How Does Social Media Affect Your Mental Health?
Social media can affect your mental health to a tremendous amount without you even realizing it. According to the University of California, 4.9 billion people use social media and average 145 minutes of screen time daily. Social media can get intrusive and spiral out of control quickly. Social media can result in the worsening of anxiety and depression—for example, filters, FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), and Dopamine can connect to anxiety and depression because they all deepen within social media and cause your mental health to escalate downhill.
Social media is extremely addictive. One of the main contributors to how social media can affect your mental health is dopamine, a type of monoamine neurotransmitter. Dopamine is created in your brain and chemically messages between the nerve cells in your brain and the rest of the brain, as well as the rest of your body. Dopamine is commonly known as a “Reward System.” For example, when someone likes one of your posts (University Of California), it lifts your dopamine, but when no one likes or views your post, it adversely affects your self-esteem.
Other negative sides of social media are filters and FOMO. The internet centers a lot on what you look like, and with access to so many filters, everyday exposure to these filters can cause many people to dislike their physical appearance. According to Balardbrief, A Mental Health Foundation report states that 31% of all teenagers and 35% of all adults struggle with body image issues due to social media. Many people also have increased FOMO levels. The Internet can be dark because it only highlights the best parts of a person's life. FOMO can worsen anxiety levels and cause you to check your phone even more to see the current events. Everyone should care about FOMO because this can cause people to have worsening feelings of anxiety and depression. This can cause a decrease in being productive and completing day-to-day activities.
Another negative aspect of social media is cyberbullying. According to Security.org, 44% of people stated that at some point in their lives, they had been cyberbullied in 2020. YouTube gets the most cyberbullying out of all social media platforms. A survey shows that young children on YouTube were cyberbullied by 79%. On Snapchat, the risk is 69%, TikTok is 64%, and Facebook is 49%. This article states that as people get older, they are more likely to get cyberbullied.
There is evidence that shows that the average age of when a child gets their phone, which is 12 - 13 years of age, is the same time they develop Body Dysmorphic Disorder, also known as BDD. BDD is very common in teenagers, research shows that ⅔ of people who have BDD are under 18. According to Ballardbrief, in one study, scientists say that over 62,000 people who use cell phones, specifically social media, affect their weight control.
In reality, on social media, you're only seeing the good parts of someone's day-to-day life. Social media can be a fun tool to see inside your family or friends’ lives, but only if you use it safely. Many factors like FOMO, cyberbullying, and filters can cause social media to have a dark side. It can get hard to know when to put a pause on social media. If you feel you are seriously struggling with the negatives of social media, reach out to your healthcare provider.
By Katie Byrd