![]() ![]() ![]() “Comparison is the thief of joy,” Theodore Roosevelt said long before social media came to be. While social media use is not inherently positive or negative, it can cause issues when used excessively or as a substitute for real emotional connections, leading to: Lifestyle Comparison Related reading: What is Internet Addiction and How is it Diagnosed? Common Issues Associated With Social Media Use Thus, mindful use of social media is generally beneficial as long as the individual does not become too emotionally attached to the platform itself in lieu of social connections. However, when the individual feels emotionally connected to social media platforms (e.g., obsessive checking of notifications, feeling disconnected when others are not online, competing for likes, binge-scrolling, etc.), then social media use has a negative association with social well-being, mental health, and self-rated health. When people use social media as part of their everyday routine and interact with the content others share, it can positively impact social well-being, positive mental health, and even self-rated health. How emotionally connected an individual is to the social media platforms.What Are the Positive Effects of Social Media?Ī recent study found that social media use can be positive, but the two most important factors are: It is vital for individuals to understand their relationship with social media to understand how it affects them and adjust their behaviors accordingly. Can social media use be bad for mental health? Certainly. Is social media use bad for mental health? Not necessarily. ![]() Yes, it has the power to change human behavior, but those changes can be positive, negative, or both. While there is evidence that social media use can have negative effects on mental wellness, it is unfair to say that social media use is always bad. Is Social Media Use Bad for Mental Health? At the same time, that does not mean social media use is always negative. When social media platforms have the potential to influence human behavior on a scale large enough to cause social upheaval, they certainly have the potential to harm the individual psyche. Take a recent and unprecedented example: the storming of the Capitol in 2021 was organized on social media, and if it were not for hundreds of people using social media platforms to call for it, the attack likely never would have happened at the scale it did-if at all. However, there is no doubt that the use of intangible platforms can lead to very tangible consequences. In a little over a decade, social media has gone from something that very few people used to something almost everyone uses.Īs with any technological development that is adopted rapidly, we do not have a complete understanding of the problems social media can cause. That number climbed to 69 percent by 2016, and in 2021, it leveled out at 72 percent, or roughly 3 in 4 adults. It is easy to overlook the fact that only 5 percent of adults in the United States used social media as recently as 2005. What Is the Connection Between Social Media and Mental Well-Being? However, there are a variety of mental issues associated with social media use, so understanding how it affects the human psyche is critical.Evidence suggests that social media use is not inherently positive or negative, but is instead more closely related to the individual’s relationship with it.Despite how common social media use has become in daily life, its impact on mental well-being is not fully understood.In less than two decades, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok have become ubiquitous. ![]()
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