Pros and Cons of Social Media and Its Impact on Mental Health

Social media and mental health have a significant role in our daily lives, making revolutionary advancements. It is the collection of various apps that help us in making connections globally, getting information, and growing financially.

Mental health refers to emotional and psychological well-being. It helps to possess self-confidence, inspiration, support, and to achieve real-world connections.

Nowadays, it is very difficult to imagine our lives without social media.

According to research by the National Institute of Medicine, a person spends 2.3 hours daily using social media. Thus, being socially linked with others helps alleviate stress, worry, and fatigue. Fewer social connections can create major threats to someone’s mental health.

About one billion people are now active users of Facebook, which has become the largest social networking website. It is expected that this number will grow fantastically with time, especially in countries that are under development.

Research in 2019 indicates that there was a 9% increase in social media use from the previous year, and the number of social media users became 3.484billion.

This research shows the direct and indirect impact of social media on mental health. It has drastic effects, which may lead to sleep disorders, lower self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. Insomnia, Less sleep time core are also the effects of excessive usage of social media, deteriorating mental health.

So we can hypothetically say that there is an association between social media addiction and mental health.

How Does Social Media Affect Mental Health?

Social media possesses both positive and negative effects on mental health. It helps to connect with your peers or loved ones by interacting and engaging on social sites. However, on the other side, it can also lead to mental health conditions, followed by anxiety, depression and other mental health conditions.

Moreover, fear of missing out is also an effect of social media. It makes one feel guilty of being absent and less rewarded due to the absence.

The Pros: How Social Media Supports Mental Health

Social media and its advancements provide us with connectivity and knowledge across the world.

• It helps us make connections with family, friends, and colleagues via different apps.
• It provides information regarding anything at the blink of an eye.
• We can adopt new hobbies, skills, and connect with people professionally in the cities to grow buds or to get jobs.
• Involvement in drastic changes in the country by collecting funds, raising social awareness, and providing a platform.
• It provides marketing opportunities and strategies.
• Social apps engage people in a way that they enjoy them, and loneliness and isolation can’t exist.

Note: Social media effects are based on its use; teens and adults are more vulnerable to it. We can’t stop ourselves from scrolling, but if we make conscious choices, we can break the dopamine loop cycle and lower the dopamine generation.

• Information & Awareness: The rise of mental health advocacy and destigmatizing therapy.
• Staying Connected: Bridging the gap with long-distance friends and family.
• Self-Expression/Growth: Providing a creative outlet for art, thoughts, and personal growth.

The Cons: The Hidden Costs of the Feed

Social media has taken a significant role in our lives. It has both positive and negative effects on the human mental state. On one side, it makes you feel connected, social, and mindful; on the other hand, it comes with cons.

The excessive use of social media makes you feel fatigued, down, less interactive, dissatisfied, and less supported. Therefore, to manage such circumstances, it is advised to maintain its usage and enjoy the best of mental health. Following are some drawbacks of excessive social media usage platforms, and we should mitigate them.

1. Digital and Unfiltered Life

Originally, life on social media and life in reality are two different things. Sometimes we have to behave well with our peers and working personalities in the best way, but in reality, our life is less connected with them. Therefore, it is clear that both are different from each other.

2. Quantity of Social Media

No social media type is promised to address in the time it changes. As the time changes, the information we may have shared can’t be changed later on. Therefore, we should make conscious choices by ourselves on how much and what to share on social media to reclaim our time.

3. The Hooked Nature of Social Media

While playing a game or completing a task, you will perform it in the best way you can. Once you complete, neurotransmitters like dopamine in your brain will give you a feeling of happiness, making you happy. The same procedure occurs when you post a picture on social media. You may like to check and explore all the good comments on your post, and how many people have liked them. Therefore, this addictive behaviour is the hidden con of social media.

4. Fear of Missing Out

FOMO has become a common consequence, and causes the active involvement of the user not to miss any reward, which can lead to missing out on any appreciation or any other benefits which he/she missed due to less involvement or absence of the user.

