Justin

            The reasons to use social media (and use it often for that matter) are clear. Social media allows us to stay updated with our friend’s lives, show off all of the cool things we’re up to, and of course follow our favorite puppy accounts. 40% of the world’s population, or roughly 3 billion people (BBC) are active members of social media and this number just continues to grow rapidly. However, I think what we fail to recognize and often overlook is how damaging too much social media can be.

 

In 2014, the University of Pittsburgh surveyed 1,787 people ages 19 to 32 about their use of eleven different social media platforms and about their mental health. Some of these platforms included Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. The study concluded that using seven or more platforms was correlated with triple the risk of having anxiety or depression, compared with those who used only one or two (Braininstitutde 1). When thinking about my personal experiences with social media along with my close friends’, it is becoming clear that we are beginning to feel burdened by this anxiety-inducing activity. For example, last weekend my friend and I decided to stay in one night so we could study for an exam. Sounds pretty reasonable, right? However, it didn’t take long for us to see everyone having an amazing time dancing and drinking on their Snapchat stories which gave us horrible FOMO, and gave us so much anxiety to the point where we eventually we decided to give in and go out.

 

Furthermore, Bobby Crane in his op-ed on The Daily Reveille points out another reason social media has such a negative effect on our mental health. He says, “having to constantly worry about the image you project on each different platform is tiring and anxiety-inducing” (Crane 1). Unfortunately, I can relate to this on a spiritual level. Just the other day I was gearing up to post a brand new picture on Instagram. I began my process of choosing the perfect picture out of the thirty that were taken, editing it with two different apps before editing on Instagram, saving it, sending it to my friend to make her own edits, receiving the edit, consulting multiple friends about a caption, and finally posting it. Of course the intense like-to-time ratio tracking hadn’t even started yet. Surely, I would have been much better off studying for my exam or interacting with my friends, but instead I spent a huge amount of time and energy working to make sure that I was being perceived well on social media. And for what?

 

In a recent post, Facebook admitted that social media does in fact negatively affect our mental health. Two of Facebook’s researchers said, “though the causes aren’t clear, researchers hypothesize that reading about others online might lead to negative social comparison — and perhaps even more so than offline, since people’s posts are often more curated and flattering” (Newsroom 1). Just as it’s stressful to make yourself appear perfect online, it’s just as stressful, if not more, to scroll through your feed and see all of the “perfect” people you are following. Surely, just like your own picture, your friends’ also aren’t entirely realistic, however knowing so doesn’t make it any easier to see. It’s so easy to see something on social media and compare it to yourself or your own life and feel insecure.

 

Clearly, there are many downsides to social media, specifically pertaining to one’s mental health state. I have felt and continue to feel these pressures and anxieties first-hand, and consciously work to overcome them. There have been multiple instances where I’ve thought about deleting specific social media platforms from my phone, including Snapchat and Twitter, and a couple times I’ve thought about deleting my social media presence altogether. It doesn’t take long, however, for me to recognize that I rely on these platforms to stay up to date and to communicate with my friends and certainly don’t want to lose that. Instead, I have come up with techniques to help reduce the anxiety that it causes me. This includes only checking Snapchat and Instagram stories occasionally, delegating a certain part of my day to browse social media, and trying my best to be as authentic as possible online.

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Works Cited

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Brown, Jessica. “Future - Is Social Media Bad for You? The Evidence and the Unknowns.” BBC, BBC, 5 Jan. 2018, www.bbc.com/future/story/20180104-is-social-media-bad-for-you-the-evidence-and-the-unknowns.

 

“Hard Questions: Is Spending Time on Social Media Bad for Us?” Facebook Newsroom, newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/12/hard-questions-is-spending-time-on-social-media-bad-for-us/.

 

www.braininstitute.pitt.edu/using-lots-social-media-sites-raises-depression-risk.