16 February 2020, 1:36 pm
Impact of Social media on mental health
This article has been preserved from The Voice Of Sikkim historical news collection and reflects information available at the time of its original publication.
Impact of Social media on mental health
Impact of Social media on mental health
What is social media? It is a form of electronic communication through which users create online communication to share information, ideas, convey their thoughts or opinion, interact with each other, and send/receive personal messages and other content. Social media has taken over our smart phones and tabs, all this started with the invention of computers and widespread adoption of the internet after that it just boomed further like there was no looking back.
Due to media world has become a smaller place to live, with social media sites being used by 1/3 of the world?s population they have a major influence on the society, but how is it affecting our mental health?
A lot of internet users are unable to control how much time they spend online or just staring at their mobile screens scrolling, even though it?s a psychological addiction it is very close to substance addiction, brain scans of these people actually show a similar impairment of regions of those with drug dependence, which causes clear degradation of white matter in the regions that control emotional processing attention and alters decision making, social media provides instantaneous rewards with very less effort required and this causes our brains to rewire itself making us more and more addicted to these stimulation, and we begin to crave more of neurological excitement after each interaction.
It hampers our memory as we do a lot of multitasking which decreases our brain?s capacity to sieve through our interferences which makes harder for our brain to contain information. While it is amazing that so much information is readily available at our fingertips or things is just a click away, it also means that people have become far more easily distracted and their attention span and concentration is reduced. It is only advised to not continuously check phones or even a quick scan as this practice exercises willpower. Sleep is another factor that gets effected, having enough sleep is very important however our phones makes it hard for us to dose off as it keeps our brain alert the light from our mobile device if kept very close to our face suppresses the release of melatonin which is a hormone that helps us feel fatigued. Self esteem can be trigged as everyone has a fair share of insecurities, some that we speak about openly and others that are kept within us. However, comparing oneself to others on social media by stalking their perfect Instagram posts could do little to alleviate one?s feelings of self-doubt is also associated with levels of depression, anxiety and bullying.
Social networking sites namely Instagram, Facebook, what?s app, twitter, tumbler which are the most used ones but also worst for mental health and wellbeing, as every coin has two faces we are also benefitted in certain ways like while it helps us in ways like emotional support, self expression and identity, being aware of trustworthy health information, staying connected to our friends and family, keeping up with the latest news and also creating a positive impact on the world allowing users to club together and create strong alliance or fight for a particular cause.