@ridaaxo's honor's project - Social Media and Mental Health
Social Media and Mental Health in todays youth
The uses of social media vary between platforms and the people that use them. It can be used to our benefit, with regards to communication, information, and spreading positivity amongst online communities, however maladaptive and harmful consequences can also come out of our technologically advancing world.
Self – Esteem
Social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, while being fun engaging platforms that can be used to communicate and update friends and family, can also actually cause esteem issues, especially in young people. The internet mainly only sheds light on the superficial surface of peoples lives. We see only what people want us to see, and these things are almost never an accurate representation of other peoples lives. Seeing pictures and videos of the glamorous parts of our friends and even celebrity lifestyles can bring real harm to the easily influenced youth of today. Highly edited and fake photos posted up online can lead to negative feelings of envy in oneself, which can cause someone to compare themselves to this superficiality. Feelings of self-consciousness, not being good enough for society and not fitting in can seriously cause anxiety and low feelings in a young teen. We might think that these pictures is what life should look like, which increases pressure on young teens to be perfect all the time, thus impacting self-esteem.
When we look at social media and see friends or other people we know hanging out together, or at a party, we may feel left out or excluded from the group. This can also impact the way we view ourselves. We may feel like were not good enough or that we arent liked by other people. Research from Beck has shown that we develop negative views about ourselves, the future, and the world. We may start to find ways to doubt ourselves, justifying the reasons why people dont like us, due to the anxiety that develops due to such feelings. These irrational thoughts and feelings that arent based on objective data can cause us to feel hopeless and useless, which are some symptoms of depression. This effect of social media can also cause us to overthink the little things and catastrophise/ magnify certain events that take place in out lives, all because we looked at something on social media and overanalysed it to the point where we start to question our worth. This can have seriously damaging effects on our self-esteem, especially in todays culture of popularity being one of the most important things in our youth.
Anxiety Disorder
Social media can also produce a lot of anxiety, as over time, many people begin to become addicted to it. University of Chicago found that social media can actually be more addictive than cigarettes! People often find themselves waking up in the morning, and checking their socials before doing anything else. It is the first and last thing people do in their day, which sounds incredibly unhealthy. Almost 20% of people with social media accounts cannot go more than three hours without checking them, which is an alarming amount of people. Excessive social media can lead to a real mental illness, known as Social Media Anxiety Disorder. This is when staying away from social media for a few minutes can bring about extreme anxiety.
What are the symptoms?
- Interrupting conversations to check your social media accounts
- Lying to others about how much time you spend on social media
- Withdrawal from friends and family
- Neglecting work to use social media instead
- Experiencing withdrawal symptoms when you are not able to access social media
- Spending over six hours per day on social networking sites
- Overwhelming need to share things with others on social media sites
- Severe nervousness or anxiety when you are not able to check your notifications
Does this sound like you? Having some or all of these symptoms doesnt always mean you have Social Media Anxiety Disorder, however it should raise some concerns with regards to how long you are spending online. About 30% of those who use social media spend more than 15 hours per week online. This can have negative impacts on your life, as you may start to neglect and ignore the more important things in your life, such as friends, family, and work. Researchers have found that using social media excessively can cause more than just anxiety. Using too much internet can cause depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), impulsive disorder, problems with mental functioning, paranoia, and loneliness.
What can I do about it?
We often look to social media to receive validation from other people who may not even matter much to us. The number of followers we have, the number of likes and comments we get, and the number of people that message us all fuel into our self-esteem, and we judge ourselves based on these numbers. This shouldnt define who we are, as it adds no value to who we are, yet we allow it to affect us anyway. We are growing in a world where acceptance and validation from society and social media is regarded by many as the most important thing. Why? Why do we let social media alter the way we look at ourselves? This is what we should be asking ourselves, and be considering why it is so important that we receive this validation from people we dont truly care about. We need to realize that what we see online is just a façade of reality, masking the truth of real life. We need to realize that no one is perfect and we all have our flaws. Once we accept this, we will be one step closer to being happier and content with what we have.
Questions!
How does social media affect your life?
Do you think you use social media too much? Or have you found the perfect balance?
Did you learn anything new after reading this?
