How do Social Media Affect Our Mental Health?
From very ancient times communication has been playing one of the most significant elements of survival. Primitive humans used many methods to communicate with each other, for example, they expressed their thoughts and feelings using speech or by signs or gestures. Now those days are long gone. We are in the 21st century where the earth is anastomosed by modern technologies. These technologies not only made today's life a lot easier but also standardized them many times higher than before. Social media is one of them. Usually by using the word “social media” we meant Facebook, messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, Imo, LinkedIn, and other internet-based applications that we use to communicate as well as share our thoughts. With the advancement of time, involvement of social media in our life has been drastically increased which give birth to some serious explicit concerns. Nowadays it appears that we have become a mere puppet of these man-made technologies. So, these questions should be legit to ask; Is social media a blessing for humankind?? Where does it taking to us? Are we on the right track or heading towards abysmal destruction?
Statistics show that there are 3.78 billion out of 7.82 billion people in the world and 50.64% of the total population, uses different platforms like social media in 2021 which indicates a five percent increase from a year ago,2020. It is also 920 million more than the number of social users in 2017, which represents a certain hike of 32.2 percent jump in just five years. These data show us how much we are infatuated with them.
Upsides of social media:
Social
media has plausibly made our life easy and comfortable. It enables us:-
Expansion of New ideas and creativity:
Social media is a great platform for sharing our ideas and assimilating new ideas as well as knowledge. These social platforms linked the whole world into a global village from where we easily access all the newest things. By sharing our ideas, we can benefit others and be benefitted.
Keep up with time:
It is the most common way to communicate and stay up to date with family and friends. If you live in a village or remote area, you can still stay connected with the world and easily get all the information about the digital world. So, it is very obvious, you can’t keep pace with the rest of the world unless you use these social media.
Make new friends, networking, and opportunities:
We can be friends with anyone, anywhere from the world, and get to know about everything regarding their culture, customs, country. It is also a pivotal platform for meeting with other people who share similar interests or ambitions like us. Hence, we can get a magnificent opportunity to flourish our heartfelt desire.
They're not going to be a full stop if we start talking about the advantages of social media. But there is deep darkness under the lamp. Many of these glorious opportunities seem to have come out of the frying pan into the fire.
Downsides of Social media:
Make away with time:
The use of these digital platforms is on the increase. We spent all day on social media which is leading us astray. Once we enter this fantasy world of social media, we got infatuated by them. We try to absorb everything from this media and got so much engaged that we lost track of time and ended up with guiltiness.
Trapped by Fake friends and cyberbullying:
Many of us use this virtual platform as a way of connecting with new people. We made many virtual friends whom we might not be known in person. Generally, we made some assumptions according to their profile and communicate with them. They could be a sham. In many cases, we are being exploited by them. Many reached out to us with devious plans just to get what they wanted, sometimes they blackmailed us with all our sensitive information they assembled and exerted their evil intentions. This harassment has a chronic effect on our mental health. Statistics show victims of cyberbullying have suicidal and self-harm thoughts.
Fear of Missing out:
Fear of missing out is one kind of social anxiety. It includes
- A strong desire to continuously
connected with other's activities.
- A regret of missing an opportunity
for social interaction; which could be a memorable or profitable
investment.
- Also deciding not to participate
in any event was their wrong choice.
Statistics say it has become quite tremendous at present. People, with the blessings of smartphones, can easily remain in contact with their social and professional networks continuously. These could be the main entry point of the problem. People who are dealing with this problem often anticipated that their friends actually can’t have any fun in their presence. These presumptions arise when FOMO people saw their updates over the internet.
Narcissistic syndrome and Drowned into guiltiness:
It is
quite a common problem for teenagers. They always remain concerned about their
virtual friends as well as their outlook on social media. They want to fit in
everywhere. They want themselves on everybody’s priority list. They remain
pessimistic and wants to know what people want to say about them; as a
consequence, he/she keep checking their social media accounts and messages all
the time and got lost track of time and end their day with enormous feelings of
guiltiness. Again, they start their day by checking their notifications on
social media, got lost in the fantasy of social media, lost track of time, and
end of the again that guilty feelings. This cycle kept going on day by day,
week by week, month by month.
Mental distress and trauma:
Due to this enormous addiction towards social media people often harm their social and personal life. They got too busy in social media life and become inexperienced about worldly life. They got fearful about their probable outcomes but still can’t get out of this loophole. So, ended up with colossal sadness, immense depression, frustration, loneliness, identity crisis, low self-esteem, and nervousness, even become suicidal sometimes.
Inferiority complex:
It is a basic feeling of inadequacy and insecurity. Through social media, people frequently share their moments of happiness, their most joyful moments. It is also a cliché to share one’s success, achievements on social media. People with an inferiority complex often get insecure over other's success and compare their situation with theirs. As an outcome, they feel intimidated about their future. They often show excessive sensitivity to other's criticism and overthink about their comments. In the end, they withdraw themselves from everything.
Antisocial behavior:
Social media made people quite mentally disable. They usually feel very reluctant to meet new people in person because of nervousness, shyness, and lack of experience. It makes them isolated in the real world. So, they gradually become antisocial and driven to the wall by loneliness. In severe cases turn them into a sociopath.
Though social media bestows us with several upside opportunities but the downtown effects are quite pernicious. The most deleterious effect is observed over mental health. It is not easy to combat this adverse effect once. Prolong use, easy accessibility, unethical use made this platform pathological. Sometimes it causes irreparable damage to mental health. People got serious mental sickness which can’t be a good sign for humankind. We can consider the following tricks to forego this habit of excessive social media use:
- Limit your time on social media
- Have the courage to stay away from the internet for a specific period and follow it strictly
- Always be careful while using social media. Don’t share all your private information over this platform
- Be selective when you connect with new people
- Take a break from it
- Always keep in mind why, when, and where can you use it
- Try to interact with more people in real life than in virtual life
Insightful.
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