One Facebook post contained 7 photos captioned “7 signs that you are suffering from

depression”(Blogtamsu.com).One of them is composed of a “symptom” saying “You keep

overthinking about everything”. As we scroll down into the comment section, a lot has been saying

“depressed nga ako, nararamdaman ko‘tong mga ‘to”, “depressed ka @/… kasi lagi mo ako

inaaway”, and even “depressed ako, salamat sa posts na ito”. These words and phrases used by

adolescents to describe their emotional struggles are alarming as this is not how a certain mental

illness should be perceived.

This kind of behavior need some guidance and enlightenment as contributed to mental

health awareness and to those who went through serious mental health conditions. If not, it caused

risks, hazards, and misapprehensions, especially to adolescents who are susceptible to these risks.

Self-diagnosis is dangerous (Pillay, 2010) because mental disorders like depression was needed a

proper diagnosis by a professional.

Theoretical Framework

Social Learning Theory

This study was anchored on Social Learning Theory of Albert Bandura. This theory posits

that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling. The theory has often

been called a bridge between behaviorist and cognitive learning theories because it encompasses

attention, memory, and motivation (Bandura, 1977). Theory had also included general principles.

These are as follows: (1) People can learn by observing the behavior is of others and the outcomes

of those behaviors; (2) Learning can occur without a change in behavior; (3) Cognition plays a

role in learning (Bandura, 1977).

Peer group served as a model and influenced behaviors and attitudes (Glaser, Shelton & Bree,

2010). Likewise, Facebook was a popular social media Web site that has been hypothesized to

exert potential influence over users' attitudes, intentions, or behaviors (Kota, Moreno, Schoohs, &

Whitehill, 2013) One Facebook page entitled “Depression Quotes“ (@DepressionV) contained

photos which elicits words and phrases like “ I’m often silent when I’m screaming inside“,“I will

never be good enough for you. I got that. “, “Real depression is when you stop loving what you

love” and “This is insecurities. This is depression. “. Followed by few comments: “sad but its

true”, “yep, that’s where I am in life” and many more. Peer groups displayed variety of materials

such as photos, memes, videos, shared posts and posts on Facebook could really be a risk factor

on adolescents’ learning since it might emit mutual description of feelings with their emotional

struggles; where they feel familiar with the certain post. Thus, users’ ideas, thoughts, and behaviors

will soon imitate it through observation. In result to that, most Facebook users who were

acquainting to people diagnosing tendencies with depression tend to copy their tendencies

especially if some of the symptoms or signs really happened to the life of the person. .