Social Media — The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Many people worldwide use social media, which has changed the way we communicate with one another. While social media provides us with access to more information than ever before, there are positive and negative implications of using this technology.
As social creatures, we need the companionship of others to thrive in life, and the strength of our connections has a massive impact on our mental health and happiness. Being socially connected to others can ease anxiety, stress, and depression and provide instant satisfaction to your life. On the other hand, lacking strong connections can pose an extreme risk to your mental and emotional health.
While this virtual interaction on social media doesn’t have the same benefits as face-to-face communication, there are still many positive aspects to help you stay connected and support your well-being.
Social media allows you to communicate and stay up to date with family and friends around the world. You can also find new friends and communities that network with other people who share similar interests or ambitions. Connecting with others can help raise awareness on important issues like BLM, the LGBTQ community, women’s rights, and many more. Social media could be an excellent outlet for our mental health to seek or offer emotional support during tough times. During times like the pandemic, social media can be the best source to find valuable information.
Even though social media is designed to bring people close together, spending excessive time engaging with social media platforms can make you feel lonely and isolated, eventually causing mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.
Social media may advocate negative experiences, such as:
Inadequacy about your life or appearance, most things we view on social media are manipulated. These posts can make you feel insecure about your appearance or what’s going on in your life. People tend only to highlight and share positive aspects of themselves rather than the low points that everyone experiences, which could be misleading to the audience.
Fear of missing out (FOMO) focuses on the idea that you’re missing out on specific activities, which can impact your self-esteem, trigger anxiety, and increase social media usage. FOMO can pressure you to check for updates or compulsively respond to each alert continuously. Not only do you feel left out, but most people lack sleep or prioritize social media interaction over real world relationships. The more you draw attention to social media interaction over face-to-face relationships, the more you’re at risk of evolving mood disorders such as anxiety and depression.
There are other adverse effects, such as cyberbullying, self-absorption, and isolation.
These days, now that everyone has been socially distant because of this GLOBAL PANDEMIC, there has been round-the-clock, hyper-connectivity to social media. During this time, you can feel triggered to impulse control problems with the constant alerts and notifications that affect your attentiveness, focus, disturb your sleep, and make you a slave to your phone.
There are many ways to modify your social media use to improve your mental health. First, it would help if you recognize the signs that social media is impacting your mental health. By just reducing a few minutes each day, results in an outstanding reduction in anxiety, depression, loneliness, sleep problems, and FOMO. Secondly, change your focus. By focusing on your intent when clicking a social media platform like finding specific information, check on a friend or family member can decrease your activity on social media, so you don’t feel “stuck on your phone.” Finally, spend more time with offline activities. Allow yourself to build meaningful connections by joining a club or try new activities without relying on social media.
While each social media platform has its advantage, it’s necessary to remember that social media can never be a substitution for real-world human connection.
Sources:
https://ontheline.org.au/mental-health-blog/pros-and-cons-of-social-media-for-mental-health/