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The Toxicity of Social Media
A Study to Prove It...
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Must Read Article💡
I think all of us know that excessive social media use is not healthy for us. But do we really know how bad it is for our mental health?
In this article by AmericanMedicalAssociation.com, it discusses the thoughts from physicians about the excessive use of social media and how it can negatively affect us. Here are a couple of the main points 👇👇
Excessive use of social media, defined as more than three hours a day, can worsen mental health problems such as anxiety and depression in teens and young adults.
The pandemic has increased reliance on social media for connection and entertainment, but it has also heightened exposure to potentially harmful content.
Excessive screen time, especially before bedtime, can disrupt sleep patterns due to the stimulating effects of blue light and negative thoughts triggered by social media interactions.
Adults are not immune to the negative effects of social media comparison and targeted content.
Yet a growing body of research is finding that excessive use—more than three hours a day—can exacerbate mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, in teens and young adults. Such use can also lead to isolation.
The American depression rates are reaching new all time highs every year. The American anxiety rates are reaching all time highs every year. Yet, no one can really explain the reasoning.
I believe one of the biggest factors playing into this is our screen time and specifically our time spent on social media.
The average American teen spends 4.8 hours a day on social media. That equates to 73 days in a year!
According to Dr. Andrew Huberman, we are receiving so much context and information when we are on social media. The human brain has never had to deal with this much context switching in human history. We scroll through 100’s of different pieces of information in five minutes. For our brain, this is like entering 100 different rooms with different people in each one in only 5 minutes. This is extremely overwhelming for our brain. Yet, people wonder why they have anxiety. It is probably because your brain is overstimulated 24/7.
This surge of dopamine also overrides our brain and makes the rest of the world boring. It makes hanging with friends boring, hanging with our spouse boring, or even being with family boring. So we are anxious because our brain is constantly overstimulated, but we are depressed because our lives are so “Boring”.
Our brain is constantly seeking novelty and that is why you can go out to dinner and see a great couple or a beautiful family all just sitting on their phones not talking to each other. We get a hit of dopamine every time we go on social media, making our actual lives boring, and fueling social media addiction. Studies show social media use is linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression, loneliness and even suicidal thoughts.
The engineer curated images we see in our feeds portray an unrealistic, filtered version of reality that can spawn feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth. We may start to view our own lives as deficient compared to the edited highlights of others. Social media has been shown to amplify eating disorders and body image issues, especially among teenage girls.
Social media toxicity can seep into the real world too. More time staring at screens means less face-to-face interaction and exercise, increasing risks of obesity, cardiovascular disease and social isolation.
The Study 📖
Since 99% of us use our social media on our cell phones, I thought this would be useful. In a cross sectional study, over 400 university students were researched to understand how cell phone usage impacts physical and mental health.
Here’s what they found:
High cell phone users (HCPU) experienced more eye strain, neck pain, back pain, and weight gain compared to low cell phone users (LCPU).
HCPU reported higher levels of depression & loneliness than LCPU.
HCPU reported more mood disorders and less control over emotions than LCPU.
Physical and mental health issues associated with excessive cell phone use predicted a negative impact on personality.
The study recommends promoting physical activities and implementing strategies to reduce excessive cell phone use among students.
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