5 Ways Social Media is Destroying Your Mind, Stealing Your Privacy and Affecting Your Health. Here's The Truth You Need to Know!
Deirdre ("Writer in the Abyss") W
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The painful reality is that social media is messing with our heads. It steals our attention and causes mental harm.
The negative aspects of social media
Prolonged screen time and use of social media can cause brain fog, anxiety, depression, and sleep problems, which can adversely affect our mental ability. With the rise in online and remote working, the need to “network” has never been as great. Many people have become reliant on social media platforms (Facebook, X, Instagram, Pinterest, and other apps such as Quora, LinkedIn, etc) to connect and network.
But are they “connecting” or damaging their brains and health? Studies suggest prolonged screen time has a detrimental negative effect on mental and physical health. Social media can turn into a toxic nightmare of dread, rather than a way to connect. Communication on sites such as Facebook is often shallow, involving meaningless trivial unstimulating conversations in Facebook groups. Bullying can also arise and this can result in emotional stress and unpleasant negative feelings rather than a feeling of connection.
5 ways social media is negatively impacting your life
Attention and Time: Social Media and online sites steal your attention focus and time, forcing your attention on screen time and away from real life, no matter how damaging it is for your physical and mental health. We don’t have the attention span or time to deal with important real-life issues if we spend prolonged periods online and on social media. We become exhausted, burnt out, and depressed.
Social Media Steals Your Privacy and Personal Information: Social Media sites have our personal information (date of birth, where we live, email address, personal photos) and a host of personal information we trust to an anonymous online provider like they are our best friends.
Oversharing Personal Information: We trust total strangers with our private lives and personal information, who have no right to know. Although this may not always happen, it does when boundaries are crossed and it’s hard to keep boundaries online. This can result in “oversharing” personal information with a group of strangers, and feelings of vulnerability, negativity, and distress. The shallow friendships that we develop online can end abruptly at any moment.
Negative Health Impact: Prolonged screen time can result in brain fog, impaired concentration, memory, and brain function, sleep disruption, and symptoms similar to dementia. This is alarming! Not to mention weight gain, lack of exercise, and connectivity to the real world, which can result in anxiety and depression.
Lack of boundaries and an inability to say NO: Online people can pressure us or “hook” us into conversations we don't want, and if we are people pleasers, it’s difficult to set boundaries, and we want to please and impress others. However, valuing and respecting your time is vital and you have every right to do so. Boundaries online, as in real life, are essential to controlling and managing stress and your time effectively. Not having strong boundaries creates endless stress and mismanagement of your time, resulting in fatigue, sleeplessness, etc.
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