn’t home,” Hong said, adding that her daughter quickly lost weight and isolated herself, never leaving her room.

Then the girl said that she began to hear voices in her ears.

Hong took her for a diagnosis, and it was found that her daughter had symptoms of depression and schizophrenia. He was prescribed medication along with psychotherapy and was not allowed to use his phone.

Internetism

Symptoms of social media addiction include frequent Internet use, increased demand for the Internet when unavailable, and feelings of sadness and fatigue when people are unable to use the Internet, according to the WHO. Some use the Internet as a distraction, through which they try to escape from the problems of the real world.

Social media addiction is said to be rampant in Vietnam. The “Digital 2021” report found that Vietnamese spend an average of six hours and 47 minutes a day on the Internet, and spend two hours and 21 minutes on social networks. There are no official statistics yet on the number of teenagers addicted to social media, but experts say mental problems among young people are on the rise and social media is contributing to it.

A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that 12- to 15-year-olds who used social media for more than three hours a day had twice the risk of developing mental health problems compared to children who did not use social media. According to experts, excessive use of social media leads people to harmful and dangerous content and makes them feel inadequate when comparing themselves to others online. These are just a few of the negative effects of social media.

Vuong Nguyen Toan Tien, special director of psychological services company Lumos, said there needs to be more education and communication to raise awareness about the dangers of social media. First, Tien said, people should be taught how to protect their personal information and avoid the risks of cyberbullying.