Social Media: In Our Society, On Our Minds
We’re all connected, for better or worse. In today’s world, broadcasting what you’re doing at this very moment to millions of people around the world is as easy as a few taps on a screen. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have brought a whole new level of openness and digital communication in our society. While this is undeniably beneficial in many ways, these platforms have also caused a new wave of social pressure. In this world of connectivity, to what degree has social media affected our mental health?
Today’s social media platforms all share some of the same qualities. You can like, you can share, and you can create. You can compare yourself to others, you can worry about the reaction your innocent message might generate, and you can stress about the number of likes your profile picture might get.
Perhaps these are some of the reasons “rates of anxiety and depression in young people have risen 70% over the past 25 years”, according to the #StatusofMind report from the Royal Society for Public Health. Like fashion magazines and adverts before it, social media can lead us to see ourselves as not good enough, as we all clamber for that lovely dopamine surge.
Mark Carroll is a Principal Lecturer in the Mental Health Department at Teesside University, and has written numerous published articles on social media. A great subject to quiz on how the two might intersect, then.
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| Mark Carroll |
“A lot of people in that younger age bracket only post positive images of themselves and the things that they’re doing…that can sometimes feed into that image of yourself and how you’re not perceived as positive as what they are."
Is social media something inherently dangerous? Or is it just something that can exacerbate already underlying issues, rather than being any sort of cause of them?
“I wouldn’t say [it’s] dangerous. In itself, I don’t think it inherently causes mental health problems. It could trigger something in someone that was always there…If you’re already vulnerable and you may already have those kind of issues in your life, then you become more exposed to them because of those particular sites.”
For more on Mark's views on social media and how it can affect mental health, listen to this clip from my discussion with him:
Regardless of the potential effects on mental health, it’s important to note the positive sides of social media too. Communication between people has never been easier, and while some hark for the “good old days” where everyone talked face-to-face, the potential for making new relationships, finding employment, and staying in touch with distant friends and family members has never been greater.
Moreover, it’s hard to deny how social media can be objectively good for humanity as a whole, particularly for political means. It allows everyone to speak their mind, and hold politicians to account far easier and in a way that brings about more attention. For example, it was instrumental in the Arab Spring protests back near the turn of this decade, that led to hostile regimes in Tunisia and other Middle Eastern countries being replaced with democratically elected ones.
Steven Lewis and Liam Martin are two University students, part of the generation that grew up as social media became ubiquitous in our lives. Both use social media frequently and have some opinions on the positives and negatives of it, how it affects our minds, and whether social media sites could be doing more to reduce potential effects on their users’ mental health.
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| Steven (Left) | Liam (Right) |
Steven: “The increased connectivity and spread of news [is beneficial], especially in the third world. It helps develop countries and give individuals new opportunities that were unavailable in the past few decades. Some wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone without [it].”
Liam: “The great thing about social media is that it has provided everyone with a voice and the worst thing about social media is that it has provided everyone with a voice. It is now easier than ever to engage with ideas from all over the world. [However], through the censorship of certain peoples and ideas the social media platforms themselves can help encourage a certain bias.”
Steven: “Providing mental health awareness, advising breaks or promoting ‘flex’ influencers less wouldn’t go amiss. [But], the business model for these platforms is to keep users on for as long as possible. Therefore, anything that could be done to benefit mental health would not be as economically viable for [them].”
On the other side of the coin from social media users and viewers, is social media creators. Morjax, writing for Medium, estimates there are 40,000 full-time creators who make a living off of YouTube alone. And apart from YouTubers, there are bloggers, social media influencers, and many more either earning money from their social media endeavours or simply doing it as a hobby, enjoying the chance to be creative.
Becca Haywood is one of the people taking advantage of social media’s potential for creativity, through both her Instagram profile, currently sitting close to 7,500 followers, and ‘The B Word’, her lifestyle blog, covering books, beauty, and more things 'B'. How social media can affect people is something she’s exposed to often in her work.
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| Becca Haywood | The B Word |
“I regularly meet other local bloggers and Instagrammers at events and am frequently shocked by some of their mindsets. I’m a very realistic person and don’t take Instagram too seriously, so hearing my “colleagues” obsess over someone else’s engagement rate, follower count or opportunities always surprises me. Endlessly comparing yourself to someone else on social media is never going to end well – we all put our “best” online, so aiming to replicate an “insta-famous” person’s life is setting yourself up for a fail; it’s simply not attainable and will ultimately make you feel bad about yourself and your work.”
While social media can prove harmful for both the creator and their audience in ways such as this, its integration into our lives undoubtedly continues to help society progress, alongside the technology that created it.
“I recently spoke to Jo Brand (shameless name drop) about feminism and social media – isn’t it great that a cause for gender equality has become so widespread and well known? Her opinion is that this has a lot to do with the accessibility of this information online.
“The same goes for other human rights causes – I love seeing teenagers and young people getting passionate about causes they’ve read about on social media. We have a real platform available to us and it’s great to see it getting used for good.”
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