Can Social Media Impact Your Mental Health?

Because we humans are social animals, we enthusiastically welcomed the innovation of social media when it first burst onto the scene 15 years ago. In the beginning, we truly enjoyed the online interactions with friends, family, and the friends of our friends.

But social media has used its clever programming techniques to walk us straight into a trap. With its strategic application of rewards (likes and comments), engaging on social media creates a dopamine affect similar to addiction.

Not only has this resulted in lost productivity as we scroll through our feeds for hours, but social media causes some adverse mental health effects, too. We have now established what amounts to a love-hate relationship with social media. Let’s look at the good, bad, and the ugly of social media and it’s impact on your mental health.

How Social Media Can Harm Mental Health

1. Hurts your self-esteem. Scrolling through an Instagram feed filled with carefully curated photos and clever reels, it is easy to begin feeling subpar about yourself. You end up comparing your own life to all those “perfect” people and can start to feel depressed or low self-esteem.
2. Sleep deprivation. Social media is addicting. Lulling you into a trance-like state when you should be sleeping, you can end up suffering from sleep deprivation and that can adversely impact your mental state.
3. Negative emotions. During these politically charged times social media becomes littered with rants and nasty memes. These posts can trigger negative emotions, like anger, resentment, disgust, fear, or frustration.
4. Feelings of isolation. It makes no sense, because it is called social media after all, but spending too much time in digital social landscapes fuels feelings of loneliness and isolation. Online “friendships” are no match for an authentic real life relationship.
5. You seek validation. The system of social media rewards — of hearts, likes, and positive comments — keeps you in a constant loop of seeking the validation and acceptance of others. Like a drug, we return to it because we thrive on these superficial social media rewards.
6. Physical inactivity. Being glued to a smartphone for hours on end leads to a sedentary lifestyle. A lack of exercise, due to excessive social media use, can harm both physical and mental health.

Tips for Healthy Social Media Use

1. Limit use. While it may be hard to totally disengage from social media, you can put yourself on some time restraints. A lot yourself a certain amount of time per day on social media, and stick to it.
2. Question its value. What do you get out of being on social media? Ask yourself if you really have meaningful conversations on social media, or is it used mostly to distract from feelings of boredom or loneliness?
3. Establish healthy social media habits. Control how much you allow social media to distract you. Turn off push notifications that keep you constantly checking in, and unfollow people who make you feel upset or bad about yourself.

By Marissa Katrin Maldonado, founder of The Treatment Specialist an online resource for mental health guidance.