I. Introduction
Howdy, everyone! Due to covid-19 and the ongoing lockdowns all around the globe, I decided that I would start some kind of 'blog' on mc-market that aims towards helping students, starting entrepreneurs, and generally people to improve their (work) life with simple but significant steps. If the feedback for these articles is positive and there's enough demand for more I will try to publish one article per week.
I will try to keep the information in these articles as plain and simple as possible, I will also write a short summary at the end of every article for those who want to have the information summed up rather than having to read through the article.
II. Social Media in numbers
With the rise of the internet in the 2000s, new ways of communicating have been established rapidly and changed our everyday life. Since its founding in 2004 Facebook, the biggest social media platform gained close to 1.7 billion unique users. And while social media platforms offer great opportunities such as social interactions, entertainment, new business models, and advertising methods, they also impacted our life heavily.
Within the last four years, the number of people who use social media increased greatly, between 2017 and 2021 more than 1 billion new users joined platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other major players. More than 50% of participants in a survey of the Western Washington University admitted that social media has negative impacts on their sleep schedule, many even reported that a lack of sleep is directly caused by social media.
Between 2005 and 2017 the rate of reports regarding symptoms and mental health concerns among adolescents increased by 52%, a rapid increase compared to previous long-term data. For adults between the age of 18 and 25, the rate even increased by 63% between the years of 2009 and 2017.
Medical institutions express major concerns due to an increasing number of children not being able to concentrate properly, the number of ADHD diagnoses has also increased tremendously throughout this time. But how did it come this far? And why do we still spend that much time on social media platforms although most of us are even aware of the fact that they are bad for our health and impact our life negatively?
III. The psychological and sociological aspect
Social interaction is one of the basic instincts of all species on earth that have advanced neurological and cognitive abilities, we require social interactions with others to maintain a healthy life. Especially the chemicals serotonin and oxytocin encourage social relationships, these chemicals are actually supposed to help us survive by cooperating, many of our modern instincts and behaviors that we deem rational and well thought through are actually driven by ancient instincts we have close to no control over. But how is this linked to social media?
As aforementioned, humans require social interactions, social media gives us just that, and a lot more. Finding "friends" on social media is generally a lot easier than in the real world, interactions often feel real due to our body sending those chemicals out, but in the long term social media friendships, followers, or groups cannot replace real social interactions.
When receiving likes or positive feedback along with others sharing our opinions or interest the chemicals adrenaline and endorphins are brought into circulation. These chemicals result in a positive feeling, often even something similar to euphoria - we can't deny it, it feels good to see this red notification - unless it's a warning from a staff member.
Those four chemicals are the main reason why we come back to social media platforms, it's not just about the interaction, it's about this positive feeling, interactions are often secondary. But here comes the problem: Once our body feels a lack of those chemicals, specifically adrenaline and endorphins, effects like anxiety, moodiness, or even depression can occur. It's a circle, we come there for adrenaline or entertainment, and once we don't have it we crave it more than before. A study led by the University of Rochester and the University of Texas has shown that a lack of positive feedback in form of likes, comments, or interaction can lead to a decreased feeling of self-worth, social rejection, and anxiety. Estimates also show that more than 210,000,000 people show strong symptoms of social media addiction, not counting in those who face mental health issues related to these platforms.
Another major factor that impacts us personally is the seemingly perfect life and setting of many channels or accounts of influencers. Social media does in fact change our perceptions of ourselves. The platforms have become a competition. Whether it's showing off new materialistic things like a brand new car, a new bag, brand new shoes, or simply perfect everyday situations like a perfect look, food, and other things - many of those are either not real, or modified to look more appealing. In fact, many of those we admire live the same life as we do, but that's not how we perceive it. A majority of people only share the positive aspects of their lives and leave out the bad days - while this is understandable since no one wants to seem weak, it still gives us a wrong perception of how others live. Social media has also been proven to negatively contribute to eating disorders such as anorexia, mainly due to false impressions of seemingly perfect shapes.
