If you are not careful, what you start out controlling has a way of controlling you. - Gregory L. Jantz
Social media has grown bigger than its human users. It is a country on its own and we humans are temporary citizens. It has without doubts, the best tool for connecting people, be it Facebook, twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn.
However, social media might prove harmful to the mental state of human beings. This might seem too far-fetched or ridiculous. How can simple stuffs like posting on Facebook or picture sharing on Snapchat affect how you think or behave?
Here are five ways:
Excessive anxiety through Constant Comparison with Others
Social comparison is not abnormal. It is not even a new thing that came with social media. People have been comparing themselves with others since time immemorial. What social media brings is the opportunity to do it at a large scale.
Most social media post today is promotional. Whether intentionally or not, a post of you sitting in a posh office relates success to people. It offers them a chance to compare their own level of success with yours.
Many social media users forget that people only present positive image of themselves online. An individual might show a picture of himself with Bill Gates and cause depression for one of his friends. This friend might think he is wealthy and works because he works with Microsoft but he might be an unpaid volunteer for an NGO supported by Bill Gates.
While you worry yourself about your friend’s ‘success’ due to countless pictures your friends take with celebrities and post on Instagram, you are unaware it is a benefit from her underpaid job in a local TV station!
Problem of Self-Pity
What you see on social media can make you feel incomplete and worthless.
While you are still struggling to feed yourself three times daily, a friend who scored low marks in school, posts pictures of ‘bursting’ expensive bottles of Hennessy every Friday in a club, with hot babes on his right and left sides.
You do not check the social media on Saturdays because it makes you cry. Wedding pictures of friends and former schoolmates invade your Facebook space in a world you are finding it hard to get a boyfriend.
So you crash into a pit of self-pity. You hate checking social media but anxiety over seeing other people's life push you to do it. You tell yourself that you are not good enough because life is good for others except you forgetting that people post only what they want you to see.
Creation of an Unreal Image of Yourself
It is shocking to see how social media fuels a new form of self-inflicted peer pressure. Pictures are attractive but more effective when they come with 140 words on twitter.
Pictures and words on social media pressure people to amplify themselves and become what they are not. You create an atmosphere of untruths just to feel among the people that are doing fine.
Yair Amichai-Hamburger in Internet Psychology: The Basics writes:
We consider how we wish to be perceived, and what image we wish to present. We strongly control our image and the messages we prepare, because we choose when to respond, we also choose the environment from which we respond. We tell ourselves, “I’ll reply to that over cappuccino, when I’m out of the office and more relaxed.”
When a friend posts a pic of her Gucci bag online, you respond with a picture of your own Louboutin shoes. You create a battle space for unnecessary fights because you want people to identify with your classy life online.
You spend more on data than food, and the reason you draw so much debt on clothes and shoes is because you want to show it on Instagram. When the picture does not get enough likes, you delete it, put up a new one and run a campaign asking people to like your pictures.
This used to be a high school/University problem that fades away when a reality of the real world hits you. Nowadays, people get peer pressured on social media.
Social Media Addiction
The word, addiction goes hand-in-hand with many issues, from alcohol to drugs, from sex to crime and now to social media. You always wanted to be online because it is your only way to stay updated.
You may spend more time on Facebook than doing your job. When you get to a new place, your first thought is to snap a picture because you want people to know it is ‘vacation in Cancun’.
Like every addiction, when you do not get what you want…
You Can Become Panicky
People get sick when they cannot be online. It’s as if the world is moving and they are stuck. There are even terms for it like FOMO (fear of missing out), FOBO, (fear of being offline) which are both major contributors to Nomophobia.
Another source of anxiety is posting something on the social media that could put you in trouble with the government, colleagues at work or family members.
Unless you know how to make anxiety work for you, you can scare yourself to mistakes that are more regrettable or find yourself in a hospital bed.