Health experts say that sitting is the new smoking . The number

of health that is affected by sitting is outstanding , given that

sitting gives us various kinds of diseases and health advisories.

But there is also something very concerning about sitting – and

that is scrolling through social media all day and night but not

doing something productive .

See , social media has its own good effects as well , if we think

about how much money does influencers make and they owe a

lot to the social medias , but if we keep on scrolling and buzz

feeding through social media it will have a severe impact on our

lives and our mental health can be affected as well.

So here are the common ways in which all kind of social medias

is affecting our daily lives and mental health :

 

1. Social media is addictive :

One of the worst effects of scrolling through social media is that

it is very much addictive . The amount of Dopamine we release

per day on scrolling through social media is insane to tell you

the addictivity that we give to social media .

Social media has so many addiction criteria, such as neglect of personal

life, mental preoccupation, escapism, mood modifying experiences,

tolerance and concealing the addictive behavior, appear to be present in

some people who use [social networks] excessively.

Researchers have also found that the motivation for people’s excessive

use of social networks differs depending on certain traits—introverts andextroverts use it for different reasons, as do people with pessimistic

traits.

 

 

2. Anxiety and Loneliness :

There is much evidence available on the internet to know how social

media has connected our lives with the rest of the world , even in the

times of COVID-19 virus , and how much adversities it has on our

personal relationships and mental health .

But still , there are millions of cases where , despite being connected with

so many people on the internet , people still are so lonely in their actual

life. They have lots of connections with the outsiders but they don’t have

any connections with any of their family members . This creates Anxiety

and depression among people.

There are many factors that are likely to be in play here. For example,

you may suffer from a “fear of missing out” (FOMO), witnessing other

people have a good time when you’re on social media and constantly

wanting to check social media when you’re off it.

So it’s very much important for each of us to realize how adverse it could

also be to keep our eye on this social media.

 

3. Echo chambers :

Users on social media tend to self-isolate in some respects, unfriending

and unfollowing sources who say things they don’t agree with and

seeking out people who do agree with them.

This facilitates the development of echo chambers, where only one

narrative is constantly recycled.

In turn, this limits our ability to remain open minded to new ideas,

causes us to demonize people we don’t agree with, and in some cases,

allows us to continue believing untruths.We kind of keep ourselves

remain fitted to this outside worlds and forget that their is also ananother beautiful world situated inside us – our real families , our real

friends , our relationships and such like that.

 

4.We start to compare our lives with others :

This is the most adverse and serious effect of excessive use of social

media platforms . We start to compare our actual and practical life with

someone who we have not actually met and live life together .

We fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to others as we scroll

through our feeds, and make judgements about how we measure up.

I have found that comparisons make people feel worse – which is

surprising, since in real life, only upward comparisons (feeling another

person has it better than you) makes people feel bad. But in the social

network world, it seems that any kind of comparison is linked to

depressive symptoms.

So this thinking may have serious effects on our lives .

 

 

5. Social media can lead to jealousy :

Why do we feel jealous ? When our expectations fall short at other

people’s expectations and outcomes , we start to feel jealous from inside .

But the actual jealousy just begins from comparing yourself with others .

We oftenly do this on social media without knowing . That person has nic

car , but I don’t even have a bike . That lady is so pretty , but I’m as ugly .

Oh wow that person has such a nice mansion , I don’t even have a small

house of my own .

The point is that by comparing our lives and the non-essential things

that people have and we don’t have , it makes us jealous at every point

and we start to think for ourselves that our life is very bad and our life

sucks at every point .I think the truth is that – feeling jealous can make a person want to make

his or her own life look better, and post jealousy-inducing posts of their

own, in an endless circle of one-upping and feeling jealous.

So , according to my perspective , we should stop the over-excessive use

of social media since it has its adverse effects . Instead we should start

using social media for something good and for something valuable .

Believe me it’ll change your life for good.