Research of institutions like the US National Institutes of Health even indicates that social media and online interaction are linked to increased suicide rates.
IV. Regulating social media consumption along with fighting negative effects
While I personally try to highly limit the amount of time I spend on social media in my private life, I still don't get around using them, mainly for work or projects. However, I still believe that limiting and regulating our social media usage can fight negative side effects and improve our overall life.
The best way to start limiting your time online is either using a tracker that shows your social media usage and then slowly reducing the amount of time spent. A more drastic way would be to uninstall unnecessary social media apps that you deem pointless, or even deleting your account. This requires overthinking you to overthink your social media usage critically, along with figuring out what kind of content you actually consume, and whether you really use it to entertain yourself, or whether you simply come back out of habit.
A 2018 study by the University of Pennsylvania shows that reducing daily social media usage to 30 minutes resulted in significant reductions in stress levels, anxiety, depression, loneliness, sleep problems, and FOMO. A whole bunch of side effects. While 30 minutes may seem too low for some of you, at least try to reduce the amount of time you currently spend on these platforms. If you spend three hours a day, try to get it down to two and a half hours, then two, then one and a half - you get me.
I strongly believe that overthinking our social media usage along with understanding why we are using it that often can help to fight its negative effects it. Institutions have to further educate people, especially younger ones, on how to use these platforms to fight issues before they even have the chance to appear.
If you suffer from depression or other mental health issues please try to seek help at your local mental health support hotline or group. I will link a few major ones below, god bless you.
https://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help
https://www.nami.org/help
https://mhanational.org/get-involved/contact-us
V. Denouement
I know it's been a while since I published my last article, well over a month to be exact. This was mainly due to me not having a lot of time, mainly caused by exams and a busy schedule. I will try to get back into publishing weekly or bi-weekly content to contribute to the community.
I hope that you enjoyed the read, if you have any suggestions on how to improve my articles please let me know! Criticism is also more than appreciated as long as it's constructive and respectful. Thanks for taking your time, have a wonderful weekend, god bless y'all.
Enjoy your weekend and stay healthy,
Zero
Howdy, everyone! Due to covid-19 and the ongoing lockdowns all around the globe, I decided that I would start some kind of 'blog' on mc-market that aims towards helping students, starting entrepreneurs, and generally people to improve their (work) life with simple but significant steps. If the feedback for these articles is positive and there's enough demand for more I will try to publish one article per week.
I will try to keep the information in these articles as plain and simple as possible, I will also write a short summary at the end of every article for those who want to have the information summed up rather than having to read through the article.
II. Social Media in numbers
With the rise of the internet in the 2000s, new ways of communicating have been established rapidly and changed our everyday life. Since its founding in 2004 Facebook, the biggest social media platform gained close to 1.7 billion unique users. And while social media platforms offer great opportunities such as social interactions, entertainment, new business models, and advertising methods, they also impacted our life heavily.
Within the last four years, the number of people who use social media increased greatly, between 2017 and 2021 more than 1 billion new users joined platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other major players. More than 50% of participants in a survey of the Western Washington University admitted that social media has negative impacts on their sleep schedule, many even reported that a lack of sleep is directly caused by social media.
Between 2005 and 2017 the rate of reports regarding symptoms and mental health concerns among adolescents increased by 52%, a rapid increase compared to previous long-term data. For adults between the age of 18 and 25, the rate even increased by 63% between the years of 2009 and 2017.
Medical institutions express major concerns due to an increasing number of children not being able to concentrate properly, the number of ADHD diagnoses has also increased tremendously throughout this time. But how did it come this far? And why do we still spend that much time on social media platforms although most of us are even aware of the fact that they are bad for our health and impact our life negatively?
III. The psychological and sociological aspect
Social interaction is one of the basic instincts of all species on earth that have advanced neurological and cognitive abilities, we require social interactions with others to maintain a healthy life. Especially the chemicals serotonin and oxytocin encourage social relationships, these chemicals are actually supposed to help us survive by cooperating, many of our modern instincts and behaviors that we deem rational and well thought through are actually driven by ancient instincts we have close to no control over. But how is this linked to social media?
