Don’t turn yourself into social media addict

Saad Al-Dosari

Mental Health Day was observed across the world on Monday, Oct. 10. It was a day dedicated to raising awareness about mental health problems, risks, and effects on people’s lives worldwide.

On such occasions, social media and its effects on our psychology, mental health and social interaction comes to mind. Truth is that, unfortunately, we have endless series of studies proving that excessive use of social media has undesirable effects on our mental health.
The time we spent on social media has dramatically increased in the last couple of years. Being attached to the Facebook’s wall and Twitter’s timeline are not the only distraction we have to our daily routines; there are still photos to like on Instagram, stories to follow on snaps, videos to check out on YouTube, and endless series of messages to interact with on WhatsApp. Social media is becoming an integral part of our professional and personal lives, it is in a constant demand on our limited mental and emotional resources.
The problem seems to intensify when we talk about teens and young adults. In a study conducted by the University of Pittsburgh and published by the Huffington Post, it was found that young adults with heavy social media usage are almost three times more likely to be depressed than occasional users. In another study conducted in Michigan, it was found that the use of Facebook by young adults worsens “how people feel moment to moment and how satisfied they are with their lives.” While in Canada, researchers at the Center for Addictions and Mental Health analyzed data from over 10,000 adolescents to find that “young people who use social media more than two hours per day are much more likely to rate their mental health as ‘fair’ or ‘poor’ compared with occasional users.”
The equation developed to simplify the relationship between our mental health and social media was put in place by the researchers at McMaster University: The more time you spend on the Internet and social media, the more likely you are to suffer from mental health issues. The study yielded this statement resulted from a study of 254 McMaster University students, using the Young Internet Addiction Test besides a new survey designed by the researcher, in which it was found that 42% of users faced mental health issues as a result of excessive Internet use, and 48% of the total users couldn’t control their use of social media.
What we come up from all of this is pretty simple; it is hard to deny the positive impact the Internet and social media have on our lives, but like everything in life, they have their own dark side. Self-control and time management are the only way to control the pressure of this constant demand on your mental resources. It is all in your hand not to turn into a social media “junkie” suffering from depression and inability to focus.