In today’s date, we are more connected than we were ever before due to the immense rise in the usage of social media. From the different types of forums available to us to the different kinds of purpose they all serve, everything is available to us at the click of a button.
However, this dependence and reliance that we have on social media can have an adverse effect on our mental health, with an average Indian student checking their phones around 150 times a day.
In the long run, social media usage can make you feel lonely and insecure because we are constantly bombarded with everyone’s filter perfect selfies, along with all the good times they’re having with their peers.
Here are some ways in which social media can directly target your mental health:
Sleep
Getting your needed 7-9 hours of sleep is extremely crucial, every single night.
But we often choose to forego the needs of our body and indulge in checking our phones throughout the late hours of the night.
Not only does make us feel groggy and spacey the following day, but it also weakens our immune system, making us more prone to catching preventable diseases like cold, flu etc.
It also decreases our alertness and induces anxiety/paranoia.
Self Esteem
All of us have our own bundle of insecurities that we may or may not choose to share with the rest of the world.
But at the same time, we are constantly being exposed to the seemingly perfect lives of others on the internet.
A study conducted by The University of Copenhagen found that many people suffer from “Facebook envy”, with those who abstained from using the popular site reporting that they felt more satisfied with their lives.
If we try being more conscious of the time and energy we spend scrolling through our feeds, it can help us tackle the never-ending battle between us and our insecurities.
Attention Span
Thanks to social media, we now have access to every piece of information we require at our fingertips, but at the same time, it has also led to us becoming extremely distracted, very easily.
To tackle this problem, we should practice refraining ourselves from giving in to the need of “Googling” every single thing and make the conscious decision of making conversation instead.
Human Connection
The very thing that makes us human is our ability to communicate with each other, and the dire need to have personal connections with each other.
That aspect can become extremely hard to achieve when we’re hooked onto our devices all the time. We become acquainted with the digital faces of our friends rather than their real-life faces and personas, which can cause a drift between our perception of them, and who they really are.
A study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology that assessed 5,208 subjects found that overall, regular use of Facebook had a negative impact on an individual’s wellbeing.
Memory
Social media websites can be a great outlet for looking back at our memories whenever we feel like it and reliving the past events that happened with us in our lives.
But at the same time, it can also distort the way we remember stuff in real life.
This is mainly because we spend so much time absorbing a plethora of information in such a short span of time, that it can make us forget the things that are crucial.
It’s not necessary that we have to entirely quit social media, but the best way to go about it would be to allocate proper time slots in the day when checking the interweb and make it a small part of our daily routine instead of making it our entire daily routine.
Bringing in a little bit of change can make a huge difference in our lives!
But at the same time, not everything out there on the internet is completely negative in nature. While there are websites on the world wide web that can cause adverse effects to your mental health due to the nature of the content posted on them, there are also websites on a much brighter side of the web that can help boost positivity and reinforce a better social environment on your mental health.
Now&Me is the perfect place to be since our main goal is to provide a community to people who are looking to break free from the daily shackles and on-about of mainstream social media.
It's a place where you can just talk about your problems out, vent your feelings, and receive immediate community support along with the solutions to your problems! Sign Up today!
Read More: