Proved: How Social Media is destroying you

Proved: How Social Media is destroying you

You know the feeling that you get when someone likes your post or comment or someone subscribes to your channel and the compulsion to check back your posts to see people’s comment, well sadly that’s a huge problem!!

Social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. have benefitted humanity a lot during the past decade without a doubt! We all know about it, but we seldom realize that excessive and careless use of these platforms is destroying our lives which include our mental and physical health.

Yes! It is affecting our physical health too as we now know that prolonged mental illnesses like anxiety and depression have an impact on our physical health too which we will discuss soon.

  1. It becomes an Addiction

Just as alcohol and drug addicts, it is proven that people who excessively and compulsively use social media get the same feeling and dosage of dopamine. This is the core reason why social media is becoming destructive for some people.

The main reason researchers claim behind the addiction is the reward system that social media offers: like that one like on your Facebook and Instagram post or that one subscribe to your YouTube channel, which gives you constant pleasure and a sense of achievement just like in video games, which triggers dopamine release and it becomes hard to control oneself from using it again and again.

The other reason that researchers suggest is the variable or unprecedented reward system. Basically, it is the same thing because of which people get addicted to gambling. Suppose you posted a video on YouTube and suppose the video get more views or likes than you expected then the dopamine flood in your brain will give you the same pleasure and excitement that a gambler gets when he wins a bet and this feeling will compel you to do that thing again and again which is using social media.

So social media creates this dopamine loop in the mind of addicts which compels them to use these platforms again and again. According to official data around 210 million people around the world are currently suffering from social media addiction. Now we must know what the signs of social media addiction are, here are some behavioral signs to indicate if someone is a social media addict:

·      Spending unnecessarily huge amounts of time on social media so much so that one can’t even do his work or studies properly.

·   Thinking about it even when you are not using it and getting irritated and anxious when you can’t use it.

·      Being more separated from others around you to use social media.

So if anyone experiences these types of behavior or similar to it then there are chances that he may be one of those. But let me remind you that not everyone who uses social media is an addict; some use it for genuinely good reasons too, like connecting to people and friends around the world, for news and educational purposes but they don’t experience any behavioral signs mentioned above. Now what are the conditions that social media addiction leads to?

   2. Developing Inferiority Complex

According to American Psychological Association Inferiority complex is “a feeling of inadequacy and insecurity derived from an imagined physical or mental deficiency”, So basically it is the feeling of inferiority which you feel when someone has some physical or mental possession that you don’t have and people using social media experience it a lot and I am pretty sure everyone must have felt at some point of their life even if the one accepts it or not.

Now let’s be frank, not everyone has millions of dollars in the bank, so when one sees a multi-millionaire influencer flexing his lavish lifestyle on social media, he gets this sense of inferiority and this is called inferiority complex.

People also develop an inferiority complex by seeing the so-called happy and joyful lives of people on social media and thinking why my life is so miserable? why can’t I be happy and joyful as these people on social media? but let me tell you on camera everyone fakes their laughs and smiles even if they are on the verge of ending their lives off the camera.

But the point is, people develop an inferiority complex by seeing people on social media and this is more prevalent in teens who are new to this world and don’t know about these things, so tell your kids about these things early on in their lives so they don’t get caught up in this because prolonged inferiority complex can cause

·    Depression, anxiety, feeling insecure or unworthy, these conditions can even lead to suicidal tendencies

·     It makes people perfectionists and sensitive to criticism and they start to blame others for their weaknesses which could severely hinder their learning abilities

·  It can lead to physical conditions like insomnia and other mental disorders.

   3.   Loneliness

Now this might sound ironic as social media was initially meant to connect and socialize people around the world but the reality is that online friends and relationships can never be the replica of real-life friends and relationships.

That is why a study concluded that people who use social media primarily to connect with people around the world tend to feel more lonely than others, which is ironically true as the more you indulge in social media to connect with people around the world, the more you get to cut out from the actual world around you, which leads people to become introvert and being depressed and anxious because of their lack of strong relationships in the actual world.

Loneliness is one of the primary reasons for panic attacks, prolonged anxiety and depression, and other mental illness. So much so neurologists also claim that suffering from loneliness can lead to cognitive decline and dementia in older people and increase the chances of heart disease.

   4. Excessively longer screen times

According to studies average screen time for internet users around the world is around 7 hours which is astonishingly huge, according to experts the screen time of adults or teens off work and studies should be limited to one to two hours a day.

 Now because of this huge amount of screen time, many problems come by out of which some are proven, and on some researches are still going on

·   Eyes: Undoubtedly eyes are impacted due to this, problems like eye fatigue which cause dimness in vision, and headaches due to focusing on a bright screen for a long period of time, are prevalent in people having screen time of more than 7 hours.

    Dry eyes are also one of the main problems which can lead to irritation in the eyes due to exposure to screens for longer periods of time. Studies also show that kids who have excessively longer screen times are more likely to develop nearsightedness.

·      Sleep: Inadequate sleep is one of the main reasons for many health issues and it also leads to a decrease in productivity of life. When we switch off the lights and go to sleep our melatonin levels increase due to the darkness and this helps us to get a sleep which is both good in quality and quantity, but using mobile phones during bedtime decreases melatonin level which worsen both quality and quantity of sleep and which conclusively worsen our health and productivity, so don’t use screen at bedtime at all.

·  Cognitive abilities: Some studies suggest that using screen for very long periods of time cause a decline in cognitive abilities as compared to those who don’t have that much longer screen times, this is still under research, and further studies and researches will clarify it more.

  5. Overall decrease in Productivity

As person who is an alcoholic or drug addict is of little to no use to society due to decrease in its productivity and increase in liabilities, similarly a person who is a social media addict gets distracted by it during his work time or studies which leads to delay in completion of tasks and decrease in productivity of work.

And people suffering from this develop a condition termed as “FOMO” or basically Fear Of Missing Out which is caused when people compare their productivity and outcomes with others and find that their outcome is lesser than others and this condition can lead to chronic anxiety and insecurity. This could occur anywhere in workplaces or in studies.

Finally,

Social media could prove to be a very useful tool if used in the right way like for educational purposes or connecting to people which you otherwise can’t and sometimes entertainment too, but the problem starts when we don’t use social media but it starts using us, that is the algorithm starts to compel us to see what it wants us to see rather than what we should see.

So be careful while using social media and see our next article on how to see how to get rid of social media addiction if you are caught up in it.