The world is constantly changing and becoming more advance. With technology evolving and becoming a part of everyday life it has the biggest impact on mental health. Social media is a new phenomenon to use social networking through websites and applications on your phone or tablet. We use social media for news, for tips with life, fashion and current issues in the world. Sharing opinions, events and photos on social media is becoming an everyday life routine. On average, people spend nine hours a day on social media.
Social media is manifesting and evolving every day with the new creative applications. As we speak the amount of time spent on social media is more than drinking, socializing and grooming. The amount of time people spend on social media is growing every day.
According to social media today, a person spends an average of 40 minutes a day on YouTube, 35 minutes a day on Facebook, and 25 minutes on snapchat. With that being said, people around the world spend an astounding amount of time on their phones or tablets/computers.
Since being on social media is a common thing, we tend to compare our self to other people live. Spending multiple hours scrolling up and down timelines can make a person feel self-conscious and unhappy. People can portray that their lives are normal and great with the many selections of filters that create an allusion. This illusion can alter someone’s self-esteem because they make it look so perfect. Once you keep seeing other people’s fabulous life you’ll start to think that your life isn’t up to part.
According to the University of Copenhagen this is called Facebook envy.
Studies have found that if they neglect these certain applications, their lives get better. According to Dr. Tim Bono “When we derive a sense of worth based on how we are doing relative to others, we place our happiness in a variable that is completely beyond our control”. With that being said, your emotions and behavior can lead to several mental health issues. Although social media for adolescent is a way to interact, create and learn; it affects them the most. According to Psycom, the downside of social media use by teens are focusing on likes, cyberbullying, making comparisons, less face time and having fake friends. When teens focus on how many likes they have they start altering the way they look, doing things to fit in and doing things to make them look cooler for society.
Cyberbullying causes a lot of teens to become depressed, increase anxiety and have frequent suicidal thoughts. When teens are on social media they tend to show the highpoint of their lives. When one sees that highpoint, one can start comparing oneself to another. Comparing yourself to another person can make you feel depress and may lead to suicide because you feel like you’re not good enough. On social media, you can make new friends just by a click away but having too much friends on social media can invade your privacy. The more friends you have the more people can screenshot information on you and spread rumors.
Its problematic when teens can’t form empathy and compassion because they spend too much time on the internet engaging rather than in person. People skills aren’t being created because the world is becoming digital. Another issue affecting mental health issues is trauma in the world. Life is filled with ups and downs and have many detours to get to that happy place you want to be. When something tragic happens to us people tend to cope with it differently. Trauma is a distraught experience that happens to an individual that harms them or put them in serious risk of death.
Traumatic events from road accidents, natural disaster, serious illness, and violence or prolonged abuse. Traumatic events can put a toll on your physically body as well. Your body releases chemicals when it’s under stress. Normally these Chemicals gives your body symptoms of raising blood pressure, increased heart rate, sweating and stomach activity (mental health foundation). Some people might experience shock and denial which can lead to Post traumatic stress disorder(ptsd). Post-traumatic stress disorder is a mental and emotional stress that occurs when you experience psychological shock. The symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder can be nightmares or flashbacks of the traumatic event, panic attacks sleep disturbance and poor concentration (mental health foundation)