I am fat. Wow, she has so perfect figure why I don’t have… I am fat! She is only 19 years old and she already has thousands of followers. What am I doing with my life? two like only! This picture is not as good as her picture! Does this picture deserve so many likes?
This is the monologue of a typical social media scrolls. This happens with each one of us but we don’t talk about this much and this goes unrecognized.
Here are the unintended consequences of social media on your mental health. What does this do to you? and how can you craft a better experience on social media? We all experience phantom vibration syndrome. That is when you think your phone vibrates, you checked but it didn’t. You cannot go off without your phone for one day also. What is this social media doing to us?
Anxiety, depression, all types of mental disorders are connected to social media but still, it is used by all of us, all types of ages mostly 18 to 24 years old.
We spend almost 3 to 4 hours a day on social media. We don’t even spend this much hours eating. Anything we spend this much time will have long-lasting effects on us.
1. Highlight reel
just like sports highlight reel is the real best and brightest moment. Social media is a personal highlight reel of a life. We put our best wins and highlight on social media. Because of this, we feel jealous as we compare our life with others’ life highlight reel. We compared our life with other people’s lives even when social media didn’t exist. Before it happens with only TV and celebrities but now it’s happening all the time. When the highlight reels do while we encounter the second stressors of social media.
2. Social currency
just like the dollar, the currency is an attribute value to your service. In social media like, comments and likes act as currency. In marketing, this is called the economy of attention. Everything is competing for your attention and when you give attention, it becomes a recorded transaction attributing the value to it. Which is great if it is a business or you’re selling the clothes. But wanting other people’s attention just to feel good about yourself is not healthy for your mental health. We are trying our self worth out of what others think about us.
3. Fomo (fear of missing out)
Fear of missing out is when you are missing a potential connection event or an opportunity. We always tend to think that if we close it or deactivate our social media accounts we will miss out on the majority of the events or the connection. And this fear doesn’t allow us to take a break from it.
4. Online harassment
Hundred percent of people experience online harassment daily. For example, if you have a friend who posted a funny photo of yours on Instagram or you got a mean comment on some post. These are the micro-moments that can cause macro problems if it happens again and over again. Many people tend to feel bad about their self and their life because of this online harassment. Because of judgemental and mean people on the internet many people experience depression and stress. This is the most important point to be taken care of.
Social media has a great impact on our everyday life. We can make full use of social media by just following people who inspire us and motivate us. We need to have control over it for better life experience and social media experience. We should spend less time on it and practice a healthy lifestyle and which is perfect for our mental health.
