Social Media & Mental Health
Social media is something that has many advantages and disadvantages on society and users. I believe that there are more negative effects on mental health than positive ones. Social media is very impactful, but it also can cause a lot of harm to certain users with larger platforms. I have had many experiences with social media and it is affecting my mental health. Twitter is one of the most popular apps on social media but being on it comes with a cost. When you have a large platform, not everyone is going to like you, but you can’t let it get to you. For a couple months of my life, my life revolved around my twitter. I would spend hours a day on twitter making sure everyone likes me. When someone would call me annoying or make comments about my appearance it would hurt me more than it would if it happened in real life. When you put yourself out there on social media, you have to be able to handle negative responses from anonymous people on those apps. I would constantly cry and worry if everyone liked me on twitter and if they didn’t like me, why not?
There are a lot of people with large platforms who experience negative treatment on social media. When influencers have large platforms, it makes sense for them not to receive all positive feedback. An example of a person who was negatively affected by social media is tik tok star Addison Rae. Addison is one of the most followed tiktokers and has over 40 million followers. There was a period of time where her whole following hated her and would leave negative comments on her posts. It affected her negatively and definitely hurt her mental health. Addison was constantly “fat shamed” or “skinny shamed” in her comments. I feel so bad for her because she is constantly being judged through social media. She recently turned off comments on her tiktok posts because they were filled with hate.
I have a couple recommendations for the future to help social media become more positive. I think more social media apps should monitor the comments and start removing the comments that are negative. Maybe an app can create a feature where a creator can monitor comments on their posts. So they won’t be able to see the hate comments or the mean ones.
Social media, in some circumstances, can improve someone’s mental health. Many people who use social media create friendships through these apps. Making friends and building relationships through apps like twitter, snapchat, and instagram can help peoples mental health. For me personally, social media has helped my mental health because some of these apps gave me the opportunity to make friendships and find an escape from the outside world. If I’m ever having a bad day, I open twitter to find a laugh, and it always makes me feel better. Having friends online can improve mental health because you have another person to talk to and lean on.
