How Social Media Affects Your Mental Health
Social media can be an incredible tool to connect with people all around the world. People can use social media for entertainment, connection and even business. However, social media can also bring negative consequences that are important to look out for. Humans aren’t meant to see what their friends or loose acquaintances are doing on a daily basis. Our brains were not wired to handle this information and end up ruminating on a picture-perfect image that may or may not even be true.
Negative Effects of Social Media
As with most things in life, there are both positive and negative effects that can come from social media. The negative effects come to mind first because they are usually discussed the most often. Everyone has their relationships with social media which means it will affect them all differently.
- One of the first negative effects is that it encourages comparing ourselves to others. Comparison leads to people feeling inadequate and less than. Unfortunately, most of the time on social media, people are sharing their highlight reel. People share their best accomplishments and may even sometimes will embellish their experiences a little. If we compare our daily activities to people’s number one accomplishments, we will usually fall short. In the end, these comparisons are not accurate and should not be used as compasses in which we live our lives. Most of us can relate to the fear of missing out (or FOMO). This feeling comes from us seeing people in our lives spending time together and feeling left out from them. Social media contributes to this fear because people are constantly posting their updates throughout the day. These updates may include activities that make their viewers feel left out or envious.
- When someone focuses on all of the ways they fall short and ruminate over the things they are doing wrong, they have a hard time not developing low self-esteem. Low self-esteem can lead to or overlap with anxiety, depression, OCD, and other serious mental health concerns. Comparing ourselves to others on a daily basis can create an inner voice that criticizes every move that we make. These critical inner voices can contribute the development of the previously mentioned mental health concerns.
- Social media, unfortunately, facilitates bullying behaviors. This is because people can hide behind faceless accounts and leave unkind messages on other people’s accounts. Sometimes, these unkind messages lead to mean messages. In more extreme cases, the mean messages become harassment, stalking, or threats. Bullying can lead to low self-esteem in those being bullied. Being bullied can lead to developing core beliefs that will stick with a person for the rest of their lives. For some reason, people find bullying easier to engage in online. This is unfortunate and has only strengthened the hold social media has on our current culture.
- Another negative effect of social media is that people can become dependent on it or addicted to it. This can mean a few different things. First, it can mean that people are addicted to using social media and the act of scrolling through social media feeds. However, on the other hand, people can be addicted to getting engagement on their social media platforms. This can mean likes, comments, follows, or any other forms of engagement. These engagements can become a source of highs and lows depending on how a person’s audience is interacting. These highs and lows can lead to low self-esteem which is dependent on how people are responding to them.
- Social media is an incredible way to provide information worldwide. However, this can be overwhelming for people to receive. We live in a world filled with unthinkable tragedies happening daily. Emotional burnout is valid and almost expected in our current times. Some people might find it helpful to set times on certain apps or their phones in general. This can prevent exposure to news 24/7. People can also set a schedule for times they will read the news but disengage for the remainder of the day to prevent emotional burnout.
Positive Effects of Social Media
We mentioned above all of the negative effects of social media. However, there are also positive effects on social media too!
- People can find support through social media. This is because social media presents the opportunity to meet people of different groups that we wouldn’t usually communicate with. This creates connections to people all over the world based on common interests. This can positively influence someone’s mental health because people making these connections are more likely to be happier. Connecting with other people with similar interests can help people to feel less alone.
- Social media can also bring awareness and advocacy for organizations that are important to so many people. Social media platforms give companies and nonprofits the ability to reach people all over the world to support their organizations. By utilizing social media, people can help as many people as possible.
Everyone has their own relationship and journey with social media. Setting boundaries with social media use is important to keep social media as a part of our daily lives. Social media can take over our lives and our mental health if we don’t pay close enough attention to it. By strengthening these boundaries, we can benefit from the positive effects of social media and minimize the negative effects of social media. Social media as a whole has the capacity to change our futures whether we like it or not. Learning the best way to work with social media will benefit your mental health in the long wrong. We believe in you and know that you deserve to improve your mental health in whatever way that looks like for you.
If you would like to work with us on your journey, you can reach out to us here.
