Social Media Mental Health
[Music]
it’s 2021
and never before have we been so
connected to these things
the devices that were originally just
for calling
or maybe sending the odd text have
become our one-way
lifeline to all things media
specifically
social media my name is pereiritos joshi
and i’m a research assistant at the
northwestern
feinberg school of medicine and i’m here
today to talk about the relationship
between social media
and our mental health before i get
started with my talk let me get a quick
show of hands how many of you say
that you currently use at least one
social media site
facebook twitter instagram snapchat
great now how many hours a day would you
say you use social media on average
let’s go zero to two hours
how about two to four hours
great how about four plus
awesome now last question how many of
you say that the amount of time used
social media has gone up
since covet hit
great so here’s a chart of the percent
of us adults who currently use at least
one social media site
and as you can see not very many people
use social media about a decade and a
half ago
but about 70 of us adults use it now
and we could see that social media use
has dramatically risen over the past
decade and a half
there’s about one billion monthly active
instagram users
and based on current projections for
social media use the average person
is estimated to spend six years and
eight months
of their life on social media now don’t
get me wrong
there’s many benefits to social media
it’s easier to communicate with friends
it’s easier to share content and it’s
also easier to develop relationships
with like-minded people it’s also
created a space for us to be vulnerable
and really connect
with other people such as the till
tomorrow challenge that happened last
year
where everyone posted a goofy picture of
themselves on instagram and left it up
for 24 hours
for the record this is what i would have
posted this is me
back in high school trying to look super
tough i know i know
it’s pretty cringe worthy luckily this
picture is only staying up for five
seconds
and i bet if some of you saw that you
laughed and that’s the point
social media is intended to bring us
together through our collective
human experience now while there are
benefits to social media there have also
been some drawbacks as well
for example research has found that
greater social media use
may result in negative mental health
problems and worse in stress levels
personally i started using social media
due to peer pressure in part
everyone said i had to get instagram
so i could see all the funny videos that
were being posted
or that i had to get snapchat so i could
see all these cool pictures or any cool
posts that people were making
and as i got these apps i told myself
that i had to maintain strong
self-control
in order to make sure that i wouldn’t
keep on checking them so often
but even as i tried to limit my time
and not check social media so frequently
i ended up refreshing my screen every
five seconds
just to see who liked my post or just to
see
who commented and if i
as someone who was intentionally
regulating the amount of time they were
spending on social media
was struggling and what was it doing to
other people
and it raised the question is social
media bringing us together
or dividing us further and further apart
as a society they’re applying this idea
known as the butterfly effect
we can see that incremental changes in
social media use over time
have caused larger macroscopic disorder
in society
today i would like to talk about three
main factors
influencing the relationship between
social media and mental health
and by fighting their impact we can take
back our agency
the first being how social media can
lead to anxiety or envy
and acts as an avoidant coping mechanism
now i’m sure all of you are aware that
social media has
clearly had a very big impact on us and
it impacts how we feel about ourselves
but frequently it goes too far
for example there are specific mental
health issues related to specific
applications such as facebook envy which
is the tendency to be jealous of your
friends activities on social media
there’s snapchat dysmorphia which is the
tendency
for people to want to resemble their
filtered images
in real life and there’s instagram
anxiety which is
application users anxiety related to
instagram itself a recent study
found that when people experience
instagram anxiety
or engage in social comparison it is
associated with poor psychological
well-being we could see that when people
use these platforms it can amplify
their insecurities as they constantly
desire to know what is going on
but there’s another factor to this and
it’s that social media can act as an
avoidant coping mechanism
how many of you are guilty of wanting to
go on snapchat or instagram for five
minutes you end up being on there for
about 15 or 20 minutes
right we’re all guilty of this because
these
apps present a way of escaping oneself
from the realities that exist in the
world
and we could see that this leads to a
vicious cycle of
wanting to go on social media for an
extended period of time
going back to your actual task and then
wanting to go back for more time
on instagram snapchat tick tock whatever
app you’re using that will distract you
from your actual responsibilities
but social media use can also be linked
to other
harmful behaviors which is why recent
research
hints that emerging adults who
frequently engage in substance use
with their friends may spend more time
documenting these behaviors
on snapchat that’s probably a good thing
because you most likely don’t want to
post a video of yourself
taking a shot of tequila on linkedin
unless you never want to get a job
