Adding JTextArea to JScrollPane and JPanel issue's

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

So when I don’t add the text area to the scrollpane the update method works, however if I do all I get is a blank screen. The other problem is if I add any of this to a JPanl mainArea one below it becomes super doper tiny.

Any Help is appreciated thank-you.


public class Gui {
    JFrame frame;
    JPanel mainArea;
    JPanel choiceArea;
    JScrollPane scrollBar;
    JPanel charArea;//for later use
    JPanel mapArea;
    JTextArea textArea;
    
    
    public Gui(){
        
        frame = new JFrame("Escape");
        frame.setSize(700, 700);
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        
        
        mainArea = new JPanel();
        mainArea.setMaximumSize(new Dimension(680, 400));
        mainArea.setSize(680, 400);
        //mainArea.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(680, 400));
        
        choiceArea = new JPanel();
        choiceArea.setSize(700, 150);
        
        textArea = new JTextArea(35, 25);
        textArea.setLineWrap(true);
        textArea.setWrapStyleWord(true);
        textArea.setEditable(false);
        //textArea.setSize(680, 400);
        //textArea.setRows(35);
        
        scrollBar = new JScrollPane();
        scrollBar.setVerticalScrollBarPolicy(scrollBar.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_AS_NEEDED);
        scrollBar.setHorizontalScrollBarPolicy(scrollBar.HORIZONTAL_SCROLLBAR_NEVER);
        scrollBar.add(textArea);
        
        choiceArea.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
        //mainArea.add(scrollBar);
        
        
        
        
        frame.getContentPane().add(BorderLayout.CENTER, textArea);
        frame.getContentPane().add(BorderLayout.SOUTH, choiceArea);
        
        
        frame.validate();
        frame.setVisible(true);
        
    }
    
    public void addTextToTextArea(String s){
        textArea.append("\n" + s);
        textArea.repaint();
        textArea.revalidate();
        frame.repaint();
        frame.revalidate();
    }