Over a year ago, I recognised how Facebook might have been negatively affecting my mental health, so I deactivated it temporarily. In deactivating it, I found I had more time and felt more of an urge to connect with people in the real world. If I was to log back on to Facebook for whatever reason, it would be because of something important, and once I would log in, I’d do what I needed to do, have a wee nosey at some people maybe, then deactivate and do the process over again, only logging back in when it was totally necessary. That way I could keep in touch with the people that I care about through messenger but not go on Facebook and spend hours a day mindlessly scrolling. I ended up falling back into the trap when I logged back in. While a lot of people I know have deleted their Facebook and use Instagram instead, I still feel like Facebook is a useful tool. There are benefits to social media whether that be sharing something that is genuinely good news or spreading awareness of a subject that requires attention such as climate change, charities or mental health issues. It’s good to share your opinion in certain scenarios. Everyone has an opinion, but it’s knowing when to share it that’s important. I sometimes have a scroll out of boredom, but I have reduced the amount of time I do it so I can spend more time writing my blog, planning things for the future, learning things or something that is a better use of my time.
Not being on Facebook as much means I spend less time mindlessly scrolling looking at other people's lives. It is a balance of intentionality. A lot of people find help through connecting with friends or finding articles about helping anxiety or useful tips about careers or jobs that are advertised. Yes, you can get a job through Facebook these days! It improves our possibility to connect with more people around the world but can result in less of a connection with the people close to you.
The perfect example of sharing your “good news” with social media is something along the lines of “I’m doing so well for myself. I have a big home, 2.5 kids, happy marriage, I’m healthy and happy and my life is perfect” or something to that effect. The 2 big problems are: firstly that person is presenting the best version of themselves to everyone; the people that know them outside of social media and know the real them instead of their online avatar, will know a more realistic version of their life and know that their life is no where near perfect, they have problems and will, for obvious reasons, not share that side of their life with the world. They only want everyone to know that they are doing amazingly. This can create mental health issues for themselves as a result of this, making them feel like they are a fake because everyone sees them as amazing so won’t reach out to ask them if they are OK. No one would have thought to go up to Robin Williams (happiest man in the world) and ask him if he is OK, because he’s happy, he has a great life. If you continually show everyone that you’re happy, no one will reach out to you, even when you really need someone to ask how you’re doing.
The second problem is that making everyone believe your life is perfect can hurt those people. It makes them believe you have it all figured out and you’re happy, and they question why their life is not like yours. They start to doubt themselves and their self-esteem and self-worth is low. You might say “but that’s their prerogative if they get jealous of my life”. It isn’t about that. If you showed some respect for your fellow human being, you would know deep down that what you are spouting is not the whole truth and is not the real you. The truth is you have been really struggling with life or may be hating your job or having family problems or struggling with addictions or money issues…. So consider not posting about how perfect your life is. It can make people look at you and feel miserable. Why is my life not perfect? Is it because I didn’t get the grades in school and go to university and go on to do my dream job like them? Is it because I didn’t find such a beautiful partner and have 3 little “bundles of joy” and have 3 cars and a big house like them? What you’ll find (and I talked about happiness in another blog post) is that people who feel they constantly must remind everyone how happy they are, are generally quite unhappy. Having lots of money, a mansion, lots of cars is not guaranteed to make you happy so don’t think that because that guy from school went on to become a millionaire and shares it all over Facebook that he’s happy. He’s human. He will have happy times and unhappy times, just like everyone else.
Facebook and Instagram were not designed to make you a better person. They are businesses. They are designed to make them money and sell advertising and, crucially to the business, make people dependant on that form of communication. It's not about never being on it, although for some people, myself included, the less you’re on it the better. It's about getting a balance right and saying "instead of social media running me, I'm going to make the decision to check it when it suits me or when I need it” or trying to set some kind of limit on how much time you spend on it (there are apps to limit social media usage).
Social media can make a lot of people very upset. It's the same as news in that it's 80% scaremongering, terrorism, shootings, animals being abused, sad depressing stories and thoughts and opinions, 15% pointless information that serves no purpose to you and how you live your life, and 5% something light hearted, when the new James bond film is being released (I'm a massive James bond fan) or a cute penguin that smiles at a photographer then dances. Social media does the same thing. When people post things, it can get you stressed fired up and generally upset. Especially with everything that's happening in the world politically, socially or otherwise. It can trigger things in the mind of some people and result in a rise in mental health problems.
I use social media as I feel mental health is something that needs to be talked about more and the best way to get awareness of this is, paradoxically, using a platform which can cause mental health problems. I try my best to just use Facebook and Instagram for sharing my blog, and talking to people, but sometimes I do get caught in a trap with the “blue glow”. Its addictive. Of course it’s addictive! When you share something and your phone pings to say someone liked your post, you get a small hit of dopamine. Same happy sensation you get when you are drinking, taking drugs, gambling, exercising, listening to music etc. If it feels good, chances are you’ll want to keep doing it. It becomes addictive. Drinking can be fun, too much drinking can kill you, same with taking drugs, can be fun but can kill you (unless it’s weed – although if you continue to smoke weed I’m still adamant it is more likely to cause long term mental health issues). Gambling can be fun but if you get carried away it can be extremely dangerous. Exercising can make you feel great but if you get addicted, you might be doing your body more harm than good. Getting liked on social media can make you feel happy, but if you end up addicted to it and rely on likes on social media for your happiness, you are going down a path to low self-esteem. “Why have only 15 people liked my photo? Everyone else must not like me. Maybe I will get my lips done as that’s what “beautiful” people seem to have, or I’ll get my boobs done or…” you get the idea. It creates an unhealthy and unnatural image that people will aspire to, and that is not healthy. It’s not a surprise so many young (more often female) people are having eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression. They look at themselves as imperfect and so stop eating or spend money on plastic surgery just to look like someone else and then regret it and feel worse or get addicted to improving how they look Every single person on the planet is beautiful and unique. 99.9% of things you see on social media, you need to take with a massive pinch of salt. It’s not reality, it’s not natural, it’s not healthy and it is not real life.
If anyone reading this is an avid user of social media but has a lot of mental health problems, try limiting your use on it and when you do use it, assess everything you see and try to understand that the majority of what you see is all smoke and mirrors. It’s not the whole picture. No one’s life is perfect, no matter how much someone wants people to think it is. It has some advantages, but just like drinking and gambling, please use social media responsibly. Use it to help people, share something positive and if people are going to see you, let them see you as a real human being.