Consider the case where you wake up, and the most obvious thing you do is to pick up your phone. A few scrolls down and you get someone greeting you on a beach in Bali, someone telling you about their promotion, a fitness influencer showing abs you could only dream of having and a deluge of news that makes the world look like it is on fire. Greetings to the everyday existence of billions of people on Earth. The impact of social media, which was conceptualized as a means to connect, has turned out to be a two-sided sword, now even shaping minds, moods and even identities.
The Social Media Mirage: Comparison and the Highlight Reel
Social media is a selective gallery of life. It is not the backstage video; it is the best of the best. Individuals share their most excellent days, airbrushed smiles, tropical holidays, and professional achievements. However, what you observe is not the whole picture. Consider Instagram a movie trailer: exciting, beautiful, and usually bearing little resemblance to the messy reality.
What happens is that the continuous exposure to the supposedly perfect lives of others may breed an inferiority complex, anxiety and poor self-image in the best of us. We start judging our everyday lives with another person’s highlight reel. And the result? A distorted self-image.
A University of Pennsylvania study reported that cutting daily impact of social media usage to 30 minutes a day caused depression and loneliness to decrease significantly among people.
The Dopamine Loop: Designed to be Addictive
Why are we constantly glued to our phones after posting a story, reel or post? This is because each like, comment, and alert causes a dose of dopamine, the feel-good chemical in the brain. Social media apps are built to keep you on them, scrolling and scrolling to get your next dopamine hit. It is a pocket slot machine.
You tug on the lever (scroll), and you hope it will pay off (likes). This compelling design may cause addictive behaviour, loss of sleep, lowered efficiency, and attention deficiency. It commandeers the reward pathways in the brain, such that the real-life pleasures become boring by contrast.
An average citizen has more than 2.5 hours daily on social media. Even more prone are teens and young adults, with some of them looking at their phones more than 100 times daily.
The Echo Chamber: Filter Bubbles and Anxiety
‘Heard of living in my bubble?’ Or ‘don’t break my bubble?’
Content is personalised by algorithms, which slowly form a filter bubble around you, only showing content that agrees with your views. It may cause social polarization, false information, and anxiety. It is as though we are in a room of mirrors. You just catch glimpses of your own ideas. And seeing these polarising materials, political rants, or doomsday news repeatedly may create a perception that the world is a more dangerous place than it actually is, which results in chronic stress and emotional exhaustion. If you see, social media turned out to be the place where essential information and dangerous conspiracy theories thrived during the pandemic, spreading confusion and fear.
Cyber bullying and Online Harassment
The anonymity that is common in the digital world usually gives people the courage to be cruel. The phenomenon of cyberbullying exists, and its levels are increasing, in particular, amongst teenagers. Online bullying may have a devastating effect on the victims as they develop anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. Things that no one would dare utter in a real-life conversation are easily typed behind a keyboard and screen. Stars, such as Selena Gomez and Ed Sheeran, have discussed taking a break from social media because of their mental health issues, driven by hate and bullying on the Internet.
The Illusion of Connection Loneliness in the Age of Likes.
Ironically, we have never been as connected, yet we can feel more alone because of social media in today’s world. It is being in a room full of people, and nobody is really listening to each other.
The shallow online interactions tend to substitute for the more meaningful, in-person interactions. The interaction increases, but the quality tends to reduce, resulting in loneliness and a lack of emotional connection. According to a survey conducted by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, high users of social media among young adults were three times more likely to be socially isolated as compared to low users.
Digital Fatigue and Sleep Disruption
Blue light emitted by the screens disrupts the production of melatonin and messes with your sleeping cycle. The scrolling at late hours has been the robber of rest in silence. Your brain is like a computer, if you never turn it off, it overheats. The lack of sleep will lead to mood changes, irritability, and the likelihood of depression and anxiety. Failure to rest also reduces your capacity to handle stress, and this forms a vicious cycle. An hour before bedtime, think of it as a digital sunset, put the screens away and give your brain time to switch to sleep mode.
Body Image Problems and Impossible Ideals
Social media is inundated with filters, editing applications and unattainable beauty ideals. And it is not difficult to absorb these standards and be unhappy with your body in everyday life too. This has the effect of causing body dysmorphia, eating disorders and low self-esteem, particularly in young users. Social media such as TikTok and Instagram have been criticised for allowing posts that idolise excessive thinness or plastic surgery. Think of it as you can not judge your real face by the edited mask of another person.
Mindful Use: Reversing the Tide
In spite of these, social media is not essentially evil. As any means, it influences the way we wield it. The way to change mindless to mindful scrolling is as follows:
- Clean up your feed- Unfollow any account that brings you down or discourages you.
- Limit the time. You can use app timers to set limits on your screen time.
- Interact effectively- avoid likes and move to actual chats.
- Unfollow comparison triggers- If there is a profile that makes you feel less than, unfollow it.
- Digital detoxes – Take a break frequently and get back to the real world.
Treatment and Care Applications of Social Media
Not everything is gloom and doom. Social media is also a source of mental health education and peer support and, in some cases, therapy. Pages operated by certified therapists provide coping mechanisms and normalise the discussion of mental health. The online communities provide a helping hand to individuals who might be wondering whether they are alone in their problems. Social media may be a window or a wall. Decide what to make of it.
Part Four: Taking Back Control in the Age of Connection
Social media is a fire. It can heat your house, or it can incinerate it. What it facilitates for your mental health is determined by the sheen and limits you enter into your scrolling practices.
You can decide the extent of the space that impact of social media occupies in your life. May it be a medium of relation rather than comparison; a place of learning rather than yearning; a domain of community rather than contention. With mindful and deliberate use of social media, you may safeguard your mental health and at the same time remain in touch with the world without being exposed to it on its terms. Your brain needs rest, despite the scrolling, never-ending world.