5. Self-image Issues

Social media sites have their own tools that allow them to compare with others by setting some standards. It can be about features of your face, as in this modern era, aesthetics are making advancements day by day. There are various aspects that are considered ideal; otherwise, you are in accordance with society trends. A person actively using social media will do personal comparisons with social media content, in contrast to a person using less social media.

6. Social Media and Its Effect on the Brain

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is produced as a result of any appreciation on social media likes, comments, and sharing. Dopamine then activates the reward system of the brain, resulting in the release of dopamine, which will have addictive nature and creates the dopamine loop.

7. Cyberbullying & Harassment

Cyberbullying and online harassment are the major harmful effects of social media, causing significant psychological and emotional damage. Online harassment does significant psychological and emotional damage. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, suicidal behavior, and physical symptoms triggered by mental health issues are the aftereffects of cyberbullying and online harassment. Moreover, People who face cyberbullying are more prone to substance use, unhappy behaviour, and unacceptable plans.

Here are some recent calculations on the mental health impacts of cyberbullying on teens.

• Teenage youth who are involved in cyberbullying or any harassment are more likely to have thoughts of suicide, with 4 times more chances.
• Cyberbullying is followed by more chances of depression, anxiety, and substance use. In the same way, people who are more prone to cyberbullying are three times less responsive and will slow down in the learning process at school compared to those with no cyberbullying exposure.
• From all the people who experienced cyberbullying, one-third of them were prone to stress and dissatisfaction.
• Cyberbullying affected 66% of the females in such a way that they faced social media backlash through feelings of low self-esteem and being less productive.

Furthermore, it has been reported that cyberbullying has more negative and drastic effects on people who were between the ages of childhood and adulthood. During this stage, one is more prone to the use of advancements and innovative technologies that inspire you the most. Therefore, it was noted that adolescents’ emotional, social, and psychological state of well-being has more negative effects than traditional cyberbullying.

Note: It’s suggested that parents, teachers, and victims should be more engaged and aware of these issues to mitigate these aftereffects.

Mental Illnesses: The Effect of Excessive Social Media Use

It was noted that the most important con of social media is its effect on your mental health. Many mental health conditions can arise due to its use, and if left untreated, can worsen with time if the engagement isn’t reduced, while others can worsen from consistent social media engagement. If you engage in social media regularly, it is very crucial to manage your mental health and keep an eye out for any symptom which is bad for your mental health.

Here are some mental health conditions that help provide awareness to people who are experiencing mental health issues due to excessive social media use.

1. Depression

One of the most common mental disorders caused by the use of social media is depression. Those people who frequently use social media are more prone to depression, loneliness, and fear of missing out on life. Most people get inspiration from social media in such a way that they start comparing their lives with those on social media platforms, and they even realize what’s happening with their mental health. People start comparing their lives with others, and even though they know that content online is specially curated and represents the best versions of everyone on social media, the best of each person’s life, the comparison still happens, leaving individuals feeling insufficient and friendless.

The more often you review social media, the more often these comparisons will occur. When feelings of inadequacy and loneliness increase, a person is more likely to develop depression or make their existing condition worse.

2. Anxiety

Anxiety itself has a wide range with different types and different symptoms, but one of the most common types of anxiety, which commonly exist is social anxiety. Social anxiety is a mental health condition that is followed by anxiousness in social conditions. Therefore, some of the following are the symptoms representing the occurrence of social anxiety, which may include;

• Less social connection
• Stressing about doing something unusual in public.
• Ignoring speaking in public or with others.
• Anticipating the worst-case scenario in the method of social situations.
• Bothering others will evaluate you or notice your nervousness.

Social media can make it challenging for people to socialize in their real lives. People are now habituated to the use of social apps, such as online chatting with their families or professionally, and they feel it is more reliable in this current digital world. If they don’t enhance their communication skills, they will probably develop social anxiety and feel distressed in sharing their concerns with others.

Moreover, bad news and updates also affect people’s mental health. If you consistently live in a negative environment and are exposed to negativity, your mental health will also be affected, and you may develop panic attacks.

