4 ways social media could impact your mental health
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Facebook, Tik Tok and Instagram - are some of the most popular social media platform sites used by students in the last two years, and as 2022 reaches its end, the likelihood is that these numbers will keep rising.
Social media is becoming more powerful and more addictive by the minute. It has changed how we choose to perceive the world and has entangled our ideas of reality with the truth.
With interactive features, fun and silly filters to engaging and (un)private chat rooms, the world of social media does a good job of keeping society close together and in contact with everything that is going on.
With friends and family, with loved ones – near and far, social media allows us to stay in touch with others. It builds community and has come of good use in tough times – for educational purposes, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But, as good of use as social media can be to our society, it is important to note that it has too many cons to be awarded a gold star.
More than 7 billion people are on this Earth, and according to research, 4.59 billion are currently using social media.
Think of the amount who have and still are suffering from mental health issues regarding their time spent on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.
The constant videos, the “my life is everything that it appears to be” ideology and the manipulation of the all-famous Phantom Vibration Syndrome, where your brain makes a million hallucinations of your phone going off when it has not... nope.
Here are four ways that social media can destroy your mental health:
Social media impacts your self-worth.
How often do you post a photo on social media? Share a video? State your opinion on something that happened. Did your face light up when you saw someone liked your content?
We are all guilty of it. Our hearts somehow become whole with a simple click of the finger (literally) on the screen of a technical device.
But does the fact that no one, not a single person, likes or shares, or even leaves a comment to say you look cute or well done.? But should that have to define or put a dent in your self-worth?
One of the most, and possibly most significant, cons of social media to your mental health is the fact that, like holding up a mirror, social media does an incredibly excellent job of comparing everything that we are as individuals with the rest of the world out there who feel the same.
Instagram makes you compare everything in your life, everything you do not have, to everything others post on their walls.
That makeover that someone just got, why couldn’t that be you? The holiday
In the last year (2021), 12,387 students in the UK admitted they were bullied online. The self-confidence and self-esteem of students are already suffering, and as the months move forward, the numbers will continue to rise.
Social media denies you your voice.
Without social media, you can think whatever you like without anyone else’s opinion – unless it is. Your thoughts are your own, and you are entitled to keep them to yourself.
However, on social media, you post it online whenever you have an opinion. On Facebook, Snapchat, Tik Tok, and do not forget Twitter! That platform is crawling with people’s opinions.
And what do all social media platforms have in common? They all come with a comment section – or a replies section if you are on Twitter.
Could you imagine your brain with a comments section? (If it does not have one already due to poor mental health).
Thanks to social media, people are more than likely to go back on their private opinions, with other people telling them they are wrong, making them feel bad about their perspectives on life.
Social media ‘encourages’ online bullying.
Social media is one of the biggest and best places for online bullying.
How many teenagers, children, young adults, and students have been bullied online in the last year?
A study found that up to 22% of college students are reported as victims of cyberbullying, and 25% of adults have experienced online bullying in their lifetime.
According to the graph below, most cyberbullying incidents – at least 59% of cases over social media happen through messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Snapchat.
Mental health is a consistently large and growing issue worldwide, more so within the modern age of technology.
Did you know that in the last two months, evidence has found social media sites to have led to an increasingly negative impact on mental health among students?
90% of young people aged 14-25 are currently using social media, and cases of severe depression and anxiety have risen.
Narcissism and narcissistic behaviour.
We all know what a narcissist is and how they act. But what does narcissism have to do with social media?
Did you ever notice social media brings out the worst in people? All the worst and most damaging features of a true narcissist
Think of all the selfies you take for your profile, with friends for your feed, and your story on sites such as Facebook and Instagram. It brings out the self-centeredness of a narcissist and can ruin your mental health overall.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a real thing and can destroy many aspects of a person’s life. This can negatively impact your relationship, not only with others but also with your relationship with yourself.
It can make you despise who you are becoming.
Social media has become the perfect place of living for narcissists with everything in it and everything they can do. People are given the superpowers of social media –filters, followers, and in general, power, which manipulates viewers to their content and other users to the site to believe that they are living the “perfect” life.
Social media has a cynical way of changing our personalities, transforming our behaviours for the worse and ruining our lives.