Its been debated that social media plays a significant role in our mental health. More than just the risk of being exposed to cyber-bullies and trolls, social media can play a big factor in the way you view yourself and those around you. Some call this “Facebook Depression.”
For starters, social media can be highly addictive. Mindless scrolling can keep you captivated for hours. I, myself, just last night sat on TikTok rather than writing this post for 2 hours. It is an opportunity to distract yourself from reality and responsibilities. It can also create more sadness and less well being. The correlation of social media use and decreased happiness is direct for this reason: social media provides a fleeting feeling of social connection that isn’t tangible and because it is not tangible it isn’t as fulfilling as person to person interaction. We try to fill this social void by increase our followers or “internet friends,” but this doesn’t mean that we are actually being social.
Social media provides a place for people to post the highlights of their lives or moments that we created and not real for people to compare their own lives to, which can damage self-perception or even create a cycle of jealousy. Yet, we still find ourselves thinking the use of social media will somehow make us feel okay anyway, even though we feel all of these things.
Take a look at this article from Forbes to get a more in depth look into the studies that support these 6 ways social media affects our mental health: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2017/06/30/a-run-down-of-social-medias-effects-on-our-mental-health/#789db0392e5a
LIS 4022 Spring 2020 