Social Media Use and its Impact on Mental Health

Mental health is defined as a state of wellbeing, wherein people understand their abilities, work each day, solve everyday life problems and make a significant contribution to the lives of their communities. There have been a lot of debates and discussions regarding how social media has impacted people's lives. It is undeniable that nowadays, the majority of people spend a lot of time on social media platforms like messengers, Twitter, Instagram etc. It is not wrong to say that these social media platforms have become a crucial part of almost everyone's life these days. Social media has a lot of enjoyable benefits but the downside of it is the negative impact it can create on one's mental health. Both, the quality and quantity of social media can affect the mental health, physical health and hence increase risk of mortality. Owing to the excessive use of these social media platforms, it has become imperative for researchers to study the impact of these platforms on mental health, especially the negative impact. A number of studies conducted on the subject, have shown that excessive use of social media can lead to negative signs and symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress i.e., a pressure to create the stereotype as per the trend on social media and being tagged as popular. Spending excessive time over social media platforms can actually make people lonelier and sadder which can lead to anxiety and depression and impact mental health and physical health. It is important to have in-person contact in order to release happy hormones and alleviate stress and feel positive. Feeling of inadequacy, envy and dissatisfaction can be triggered by use of social media platforms specially because people tend to post the highlights of their lives on these platforms and not the lows of their lives. Youngsters especially can develop the feeling of losing out on friend's updates and messages and hence can develop a feeling of anxiety and physical symptoms related to it. To summarize, social media can have a positive impact in one's life but can also have a negative impact on mental health.