The Role of YouTube in Shaping Social Realities and Its Impact on Youth’s Mental Health

Abstract

This study investigates how YouTube shapes social reality and how it relates to Pakistani youth's mental health. The study is based on Uses & gratifications Concepts and Socially Constructed realities concepts, goes beyond presumptions of direct correlation to investigate how YouTube engagement patterns connect to emotional stress through interruptions in daily life. A standardized survey measuring usage patterns, daily life disruption, and mental health outcomes as determined through the scale for depression, anxiety, and stress (DASS), gather data from 300 young YouTube users adopting a quantitative approach. The results show that participants' daily routines heavily incorporate YouTube, with medium to considerable levels of involvement. YouTube usage and psychological distress are significantly positively correlated, according to statistical analyses; however, there are higher correlations between mental health results and disturbances to daily activities, such as sleep delay, decreased focus, and conflict with routine duties. YouTube usage and daily life disruption jointly account for a significant amount of the variance in mental health issues, according to regression results, with daily life disturbance appearing as the more powerful predictor. There were no discernible gender differences in the mental health outcomes, despite the fact that female individuals reported higher usage levels.