The health society performed a research on the psychological influence of social networks on 1,500 people in 2019.
It was discovered that among the five most popular social networks, regular usage of four of them (Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, and Instagram) causes mental problems, while only one of them (YouTube) had a favorable influence on mental health.
4 social networks with bad implications for the psyche were made in order of least detrimental pain to it, and the findings are as follows: least harmful Twitter, then Facebook, then Telegram, and finally Instagram, which is the social network that clogs your head the most.
Why is Instagram the most destructive to one’s mental health, and what can be done about it?
Our brain, in reality, is constantly collecting information about the environment around us without our knowledge. There are various reasons for this, including ensuring our safety and locating the required resources. However, one of the most essential reasons the brain accomplishes this is to try to figure out where we are on the public career ladder. Pyramids are human in every social position and in any place. We also utilize this data to figure out where we are.
Before the Internet and the widespread use of social networks, there were few individuals with whom you could compare yourself; instead, you glanced about at your local surroundings and your peers.
According to recent surveys, kids spend an average of 6-9 hours every day on social media. When you spend a lot of time on social media, your brain stops seeing your environment as it is and starts believing that all of these people on Instagram actually surround you and starts comparing their lives to yours. It observes that they look much better than you and starts comparing your life to theirs.
Is primarily owing to the use of decent lighting, filters, and photoshop.
The brain believes that all of these people are much more successful and wealthy than you because it sees how your peers drive expensive cars, travel to exotic locations, and wear expensive clothes. Finally, the brain believes that all of these people are much happier than you because it sees hundreds of photos of people smiling as if their lives are beautiful every second by spending so much time on social media. When you’re not in the centre of the pyramid, your brain starts to assume you’re at the bottom. Instead of having only a few individuals above you, you may have the other 5%. The brain believes that most people have progressed farther down the hierarchical ladder, that the bar has been set so high that everyone appears to have a flawless life, and that you are the only one who lives an ordinary existence.
The more you use Instagram, the lower you feel in the pyramid. That is the source of all the issues with this hierarchy’s psychology. This is not an enviable position for either people or animals, because being at the bottom of the pyramid indicates that you are among the least important members of the group, and no one cares about you. Anxiety levels rise, resulting in issues such as sleeplessness, panic attacks, despair, and addiction. It’s all because you can’t unwind. It appears that one mistake and you’re dead since you can relax and enjoy life when it appears that you’re on the verge of death, but this is not the case.
But your brain doesn’t realize it because you spend 6 hours a day in an imaginary world of supermodels traveling endless smiles, a world with which no one can compete, even the world’s most successful people can’t be happy every second as they make you believe photos, which is why society like instagram destroys.
Your life and convincing you that you must compete with a massive squad of fictional individuals with whom you will never catch up!
Very interesting post, I agree with all you’ve said. I also realised that Instagram influences me too much, because it’s just hard to always remember that a person you follow, is probably not the same person in real life and also has bad days – like most of us. But I also think that for them, as public people, it’s much harder to talk about their problems and bad days, because of the number of people that’s following them online, so I understand that they don’t share that kind of moments. But of course it may create a misleading impression of perfect life. Thing that works for me personally to limit the time on instagram, is not having a downloaded app. It may sound stupid, but when I have to use instagram via the browser, the experience is so bad, that I spend on it couple minutes daily.
Very interesting topic for discussion. I think that social networks don’t always carry a good and kind intention. Some people just go crazy and layout their every move. They won’t start eating food until it’s posted online, and so on. I think we need social networks in order to find out useful information. There are also a lot of bad cases when for the sake of content, people took such risks that they became victims of their experiments
Social media detox is one of the best things you can do. Trust me. Then come back and choose wisely what do you want to see and who to follow.
After the post, there was a desire to delete Instagram, but I will stop to conduct an experiment and give up on it for a couple of days and watch my mental state
i think categorising in impact on mental health is very subjective- i do agree that instagram can have a negative influence on self-esteem but i would personally probably consider harmful much more mentally damaging. i also think it’s interesting how we realise all the negative consequences of social media and still feel so attached to it.
A good post. Agree with almost everything though I have started using Instagram recently and only for cute posts with capybaras. It is really hard to get rid of all social media or at least some of them. The main reason why I use apps like Whatsapp, Telegram, or Facebook is because of communication. Not like there is a convenient and always accessible option to talk with your classmates or friends, or I just started believing so.
And yet, with knowing all about the dangers of social media, we still use them and pretend that we are okay with it.