11 ways in which social media affects mental health

Off late, social media rules the world, and every single person is on social media. Buyers and sellers throng these places as they promise a lot of effective ways of mingling in ways one could never think of before. But, everything out there has pros and cons, and knowing how to deal with the cons is the biggest challenge mankind is ever facing. In this segment, we will primarily focus on how social media affects mental health.

Primarily since the data from Pew Research Center suggests that 45% of the entire 13- to 17-year-olds are found online. Almost 97% of them are using social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat.

Few studies show social media and mental health facts that draw a firm connection between social media and mental health in youth negatively.

Highlighter:

Whichever country you are in, grab all social media related laws and know your rights well.

Social Media and Mental Health Facts

• In a 2019 study, almost more than 6,500 12- to 15-year-olds in the U.S. were found to be using social media for more than three hours a day.
• In the UK, studies of more than 12,000 youngsters show those teenagers between 13- to 16-year-olds used social media three times a day.
• In a retrospective review derived from analyzing studies done in the past, it was found that there was a close relationship between social media and the growth of anxiety and depression issues in young adults and youth.
• The high risk of psychosis in youngsters is indirectly indicated as a finding highlighted in a study done in 2018 while trying to analyze how socially one can benefit from having a social presence towards social healing.

Like it’s said before, it can be rewarding and debilitating equally if you ask how social media affects mental health. Before we move to the sad part of using social media, we will try to figure out what gains it can bring to an individual. The youth is the biggest group of buyers while sellers can be from any age category or group.

Social media and mental health in youth

Benefits of social media and mental health in youth include:

• You can find your community of like-minded people and that can go a long way to adding to your friend list.
• Businesses can find customers and each customer from social media can indulge positively with you is a major advantage of the feeling of mental well-being from being on social media.
• A lot of people can benefit from getting the right inspiration and the right word from people and works great between mental health and media
• You can also benefit positively by being able to voice your concerns even if you think it is ordinary and need not be heard.
• Keeping in touch with people who matter to you can mean a lot often.

But benefits apart, social media and mental health facts can also be debilitating as they can expose you to strangers who might not be intending right.

Negative Impacts of Social Media

Over the years, social media is accessed by different businesses and some of the businesses are not in sync with your needs. Most such businesses try to create a business out of you even if you don’t fit their bill or your needs don’t match theirs causing imminent harm to your plans. You can often get dragged into their mental manipulations and that can make your life worse than you can think of (social media and mental health in youth).

Prime way social media affects mental health

Digital addiction

The prime problem bound to creep up is known as digital addiction. Many of us cannot sit silently for a minute without our systems and our phones. Most of us are not making millions during this time nor are we setting up huge contacts but its making us feel important. In this way, once someone strips us of the phone, we start feeling unimportant, and that way it can harm us more than help us.

Social media affects mental health (Associated physical symptoms)

1. Insecurity increases

Feelings of insecurity are common in people handling too much social media within a day.

2. Negative emotions rise

Fear, sadness, worries; pain can be prominent features of social media that might add up.

3. Amnesia

Individuals can suffer from amnesia or even minor to major issues of sleeplessness. Sleep is an essential part of healing and if you are not able to sleep right, your body might soon be subject to some of the most vicious diseases. Thus, leading a healthy life involves at least 6-8 hours of sleep in total.

4. Higher risk of depression in social media users

: As per a recent study, the risk of depression in adolescents can increase by 13% for every hour that you use social media more.

Social media affects mental health (Rise of social concerns)

These below points can make or break a person if the person is not strong enough to ignore them. Strict societal measures can help. But it seems we cannot tackle ourselves leave alone our children.

1. Falling prey to unnecessary cyberbullying, spreading of lies about an individual

Many adolescents fall prey to the wrong that is spreading like wildfire along with the good that is getting harvested on social media (contributes majorly towards social media and mental health in youth).

Most adolescents can suffer through malpractices like bullying, the spreading of lies around an individual, and so on. We are aware of many cases where constant and repetitive harassment of individuals can lead to their loss of life even.

Thus, this is turning out to be one of the most potent disadvantages of social media use today and also a significant reason why social media is bad for mental health.