3. Dysphoria

Nowadays, people resemble themselves on social media with other influencers and content creators. They compare themselves in society, anticipating beauty and satisfaction with life. It may develop dysphoria. Dysphoria is a mental illness followed by overall discontentment with life. Body dysphoria is a mental health condition that is also common nowadays, which causes a person to hyperact over a small or invented flaw.

For example, a person compares his body with the different body type of an influencer or model and tries to adopt the changes set by social media, which may harm mental health, leading to low self-confidence and feelings of distress.

4. Self-Harm and Suicidal Ideation

Mental health conditions sometimes exacerbate in such a way that they may cause panic attacks and can lead to self-harm and suicidal ideation. Regular social media platform use may increase an individual’s exposure to self-harm behaviors through online congregations and shared videos or negative messages, facilitating self-harming.

As social media is continually used by teenagers and adults are at a raised risk for self-harming and suicidal ideation. Therefore, social support and psychological therapies are beneficial in such cases; if not reported otherwise, they can produce serious complications.

5. Effect of Social Media on Sleep

According to The National Sleep Foundation, it is recommended that 8-10 hours of sleep is essential for good well-being. Sleep and mental health have a direct relationship with each other, and it was found that teens’ and children’s mental health deteriorates drastically when they don’t get enough sleep. They may show several behavioural changes, such as being less motivated, irritated, changes in their moods, dissatisfied, sad, or upset in the same way as adults.

So, in short, when the human mind doesn’t get enough sleep or rest, it will be less productive and responsive; therefore, it will result in mental illness or may produce psychiatric problems or suicidal thoughts.

Moreover, late-night scrolling disrupts the body’s internal clock by suppressing melatonin when we excessively use social media on smartphones or tablets. The blue light exposure suppresses the melatonin and pressurizes the brain by continuously stimulating it, thus increasing anxiety levels. This may result in “circadian phase delay,” where the body supposes attentiveness when it should be sleepy, resulting in shorter, lower-quality sleep, thus increasing next-day anxiety.

6. Psychological and Cognitive Impact

Excessive use of social media leads to reduced alertness of the brain during sleep when the sleep cycle has been disturbed. Here is how the cognitive and psychological well-being.

• Excessive social media use causes the release of the stress hormone cortisol
• Doomscrolling happens as late-night engagement in social media creates a reward or excitement from the content posted or read on social media.
• Scrolling on social media causes the resemblance or comparison of one’s life with those of content creators and models.
• Feedback loop refers to the disturbed state of mind in which excessive social media deprives sleep and causes brain alertness, then that brain alertness will result in fatigue or anxiety the next day, and this routine continues.

Treatment Approaches

A mental health professional can help identify whether social media is worsening anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, and sleep problems, and then build a treatment plan accordingly. These are highly manageable conditions with the right combination of treatments.

Here are some of the common therapies that can help:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based therapy that helps in changing negative thoughts and patterns, and changes them into positive ones. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy(DBT) is also a psychotherapy in which the therapist engages the patient in skills enhancement, builds interpersonal relationships with the patient, and ensures the patient’s mindfulness to motivate them towards progress.

Additionally, Group therapy can also help in reducing isolation and provide accountability and peer support. People meet others in groups who are struggling with the same mental disorder, which encourages them to remain motivated towards treatment.

Get Professional Support at Renewed Mental Health Group

If your social media usage affects your mental health, help is within reach. At Renewed Mental Health Group, we have a team of highly qualified mental health professionals who help you overcome mental health conditions. We offer comprehensive treatments with multidisciplinary approaches. Our dedicated experts offer a safe, nurturing space where you can talk about your issues without the fear of judgment.

You can also get treatments with ease from the comfort of your home with our telepsychiatric services.

Schedule an appointment now!

Bottom line

Social media and mental health are strongly correlated with one another. It has its pros and cons, but if it is used smartly, it can be very beneficial. As it eases our tasks in many ways, it helps us professionally, economically, and emotionally, but if it is used excessively, it will have drastic effects on the mental well-being of humans. So, to mitigate these disadvantages of social media, we have stated some recommendations and therapies that will prove beneficial in treating mental illness caused by social media.