I’m going to start with a little more about my own personal relationship with social media. While I use some of the others forums for social media my MOC, or Media of Choice, is Facebook. I wasn’t always this way. I can remember a time when I turned away from joining Facebook. I thought it was silly. I wasn’t really a social person anyway. It was in college and back in good old 2006 you had to have an edu email address to sign up for Facebook. My friends created my account for me and while I wasn’t helpless in all this I did nothing to stop it. Jump forward 13 years later and I’m ashamed to say there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t visit Facebook. I’m not an active poster like most, more of a low key Facebook stalker who likes to keep up with those on my friends list without letting them know I’m watching. Don’t get me wrong I commemorate birthdays and the main anniversaries but I tend to not post things that would let others peep into my personal life like I so enjoy doing to others. And if I do, it’s often vague enough so that the person that doesn’t know me will have no idea what I’m talking about. I love the reminder feature Facebook has to remind you of previous posts from years before on certain days. It offers a little reminder of where you were 1 year, or more ago and let’s you compare it to where you are now.
Again I digress. So even I am susceptible to the strong pull social media has on our everyday existence. But can/does social media have a direct relation to our symptoms of anxiety. A study completed by Brian A. Primack from the University of Pittsburgh found that there is a direct correlation between the number of social media platforms used regularly and the appearance of both anxiety and depression symptoms. The study took a nationally representative sample of 1787 young adults age 19-32 and asked them how many social media platforms they use regularly and then used a self monitoring tool to ask about their symptoms of both anxiety and depression. The study found that those who used 7-11 social media platforms had a substantially higher risk of developing those symptoms as compared to those who listed 0-2 platforms. So, the number of social media platforms used regularly has a direct effect on symptoms of both anxiety and depression. But that still doesn’t answer the inherent question of can/does social media cause anxiety or even make it worse.
There is a type of anxiety caused by social media. Social media anxiety disorder can develop if someone becomes addicted to their social media profiles and usage. The anxiety piece comes in if they are unable to check their social media for an extended period of time and they fear they are missing vital updates, etc. According to some experts at least 20% of individuals can not go more than 3 hours without checking their social media accounts. Some of the symptoms of this type of anxiety disorder such as: withdrawal from friends and family, and loss of interest in other activities are commonly seen in depression. And lying to others about how much time you spend on social media, interrupting conversations to check your social media accounts, and experiencing withdrawal symptoms when you are not able to access social media are common among addictions. And in a way this is an addiction to social media. The anxiety comes from not being able to access the addictive component. So in essence any addict will feel anxiety when they are unable to access what they are addicted to. The same goes for the drug addict who can’t get drugs or the alcoholic who can’t buy alcohol. Usage of Facebook has even been shown to activate the same areas in the brain as substances such as cocaine making it similar to drug or alcohol addiction. About 30% of those who use social media use it for upwards of 15 hours a week. That kind of usage can limit our capability to enjoy life. If you work anywhere from 40-50 hours a week and then add in this 15 hours a week, that’s 8-9 hours a day of work and then 2.14 hours a day on social media when do you have time for loved ones? That’s 11 hours a day taken up approximately add in 8 hours of sleep. That doesn’t leave time for much of anything else.
Let’s broaden the scope a minute. Using the internet or social media for extended periods of time can also cause depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), impulsive disorder, problems with mental functioning, paranoia, and loneliness. Most often on social media platforms you end up comparing your life to others. And in this comparison you more often likely to find that your life does not measure up or is lacking in some way, which leads to the symptoms listed above. This is called the compare and despair factor.
This is hypothetical but if you’re comparing your life to others and you find your life deficient in some way you may struggle to model your life after that ideal you saw. When you’re unable to do so, anxiety symptoms appear due to your inability to measure up and even mimic the “perfect” life of others. That perfect housewife you see on your Facebook feed who always posts pictures of how together her life is, how perfect her marriage is, how well behaved and intelligent her children are, who drives the expensive SUV and lives in the large house with the pool is only portraying what she wants you to see. You’re life can’t be like hers, because even hers isn’t what she portrays on social media. You don’t see her dressed in sweatpants on Monday morning rushing to drop her kids off at school who are screaming and running around the house refusing to get dressed. Her husband is nowhere to be found on a business trip, probably having an affair with his secretary. Those are the things you don’t see. So there you are stuck trying to make your life look like some fictional representation of something that isn’t even real. So enters the fear of personal failure as you obsessively try to make your life similar to hers. Quickly on the heels of personal failure comes the pervasive thoughts indicative of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Another issue is that of loneliness. With social media loneliness is exacerbated by perceived friendship networks; social media makes it even more evident the fewer friends a person has. Friends have become a number on social media platforms and individuals have come to measure their self worth and even their popularity by how many friends they have. Often they do not take into consideration how many of those friends they actually know and relate to on a daily basis. You can often see how many friends others have on their profiles and then again compare that to how many you have; compare and despair factor. As is pointed out by Sociologist Eric Klinenberg: “it’s the quality of your social interactions not the quantity that define loneliness”. As the number of friends grow on social media but are not regularly engaged this current generation of users has chosen to emphasize on that quantity over quality and may be the reason behind the current rise in loneliness related to online activity.
While I have listed some of the negative effects of social media on mental health there are positive effects as well. The research currently out there on this subject is mixed to say the least. Some say there is a direct negative correlation to use of social media and the symptoms of both anxiety and depression whereas others state there is not enough evidence to support claims. Social media does play a positive role in people’s lives by allowing them to keep in touch with those that normally they would not be able to keep in touch with, either by distance or other life factors. And it does allow for social networking to occur among individuals regardless of distance. Not everything about social media is negative or bad; if it was it would not be as popular as it is today. As saying that it still remains our guilty pleasure as people use social media for different reasons. I don’t see it disappearing anytime soon.
Addiction is real and very serious. If you feel as though you may be addicted to social media and are experiencing some of the issues listed in this article then you should seek a professional. If you are experiencing elevated symptoms of anxiety, whether it is related to social media or not you should also seek a professional. You do not have to continue to live with your anxiety symptoms at their current level. Work with a professional counselor to help bring your anxiety symptoms down to a more manageable level. Anxiety may never go away; but it doesn’t have to keep you from doing those things you deem important in your life. Don’t let anxiety stop you from living.
Resources
Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., & Barrett, E. L. (2016, September 10). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among U.S. young adults. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563216307543#!
Fader, S. (2018, September 7). Social Media Obsession and Anxiety. Retrieved from https://adaa.org/social-media-obsession
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