How Social Media Causes Anxiety and Depression: The Psychology Behind It

The social media world is a world of stress and comparison. The article uncovers the connection deeply and provides a solution.

The social media world is one that is hard to deal with, underlining the fact that its truth holds little to no water. The perfection created around the paradigms of social media is a serious threat that gets escalated by the intensity of how untrue it is.

Almost every single individual is now exposed to some or the other form of social media, which has disintegrated the real world ideologies, constructing a mirage of lies and a delusional depiction of how perfect the onscreen reality is. The pseudo pedantic users, claiming to have it all covered, put out a stream of fear, apprehension and anxiety for the ones that are new to the game or not much advanced and equipped with the fake realities of social media.

The picture-perfect weekend getaways, the loving family pictures that portray the ever-strengthened bonds, the spot-free filtered skins and the perennial sun-soaked reality.

Perfection is indeed a disease that forays into the field of lies and a cluttering catastrophe that pushes people onto the verge of mental traumas and anxiety.

Such seemingly true fake lies have been elaborated on in the work of philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard in his philosophical treatise named Simulacra and Simulation, published in the year 1981, The theory seeks to examine the relationships between reality and society.

What Are Simulacra? How Fake Realities Shape Social Media

According to the theorist Simulacra are copies that depict things that either had no original, or that no longer have an original, how this stands relevant in the social media world is through its representation of an aesthetic and picture perfect world that is no where near truth, this influences the users to imitate that blurred and untrue world and incorporate these elements in whatever they post on social media, often putting excess pressure onto their mind when it becomes difficult to further imitate the constructed ideals of social media that hold no water.

Whereas simulation is not just imitation; it's the creation of a new reality that replaces the original, pushing unreal narratives of the original. In the present times, the modern society is saturated with simulations, where signs and symbols take precedence over reality, creating a "hyperreal" state where the distinction between real and simulated blurs. The hyperreal ideals of social media are hard to match; despite being unreal and untrue, they get accepted as the ultimate truth. The failure of an individual to meet them often pushes them to the boundaries of self-hatred, loss of self-esteem and poor mental health. The assumption becomes more formidable when studied in the context of its indicators, which are given below.

You often compare yourself with others

The hyperreal social media world puts forward a perfect life of people who seem to have everything on their plate, the looks, the luck and the lustre. From their families to food, everything looks 'out of the world' that pushes people towards comparing their actual reality with their stimulated reality that is untrue, the comparison most of the times to give birth to feeling of loss of self esteem, makes one become ungrateful and people often feel like that they aren't doing and achieving enough in their life, one must understand that the ground realities of these perfectionists are most likely to be identical to yours, it is just the filter that hides it.

You Often Get Discouraged While On Social Media

Social media takes away our confidence; the people and their realities look so perfect that matching their level of pedantry seems to be a hard nut to crack. The screen and its people appear to be in the perennial loop of happiness and success, and that discourages you when it clashes with the actual reality of your life. One must know that not all of it is true, the other person is pushing a forced narrative to keep up with the trends, "one must look happy and successful to actually influence," this is the narrative that the social media practices and when one understands it, it really makes us know what this success and happiness is all about.

You Often Encounter The Fear of Missing Out

The hyperreal world has much to catch up with, not only in terms of notifications and likes, but the trends that hit the platforms and take the users under their wings. The fear of not being able to catch up with what everyone is doing and is up to on social media makes us feel incapable, such regressive thoughts often put one into the stream of unworthiness.

The struggle of failing to catch up with information and trends is further intensified by the feelings of incapability and unworthiness that are born out of it. Such emotions make one feel anxious and frustrated, causing serious harm to our mental health.

When Real Life Doesn't Match Your Social Media

The profiles on social media are a certain sort of simulacrum where our profiles are nothing but a representation of us and our constructed image, where we no longer exist. The constructed identities affect an individual by creating a hyperreality where the lines between our online identity and our offline identity are so blurred that it's impossible to tell the difference. The online self of us seems so perfect that we often get traumatised and depressed by the thoughts of failing to match that identity in our real life, we become hesitant to meet people from the social media world in real life as it becomes daunting for us to carry forward that identity in our real life hence, we tend to become under-confident and suffer through anxiety and apprehension while meeting people in actual life. This situation inhibits the flow of our mental peace and causes depression and anxiety.

Social media isn't necessarily bad, what makes it challenging to deal with are the notions that it puts out, which are inherently constructed on a fake reality, creating a Disney land effect where the world is all perfect and magical but deep down those perfect characters are humans that go through the same challenges like us, the social media is one with the parallel narrative, where one must understand that these users, despite their lustrous portrayal are exactly like us who are facing the same challenges and struggles, trying to let keep up with the standards of social media that are untrue and unattainable. One must understand this narrative before they deal with the pressure to carry it forward.