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Why I Believe Social Media is Affecting our Mental Health

June 20th, 2022

I still remember the day I downloaded Instagram for the first time, I was only in 7th grade. Everyone from my school was creating accounts and posting pictures/videos so I decided to make an account myself. Little did I know, social media would make a huge impact on the mental health of my generation, over the years.

It started out with logging in only once a day and posting a picture every once in a while. Over time, social media grew larger and more popular. People’s followers were increasing, and so were the number of posts. Ten years later, I’m posting every week, and I find myself scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat multiple times a day. I know that this does not seem healthy, and it almost feels like an addiction, but I now feel the need to check my social media platforms every hour or two.

I noticed something we tend to do while on social media, compare ourselves to others. Giving and receiving “likes” and comments on social media posts creates a system where you feel validation, and you’re being complimented through likes and comments. Whenever I post a picture, I notice myself getting upset if I don’t receive the amount of likes or comments that I was hoping for. I can’t help but wonder if I look bad in the picture or if it’s just not good enough. It brings down my confidence and makes me feel bad about myself, so sometimes I’ll even delete the picture.

To increase followers, likes, and comments, individuals begin to create unrealistic images of themselves and their lifestyle. They start to edit pictures to look more desirable than they are. This causes people to seek approval for their altered appearance and lose confidence in their true selves. At this point, most of what we see on social media is actually fake, but it's frightening that not everyone knows this. 

As a society, we are starting to think that the more we improve our appearance, and the more fun we look like we are having in our posts, the more popular we will be on social media. This is telling young people that the way you look, and what kind of lifestyle you are living is the only thing that matters, when we all know it’s not. They want the false reality they are seeing on social media and begin to feel badly about themselves when they try to recreate it and they can’t. They become frustrated and might wonder how they can look like this other person they follow on Instagram or TikTok or have this fun life that they are living. This type of thinking is so bad for your mental health, yet so common amongst young people on social media.

There are definitely some positives to social media as well. My whole family and some of my close friends live all the way in Europe, whereas I’m from Massachusetts. I don’t get to see them until I visit in the summer, so I find social media to be a helpful way to keep in touch with them. I get to see what they’re up to when I’m not there, we can DM, or talk through WhatsApp. It has become an easy and fun way to connect with others. Another positive aspect of it is using it as a marketing platform. As a marketing major, I became interested in the digital and social media side of it and am currently a social media marketing intern here at FUN Enterprises. Since social media is so popular now, it has become a great way to promote your business and communicate with your audience.

Since 2021, I have seen many more “body positivity” accounts and posts throughout social media, which I feel is relieving to many and shows that social media is, in fact, a false reality. So, the real question is, why are we still using social media if we know it is impacting our mental health? I believe that “FOMO” or fear of missing out, and the fulfillment of receiving compliments through likes and comments would be the reason for most. It’s almost as if we continue to use social media in order to show the world who we are, or what we want others to believe we are.

If I were to give some advice to a 7th grader who is thinking about getting on social media, it would be to use it in a way that serves you positively. Connect with others who are posting positive things and unfollow those who bring you down. Remember that everyone’s posts are only the highlights of their life, not the behind-the-scenes, so don’t compare yourself to someone you don’t know.

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