Some links for further reading:
https://www.psycom.net/social-media-teen-mental-health
@ridaaxo great post! i think it gives really good insight on the world we currently live in. personally, i think i use my phone wayy to much because of social media and all that so i should probably work on reducing how long i spend online :P
How does social media affect your life?
Social media has had a pretty positive affect on my life. When I was off living a fairly active life, it allowed me to stay in contact with some people who I really otherwise wouldn't have - especially with people moving around. It's how I found out about my high school reunion, in a different city from where I was living at the time. I actually wish certain aspects were around when I was younger (although I'm glad facebook as it currently exists wasn't there when I was in my teens).
When I got really sick, social media took on a much more positive factor in my life. When lacking in energy and serious symptoms that get worse every time I stepped beyond my home to do something and often struggling to speak and even when I could speak, talking on the phone would exacerbate my symptoms - social media became my connection to others. I have some long conversation through social media accounts with some friends - who didn't even live nearby anymore (issue with being a grad student, the majority of people move away for their post doc positions) that were so important to me and helped me through an extremely difficult time.
There are also the rare disorder connections. The HAE communities were really helpful during that time (and still are although the need is a little less). Doctors even encouraged me to seek these groups out. Shortly after being diagnosed I saw a picture from a conference - on that I was too sick to travel too - where others with HAE were standing on a stage, each with a letter pinned to them that read YOU ARE NOT ALONE. When getting diagnosed with someone you have never heard of before, most doctors are pretty clueless about those are such powerful words. Even without being there, that picture being shared helped.
I have also sought out pictures of those that I love during a bad day where there's little I can do as it needs to involve resting. I'm thankful to have such a simple way to do it, and no need to worry about wrecking physical copies of photo albums if something slips through my hands.
Social media has also helped me find nearby services, some of which have health implications - for example a massage therapist who has really worked with my body well, as well as finding a good place to continue exercising after doing an exercise program in the health care system - I wasn't actually able to find something similar just looking online for a few months. There was another exercise based group I followed as I may drop in sometimes, but the posts did have a negative impact on my mood. I simply changed settings to they no longer come up in my feed, that is something I should have done sooner.
Do you think you use social media too much? Or have you found the perfect balance?
I do think I use it too much, but that's because my entire life is out of balance from what I want it to be. If I were working full time and out doing things like I used to be able to do, I wouldn't use social media as much. So I think the balance I have now is reasonable for my circumstances even though I'm not totally happy about the situation.
I do think even if I had the lifestyle I wanted, I would still use social media a little more than ideal, simply because it's a good procrastination technique. If it weren't social media then it would be something else - did so for years as a student!
I don't think I'm addicted, if I'm engaged doing other things I don't have the desire to check in, there are days where I don't check it at all. It wasn't even a few years after being quite sick that I got a smartphone, so if I went to see my parents for Christmas or something it would be common where I wouldn't pull out a laptop for a few days at a time.
Did you learn anything new after reading this?
Not really, although some of the stats I don't know off hand. I question some of what's being said - like internet use causing ADHD - I would think moreso that it's a factor for those who already have it, not a cause. I also question Social Media Anxiety Disorder as it's own disorder. Again, I think it can be a factor for those who have an anxiety disorder and I do think that there can be a big trigger that comes because of social media, but that doesn't necessarily meet the criteria for it's own separate diagnosis. There are many different situations that can be traumatic leading to PTSD or anxiety, but we don't diagnose them all differently.
@ridaaxo I am a bit confused about the link to health anxiety (as this is the section you chose). I have dealt with health related anxiety because of my rare disorder, I found that social media helped to handle that better, not make it worse, yet most of what you discussed was negative, and little mention of health related anxiety.
@AffyAvo the points you raise are absolutely valid too! this post just highlights some of the negative aspects related to the overuse of social media in many of today's youth, but of course, as you mentioned, it doesn't apply to everyone and can't be generalised to every person who uses social media as each person has different internal experiences with it. this post was only meant to raise awareness on some of the typical negative aspects of the usage of social media over what is considered a 'healthy' standard, which i thought was pretty relevant among young teens especially. i'm sorry my post wasn't as well-rounded and inclusive as it should have been <3
@ridaaxo I don't blame you for that, I think most of the articles and research focus on the negative, not the positive aspects.
