Social media has seemingly intertwined its digital vines into many of our lives across most generations. It’s something that’s somewhat unavoidable, especially for those who use it for the purpose of their job, never mind for personal use.
While mental health is spoken about more openly nowadays, it seems that many more people are aware of a decline in mental health due to the effects of ongoing social media use.
It’s easy to allow yourself to get swept up in the social media bubble, especially as it presents a certain viewpoint of life that may not always accurately reflect reality. However, it’s important to realize the ways in which social media can impact our mental health and ensure we always keep our minds in good care when using it.
This guide will share the impact of social media on mental health, the signs to look out for, and tips that might help relinquish the control it seems to have over our lives.
Signs Social Media is Negatively Impacting Your Mental Health
What are some telltale signs that social media might be negatively impacting your mental health and well-being? Some common signs include:
- Isolation from real-life events and social events
- Self-absorption
- Anxiety/depression
- Becoming distracted easily
- Comparison of lives to others online
- Jealousy and trolling/cyberbullying
When you start to remove yourself or isolate yourself from reality, this could be a key sign that social media might be negatively impacting your mental health.
If friends have asked you where you’ve been, or they’ve been rejected many times by you for bailing on social events, then it might be worth looking at whether social media is to blame.
There are a lot of emotional ties to social media that can demonstrate its impact on your mental health, such as being anxious, depressed, or distracted. With a fixation on social media, excessive self-absorption can also become a problem—especially when you’re getting lots of attention online.
Some of the other ways social media can negatively impact your mental health might include feeling the need to compare your life to the lives of others. This can cause feelings of jealousy or depression, or dissatisfaction with your life compared to other online profiles.
Ways to Correct Negative Impacts
How do you correct the negative impacts of social media? For some who are heavy users of social media, it might feel like an impossible situation to get out of. These platforms can be addictive if used too often or improperly.
Here are several key ways in which these negative impacts on your mental health from social media can be mitigated.
Limiting Social Media Use
Limiting social media use or screen time is definitely something that can be helpful when it comes to your mental health. Often enough, it’s the amount of hours that a person spends on social media that ultimately becomes an unhealthy problem.
Hours can be spent scrolling through social media feeds, whether it’s late at night cutting into sleeping hours or spending time reading them during the morning commute to work.
In order to correct this negative impact, it’s worthwhile trying to limit the amount of social media you use. It’s worth keeping your phone on silent or only using it during certain times of the day for limited periods. Giving yourself a set amount of screen time per day for social media and limiting it to that can help prevent you from overusing it and allowing it to affect your mental space.
By setting time boundaries on social media use, you’ll be able to better control the influence it has on your emotions and the amount of time it might take from you day to day.
Unfollowing Negative Accounts
Some of the damage that can be caused by social media might come from the types of accounts you follow. If you’re having body insecurities, for example, you might not want to follow accounts that make you feel worse about yourself.
There are also some accounts that can often spout negative or damaging rhetoric, which can affect your thoughts and feelings in a detrimental way—especially if you’re already emotionally vulnerable.
With that being said, it might be beneficial to unfollow these negative accounts or those that might not be helping boost your mental well-being. If there are any that stick out in particular, it’s important to recognize which ones they are and get rid of them for the sake of your own mental health.
Removing Social Media Apps from Your Phone
Removing social media apps from your phone is an extreme move, but can be a necessary one at times if you struggle to limit your social media usage. Not having the social media apps readily clickable on your phone’s home screen can help remove the temptation to excessively scroll altogether.
However, if you’re simply looking for a temporary break, this process could just involve getting rid of the apps for a short period of time, rather than all of your accounts entirely. However, you might find that once you’ve deleted an app, your mental health starts to improve. This may lead you to permanently get rid of your social accounts. Do whatever makes you feel best mentally, whether that’s a temporary deletion or a permanent one.
Speaking to a Professional About How You’re Feeling
If you’re worried about the control social media has over you and none of the outlined tips have been helpful, then it might be worth speaking to a professional. Professional counseling can help you better explore your feelings and emotions in a licensed and therapeutic setting.
Plenty of support services exist that can help regain control of your mental health, particularly when it’s being negatively impacted by social media.
The Positives of Social Media
There are, of course, a few positives to social media. Some of these benefits include:
- Helping to widen the connection with others
- A useful place for understanding the world around you
- A place to seek support
- A great medium for campaigning passion projects and social causes
- The ability to develop a positive digital footprint
Managing your usage and exposure to social media (as well as having a healthy balance of it) is the best way of encouraging a positive relationship.
API’s Outpatient Evening Program
At Alvarado Parkway Institute, we offer an evening intensive outpatient program, which helps individuals struggling with their mental health. If your mental health is being negatively impacted by social media and you’re looking for help, get in touch with API today to discover how we can assist you.
