Juhi Kumari
... Read More
By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. Cookie Policy.
Written By: Juhi Kumari | Published : August 18, 2019 7:00 PM IST
Do you literally live on your phone? Do you feel difficult to not look into your social media accounts every now and then? If yes, you are probably suffering from social media addition. It is basically a psychological dependence on social media. Its excessive use can easily become a habit of yours. According to 2018 Digital Yearbook, in the year 2018, around 3.1 billion people were using social media. This number is actually around one-third of the global population. And a journal named Science Direct states that an estimated 210 million people were suffering from addiction of social media and internet globally in the year 2017.
SOCIAL MEDIA ADDICTION HAS NEGATIVE IMPACT ON TEENAGERS: EXPERTS
Using your phone throughout the day can cause depression, says a recent research published in the journal The Lancet. It also stated that girls are more likely to experience the side-effects than boys. This means that if you are a girl and quite excessively use social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc., you are more likely to be destressed than your male counterparts.
For this study, the scientists took the interview of 12,000 young students. They belonged to England and were between the age of 13 and 16. The researchers actually asked about their frequency to use social networking sites. After three years of the interview, same subjects were asked by the study team to evaluate how happy they are, or what is their anxiety level. Also, they had to tell if they are satisfied with their lives.
Further, the researchers found that teenage who used social media as frequently as three times a day, reported poor mental health and increased psychological distress. Also, the teenage girls admitted feeling less happy and have high anxiety levels. The boys also went through the negative impacts of social media use, but it was less than what girls went through. Further studies need to be conducted to understand the reason behind this difference in impacts of the same problem on teenage boys and girls.
According to the researchers, excessive social media use doesn't directly cause phycological problems. It actually affects activities that are essential to the body. It disrupts your sleep and reduces your time to do exercise. These are the factors that are known to cause psychological distress. This is the reason, the researchers found that 60 per cent of the teenage girls who took part in the study, had mental issues because of disrupted sleep and cyberbullying. Whereas, 12 per cent of the boys went through mental unrest because of these problems.
UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIAL MEDIA MECHANISM OF AFFECTING YOUR BRAIN
Social media use has been associated with an abundance of anxiety. When you receive texts or comments by somebody on social networking sites, you feel uneasiness, or you become stressed. This is because of the neurological wiring. In absence of emotional, social, and visual cues, our mind tends to misunderstand certain posts, tweets, or emails and the fight or flight part of our brain gets triggered. The texts without a tone and body language stimulates amygdala, which is known as our fight or flight center. This happens because surprisingly, human brains are not designed to deal with text-based communication. Notably, something unpleasant on social networking sites actually makes you feel as if you are literally under attack and this what gives you stress and anxiety.
Now, you may be thinking, in this situation, why don't we just stop using something that is taking us through mental trauma? Why do we keep on using it? Well, that is because online interaction boosts the secretion of dopamine, which is a hormone which is known to motivate you to keep doing that thing. This makes it difficult for you to quit the internet.
HOW TO REDUCE IMPACTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA USE?
Yes, it is possible to minimize the harmful effects of use of social media on your mind. Abide by these ways and see the result yourself.
Create some blockage
Do you use social media when alone or getting bored? And, does this happen quite frequently? If yes, start involving yourself in some other productive thing like studying, cooking, or anything of your choice except operating your phone. You can also try to become physically social and available for people for communication. This can give you required results. Apart from these you are suggested to turn off the notification. This is the major reason for most of the people checking their phones. Also, you can delete the social applications from your phone. This will make it difficult for you to login to your social media account. And, gradually you won't bother to login. And, this is what we want.
Use the customization feature
Muting feeds from accounts that you are not interest in or which give you mental stress, will make you feel much relaxed. This will also prevent you to look into a pool of tweets, Facebook messages, or texts on WhatsApp. In fact, you should consider blocking the accounts that are bothering you or keeping you busy most of the times.
Cutoff from the social media during situation of breaking news
There is an array of false or tweaked news that circulates on social media. Especially during a breaking news, different people interprets and circulates news in their own way without checking the facts. In that case, conflicting information can give you another level of stress that can be harmful. On Facebook and WhatsApp, usually people get exposed to information that are false.
Follow them who make you laugh
There are various pages on Facebook and Twitter that are just for fun. Several baby and animal videos are available on the internet, that can calm you down. You can also look for cooking videos. These are known to give mental stimulation which is necessary for better health. Reading jokes and language written with humor are just a great way to reduce the negative impacts of social media.