Cyberbullying is a crime and its strength lies in its anonymity. Every anonymous person can bully you without running the risk of being traced out. This factor alone has harmed people more than benefitted them.

Several cyber bullying sites are of immense benefit to all those who are trying to escape such brutal and unnecessary forces right now. You can always contact your cyberbullying unit to prevent it from being tracked in this manner.

2. Political misrepresentation

Another term that comes up when looking at the harms of social media. Free speech on social media can mean a lot of irrelevant issues being highlighted which means nothing to the public or the government except serving as the source of fuel to the fire.

3. Our regular physical interactions can decline

It can decrease your face-to-face interaction as you are confined more to social media. If you are most of the time not aware, you might find yourself sitting confined in a box where you interact with people you don’t know while leaving out on people you know can help you properly.

Social media affects mental health (Bigger issues)

Privacy loss means nefarious individuals can track you down. You could get into their radars which would mean increased problem for yourself. These people currently operate by destroying you as an individual. Care must be taken only on an individual level as that alone is possible to an extent right now.

1. Privacy becomes a concern

People can easily find out your home address, phone number, and even your email address, and this can be harmful contributing in a major way to social media and mental health in youth. If you wish to find out more about privacy, you must first understand what dangers you could have from being identified by people who may bring you more harm than good. Thus, regularly monitoring your details or placing wrong details can also put someone else in a risky situation. Thus, social media can be vicious for those who fall into networks that are not right for them, and so on.

2. Long-term relationships can get impacted by social media

Many relationships are broken when social media is being used as a medium of communication. Sending the right emojis and the right words can lead to the dubiousness of a situation people can wholly not comply with. Even best friends can fall apart due to a lack of real communication between them.

3. Belittles original ideas and skillsets

You can always be mimicked quickly and your ideas might not seem like your ideas often. Some people have a far greater reach than yours and they would be willing to use your ideas to create content that might sell well than yours. This state can make you sad, misunderstood, and shadowed and also a sense of dejection might creep in.

Solutions to social media and mental health

If you do not want to fall prey to the problems social media can introduce in your life, yet, want to use social media’s power, go ahead and find out some real-time solutions to social media and mental health.

1. Limit the use of social media to one hour.
2. If you are a small business or blog, use a free post-publishing application to automatically upload your posts. Several good ones are free to use.
3. You must not browse through posts unnecessarily unless you are searching for something particular yet nonspecific enough. It is one of the best ways to use your attention as this will ensure you are not diverting your attention.
4. Do not expect a lot from posts always and if you do so, you can know how social media affects mental health and how you can avoid it.
5. Often when you are searching for something particular, you might find an answer around it on social media. Always do not fall prey to the solutions offered here. Try to find more about it on other good sites and do not ever think it’s a miracle that you have so easily found an answer. When you find an answer, it could be that your social media is closely following your searches.

More solutions to work on

1. Do not consider all that you read and see on social media for truth. You can read everything that passes by you but what you believe should be a personal, close knit secret you keep close to you.
2. If you want to understand more of what you can do, you must remember that it’s a virtual world and even though they speak about the real world, there’s always a sense of virtual illusion to all the ideas.
3. Not everything written on social media is meant for you and not every idea on social media is God sent this is a real-time solution to social media and mental health.
4.  Remember it’s all about the algorithms and every algorithm is human-made.
5. Do not ever think you are incapable even if the world shouts at you that you are. Understand you are an individual with your shortcomings and efficiencies. Learn to acknowledge them and be at peace with what you are becoming and what you want. In this way, you understand that social media has no impact on you if you do not care to listen to everyone except yourself and can understand how social media impacts mental health.
6. Do not treat social media seriously as long as you can project your business well on it.

Conclusion

If you think, you are being trapped through social media, create an alert. Keep people informed on how you are being tracked and attacked. Form a clear thinking instead of getting nervous. Stop all contacts with the identified sources immediately. Save yourself when there is still time and read every article that tells you or makes you aware of how social media affects mental health.

Read more about our minds working here: Do we lose our mind as we age