regardless social media was never
intended to have these negative effects
so what is the culprit that makes us
feel this way about ourselves
well it’s actually the way we use these
apps
while we are on them which is why next i
would like to talk about
passive versus active involvement
now it’s clear that social media does
not just impact
our mind it impacts our entire body
and we can see this reflected and how we
engage
with these platforms passive involvement
refers to
scrolling through social media feeds or
monitoring others without direct
engagement
active involvement on the other hand
refers to
commenting messaging maybe even sharing
your favorite meme
any behavior that allows you to directly
engage
with users active social media
involvement is considerably better
than passive involvement in a recent
study on adolescents
active involvement was shown to be
related to
fewer symptoms of anxiety while
passive involvement was shown to be
related to
greater symptoms of anxiety and
increased emotional
distress passive social media use is
also linked to greater depressive
symptoms
and loneliness so we could see that
allowing ourselves to succumb to the
content
on these platforms will bring us
negative
emotions and it’s more meaningful to
actually have real
deep conversations with other users
there’s a third and more important
factor to assess
and it’s that these apps do not unite us
at all
but inevitably foster a climate of
animosity
towards other people which is why i’d
like to talk about
competition and comparison
now i’m sure you all are aware that
people go on social media to at least
some degree
for validation or just to see how much
clout they have
it’s because these applications
provide people with an opportunity to
constantly measure themselves against
others
right how many of you are guilty of
wanting to go and check how many
instagram followers you have
or how many people last feed your
snapchat story
right it’s very very tempting because
we care about getting the right image
the right angle and taking it at the
right time
you know the first picture you’re taking
for instagram will not be
the last you might take even 5 10
20 more who knows you might even fill up
your whole camera roll just trying to
decide
it’s because we care about how we
present ourselves to other people
and we have standards for how we judge
everyone
because we live in an appearance based
society
and at the end of the day we care about
our presentation and getting that
degree of acknowledgement from other
people that we look attractive
regardless of whether we like it or not
social media affects how we view
ourselves
as well as others and it can hurt our
own
body image social media
exploits the innate vulnerability of
ourselves to
want to have what others have
and as a result it can have long lasting
impacts
on us at the end of the day it makes us
place this
undue burden of always having to be
at our best and always having to look
attractive
because if we don’t the whole world
might laugh at us
and that is the last thing that we want
so what does this mean for all of us
we screwed social media just gonna
control our lives
for as long as we know it no
in fact social media has done
very very beneficial things for us as
well
am i saying we need to hashtag abolish
social media and totally eliminate it
no and i don’t want to see that trending
on twitter social media performs
many important functions for us such as
allowing ourselves to communicate with
family
or even just following the news
all we have to do is take charge of the
platforms
ourselves and not allow social media
to control us but allow ourselves to
control
social media in fact there are three
tangible solutions
we can implement right now the first
being
restricting the amount of time spent on
social media
a recent study found that restricting
the amount of time spent
on social media to 30 minutes a day is
proven to decrease loneliness
and depression now i know what some of
you are thinking that well
30 minutes that’s less than half an
episode from season 8 of game of thrones
that is way too little all right that’s
a fair point
but i bet a good number of you who
said that you use social media use it
for multiple hours a day
and by slowly decreasing the amount of
time you spend on these platforms
you will take charge of not only the
amount of time you spend
but free up time to dedicate to
other initiatives or other things that
originally
being displaced by the amount of time
you spent on social media
second it’s important to prioritize
active social media involvement
over passive involvement comment tag
someone in a post
even share your favorite meme just make
sure
to interact with other users while
you’re on these platforms
do not sit and stare because that may
make you more anxious
and stressed remember social media is
intended to be
social and by going back
to what social media was intended to be
used for
we can maximize the amount of time
and the amount of satisfaction that
these platforms
were intended to bring upon us
number three it’s important to minimize
the use of social media
as an avoidant coping mechanism and
instead use it to learn
through online forums such as facebook
twitter read it by having meaningful
conversations with other people
where we can actually talk about ideas
we can
maximize human connection and avoid less
shallow conversations and through any of
these little changes
you will not only improve your mental
health and feel better
but you will engage other people and
cause them to feel better
as well and through applying the idea of
the butterfly effect
we can cause a ripple effect and enhance
the status of everyone around the globe
to take charge of these platforms
thank you