Aiden Adams Professor Mulkey AP Seminar 29 March 2024 How social media affects the mental health of collegiate and professional basketball players We live in a world where it is easy to make direct contact with just about anyone, especially college and professional basketball players. As of 2022, the United States alone had the third-largest social media audience worldwide. The United States is home to over 302 million social media users and a social networking penetration rate of over 91 percent according to statistics “Social media usage in the United States - Statistics & Facts” published by Stacy Jo Dixon. That means that over 91% of the U.S. population is accessible via social media alone, ranging from platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. …show more content…
This also applies to the next level, being the professional athletes. Having said that, it is of utmost importance that athletes take care of themselves and their well being and the coaches and their teammates should lend a helping hand in order to make it work. REASON 2 & STIMULUS 1 According to the University of South Carolina, “Research in student-athletes has shown that they are most susceptible to suffering from depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and substance abuse” (Thompson & Sherman, 2007; Stock & Levine, 2016).Following the increase of social media and technology in the sports world it is now easier than ever to reach celebrity athletes. For instance, Simone Biles, an Olympian gymnast who stated she was “fighting all those demons” and “the mental was not there” when asked why she backed out of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. This was reciprocated with a lot of online hate via social media as seen in the article “Thompson: Simone Biles and the most human meaning of courage”(2021, pg 42). Proving how harsh the people of the internet can