Social Media Addiction has disrupted our lives and the rapidity with which they’ve inserted themselves into nearly all facets of our lives has affected us personally: our behaviors, our social relationships, and our mental health.
Social media may have helped us stay connected to a larger community and get information about things that interest us but has made us lose the real human connection in life which is the essence of a healthy mind.
Remember no matter what you did today on your phone or computer, it’s likely that social media artificial intelligence was involved to keep you engaged and hooked. This too much consumption of information has led us to an epidemic of overwhelm.
These new technologies are mapping our minds and emotions all the time and bombarding us with the kind of information our mind is seeking. This interwoven deep web of social media has made us the most distracted generation, making us far less effective and with no active mind to do deeper thinking work. Especially the young people are negatively affected.
Young people are spending a lot of time on social media and are more susceptible to peer pressure, low self-esteem, and mental ill-health. A number of studies have found associations between increased social media use and depression, anxiety, sleep problems, eating concerns, and suicide risk in teenagers.
Now let’s understand how:
Social Media Addiction Leading to Serious Depressions
Information Epidemic
When we are all the time consumed by information and are trapped by artificial intelligence to keep us entangled and hooked. We have lost our sense of purpose and time. In spite of being aware of how we are wasting our time and not paying attention to important tasks in a list, we tend to show truly the sign of social addiction and our mental health.
Isolation
This way too much on-screen is leading us to isolation, and we are creating a life of unhappiness, anxiety, depression, and insomnia. All these symptoms are interconnected and affect our overall mental health.
We may be connected to the virtual world but we have moved away from the real joys of life. We are all sailing on the same boat. We all are alone in our isolated world. We have lost our real connection with life and we have lost our confidence to face reality. We all are getting trapped in our isolated shells, avoiding challenges, problems, and people in our daily life and finding our fake peace in this isolated social world.
Social media has just made us compare our imperfect life to the enhanced, edited, and seemingly perfect images of others’ lives.
Our online social connections have adequately replaced the depth and quality of offline friendships. Now we are just connected to thousands of social media friends and still, we do not have even one friend to reach out to, to talk to, or to share our day with. This feeling of loneliness is causing us the fear of the unknown and unsupported life. This feeling is leading to anxiety, depression, and unhappiness.
Face the truth that these virtual connections fail to meet our basic needs of belonging and attachment, and are contributing to depressive feelings.
Our children are also not spared. They are also leading an isolated life in their virtual world, thanks to this pandemic era of the online world. Offline schools, way too much online time has just created way too many distractions.
Now connecting with their peers online is much easier than facing them in real. They are spending more time on social media and have developed an isolated world around them. Watching useless reels all day makes these kids (especially girls) view themselves negatively or inadequate. This feeling of inadequacy makes them do different things to capture the interest of their virtual friends and this is slowly leading them to depression.
Research Paper: Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health – NCBI
We Need To Break The Chain
We need to get real with our time, purpose, and connection. We need to break this social media addiction.
It’s very important to break free from the virtual world and go out in the open space, breathe some fresh air to release some oxytocin(happy hormones), do activities that make us feel alive, engage with real people, and create a real bond of friendship, achieve life goals to make life worthy and sleep wisely to get up happy and motivated next morning. All this is very important for our mental health and well-being.
You know ikigai, a Japanese concept that means “a reason for being”, says that we all should have a reason to jump out of bed each morning. So if you find no reason to get up active in the morning, or you just don’t want to leave the bed and move out, then surely you are missing ikigai in your life to drive you, to make you feel alive. To learn more about this beautiful ikigai concept click the link.
Social media addiction is way too much part of our daily sustenance and we are just missing the symptoms of depression. Be sure to keep an eye out for signs of depression and get professional help if you’re worried. It’s especially important to keep a check on your kids who are under a lot of stress.
It’s one life, let’s not make it a waste. Develop good habits. Devote real-time with each other. Inculcate a habit of self-time that should include doing home tasks, exercise, pursuing hobbies, meeting friends, and meeting family relationships.
Take a Mindful Walk in Nature
Encourage yourself and your kids to turn off notifications, spend plenty of time on offline activities that make you and them feel good. Moderate mobile time and put phones away before bedtime.
Learn the Stress Coping Strategy for Kids
Remember self-care. Focus on yourself one hour a day, it is like a self-maintenance program, that will actually help you create balance in your life and set healthy boundaries with the people you love. Learn more
Related: Anxiety: It Costs You Your Peace, It’s Too Expensive