Blog post #7: Technology- social media mental health

 

                    Social media is a serious mental health problem in this country that we really haven't been paying attention to because we don't realise it. We wonder why we always hear about kids killing themselves and not knowing what lead them to that decision, one of the reason could be social media. In an article written by Bod Hutchins on says that there was a study that showed half of the kids under 18 years old in this country that have visited mental health hospitals have been diagnosed with excessive internet use, meaning that those kids have been using the internet way to much. When this topic comes up I always say this, there are two different worlds, there is social media world and the reality world and they both are two very different worlds. The reality world consist of people communicating with out technology and is real life. When I say real life I mean that good things happen and bad things happen. The social media world mostly consist of the good things that are going on in peoples life and not the bad. Im not saying it's a bad thing that us as people do that, but it can create depression for others around us. For example, when you post a picture of you and your love partner on a tropical island, and a person who is going threw a hard break up sees that post, that can lead to that person feeling more sad and depressed about her break up. It's not your fault for make other sad or lonely over a good post, that's just the power that social media has on society. It can sometimes make us feel like where on the top of the world but other times it can make us feel sorry for our selves.

This article gives us examples of how social media impacts mental health. One example which is very common is "Fear of missing out". When we can't make it to some sort of event that we really wanted to go to and we look on social media to see whats going on, it creates loneliness and anxiousness because where missing out. Loneliness and anxiousness can lead to depression. Another example is "Bad Body Image".  This example has to do with women more than men, but some men have this problem as well. When you see a model's "Perfect body" on a social media post, people who are insecure about their body frame will have a negative affect when they see a models post. Which creates anxiety. The last one that I will talk about from this article is "Sleep Disruption". Social media can keep us up all night, which can make us lazy and make us have less energy. Studies say that less sleep can effect your mood issues and can cause bipolar disorder. In conclusion, mental health is a serious issue. Us as people worry more about different parts of the human body but we forget the most important part which is the brain. I'm not saying social media is the only bad factor of mental health but it is definitely a big factor that most people don't notice.