As aforementioned, humans require social interactions, social media gives us just that, and a lot more. Finding "friends" on social media is generally a lot easier than in the real world, interactions often feel real due to our body sending those chemicals out, but in the long term social media friendships, followers, or groups cannot replace real social interactions.
When receiving likes or positive feedback along with others sharing our opinions or interest the chemicals adrenaline and endorphins are brought into circulation. These chemicals result in a positive feeling, often even something similar to euphoria - we can't deny it, it feels good to see this red notification - unless it's a warning from a staff member.
Those four chemicals are the main reason why we come back to social media platforms, it's not just about the interaction, it's about this positive feeling, interactions are often secondary. But here comes the problem: Once our body feels a lack of those chemicals, specifically adrenaline and endorphins, effects like anxiety, moodiness, or even depression can occur. It's a circle, we come there for adrenaline or entertainment, and once we don't have it we crave it more than before. A study led by the University of Rochester and the University of Texas has shown that a lack of positive feedback in form of likes, comments, or interaction can lead to a decreased feeling of self-worth, social rejection, and anxiety. Estimates also show that more than 210,000,000 people show strong symptoms of social media addiction, not counting in those who face mental health issues related to these platforms.
Another major factor that impacts us personally is the seemingly perfect life and setting of many channels or accounts of influencers. Social media does in fact change our perceptions of ourselves. The platforms have become a competition. Whether it's showing off new materialistic things like a brand new car, a new bag, brand new shoes, or simply perfect everyday situations like a perfect look, food, and other things - many of those are either not real, or modified to look more appealing. In fact, many of those we admire live the same life as we do, but that's not how we perceive it. A majority of people only share the positive aspects of their lives and leave out the bad days - while this is understandable since no one wants to seem weak, it still gives us a wrong perception of how others live. Social media has also been proven to negatively contribute to eating disorders such as anorexia, mainly due to false impressions of seemingly perfect shapes.
Research of institutions like the US National Institutes of Health even indicates that social media and online interaction are linked to increased suicide rates.
IV. Regulating social media consumption along with fighting negative effects
While I personally try to highly limit the amount of time I spend on social media in my private life, I still don't get around using them, mainly for work or projects. However, I still believe that limiting and regulating our social media usage can fight negative side effects and improve our overall life.
The best way to start limiting your time online is either using a tracker that shows your social media usage and then slowly reducing the amount of time spent. A more drastic way would be to uninstall unnecessary social media apps that you deem pointless, or even deleting your account. This requires overthinking you to overthink your social media usage critically, along with figuring out what kind of content you actually consume, and whether you really use it to entertain yourself, or whether you simply come back out of habit.
A 2018 study by the University of Pennsylvania shows that reducing daily social media usage to 30 minutes resulted in significant reductions in stress levels, anxiety, depression, loneliness, sleep problems, and FOMO. A whole bunch of side effects. While 30 minutes may seem too low for some of you, at least try to reduce the amount of time you currently spend on these platforms. If you spend three hours a day, try to get it down to two and a half hours, then two, then one and a half - you get me.
I strongly believe that overthinking our social media usage along with understanding why we are using it that often can help to fight its negative effects it. Institutions have to further educate people, especially younger ones, on how to use these platforms to fight issues before they even have the chance to appear.
If you suffer from depression or other mental health issues please try to seek help at your local mental health support hotline or group. I will link a few major ones below, god bless you.
https://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help
https://www.nami.org/help
https://mhanational.org/get-involved/contact-us
V. Denouement
I know it's been a while since I published my last article, well over a month to be exact. This was mainly due to me not having a lot of time, mainly caused by exams and a busy schedule. I will try to get back into publishing weekly or bi-weekly content to contribute to the community.
I hope that you enjoyed the read, if you have any suggestions on how to improve my articles please let me know! Criticism is also more than appreciated as long as it's constructive and respectful. Thanks for taking your time, have a wonderful weekend, god bless y'all.
Enjoy your weekend and stay healthy,
Zero
