How social media affect your physical and mental health

Did you ever ask yourself if you can live a day without checking your social media? Will you feel anxious or even a bit lost if you can’t check it out during a few hours? If the inevitable truth of those answers is yes, that is a sign you might have fallen a victim to the evil side of social networking.

Pretending we don’t know what the negative effects of social media on society are won’t stop it from affecting us in a certain way. Even though we might recognize the benefit and positive sides of social media, unfortunately, it is not always the bright beautiful sea of it.

Focusing on the ‘dark side’ of social media and how exactly it is bad for people, means that physically and mentally speaking the effects are undoubted. Spending to much time on these could be adversely changing your mood, not necessarily in a good way. In fact, you are more likely to report poor mental health, including symptoms of depression and anxiety if your life turns around social networking.

The recommended time a day to use social media is not more than half an hour. Like many other things in life, such as food, exercise or sleeping time, moderation on using social networks is the key not to fall in addiction and consequently depression and anxiety. It is scientifically proved that technology might feed depression and worsen it due to its use and abuse. Control yourself in a way to keep your mental health stable and away from the dangers of psychological distress.

While social media made it easier to make friends and to socialize without ‘giving your face’, it also made it easier for predators to make victims and hide behind fake identities. Being an anonym provided predators the chance to gain people’s trust and terrorize them after all in front of their peers.

These online chances of attacks leave mental scars and drive people into harming themselves in multiple ways. Cyberbullying does not only affect children and kids, but it also affects adults that are usually fully aware of the dangers of the internet. If you are being harassed online, you won’t be the first or last person to suffer from it. Cases like these happen every day, and no one is free.

One of the most common negative effects of social media, that came along with the huge success of Facebook is the FOMO – Fear of missing out. This phenomenon is a form of anxiety that you may get when you are afraid of losing a positive experience other people might be getting.

This fear is triggered and fueled by social media like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and all those platforms where life can be shared in the way people want to share. The way people show their lives and the fact that you might think they are better than you are causing the FOMO.

However, no one will ever share the bad parts of their existence. People share and manipulate several happenings of their lives to make it look better on social media. The social network might be a full lie and people might have social stress by the need of always posting the best out of everything. The truth is, life isn’t perfect. No matter who you are.

The lack of authenticity of some social media platforms create the illusion that human beings can indeed achieve perfect status, can have perfect everything and be perfect themselves. Once again, these unrealistic expectations of life and friendship don’t make it any better for your mental health and or perspective of real life.

People lie, nowadays these means only amplify these lies and distortions. Every event can be the most amazing one, it is just a matter on how you share it. Don’t live for the appearances. Live for yourself and be happy without sharing.

Social media made it easier for celebrities to take advantage of it and profit millions. In the most followed accounts on Instagram, for example, you will find beautiful women and men, with ‘perfect bodies’, wearing the latest clothes trends, having the latest best cars, and so on.

Body image is, as well, a big issue when it comes to creating an illusion about life. Many celebrities edit the pictures to hide cellulite or some imperfections the beauty industry doesn’t allow. Unfortunately, not everyone realizes how fake these images are and they take wrong conclusions about their own bodies, which may lead to body shame, no matter the person’s genders. Despite some celebrities came publicly speaking about how their bodies are not perfect and how social media turns everything fake, the majority of the most followed accounts still spread the ‘perfection’ illusion about the body, life, friendship, love and all in general.

There are several degrees of social media addiction and if you recognize yourself throughout these descriptions don’t worry: you have solutions for it. You can always quit using social media or at least create a ‘diet’ or a ‘detox’ plan to start using it less and less.

Self-love and self-consciousness are important and should be practiced, even in a world that cares less and less about what is true and that we all have flaws and hard times. People, including celebrities, influencers or whatever they are, are precisely that: people like you, reader. It is important to understand that the sea of roses that circulate all over the internet might be exactly the opposite on the other side.