The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health

Interesting post. 

For me, I think if Western civilisation collapses, historians of the future will be able to look at social media to see why. I could be here all day saying all the harmful effects of it but first of all it has encouraged extremism and polarisatin of opinion. No one is capable of agreeing to disagree anymore, mainly because they have sorounded themselves with an echo chamber of people who agree with them on social media and have become used to abusing anyone who disagrees with them so much that when they come accross a person who disagrees with them in real life they don't know how to handle it. Alogarrithms of YouTube and misinformation on Twittter have also encouraged people to more and more extreme views and to seemingly becoming angry about everything. You can see this in everything from radicilasation for I**S and other organisations to the extreme right wing Trump supporters in the US

Social media has destroyed the very fabric of our societies

Also many people fail to realise why it is so addictive. We all see people scrolling endlessly through social media feeds on their phones all day, eyes and brains deadened by the dopimine shot the meaningless information in front of them is giving them. However, what we fail to realise is that it is not addictive by accident. It is deliberatley desgined by it's creators to be addictive, everything about it is designed by the social media companies to keep you scrolling for as long as possible. Thats why, for instance, if you havn't logged into Facebook for a while you will get a deluge of notifications saying that people in your friend's list have made posts. I think our society hasn't yet understood the mental damage that social media has inflicted upon people. In years to come I think it will be treated similar to alcahol or drug addiction. 

There have been some very interesting neurological studies into how social media is actually altering the make up of the human brain, causing certain areas of our brain to weaken while others grow. Scrolling all day also numbs the human brain in the same way that large amounts of alcahol or drugs do, it numbs our feelings and our intellect. Im no scientist so I can't pretend to understand it all but it is an interesting thing to read about and research if you have the time

I work with young people and I can attest first hand to the horrific mental health damage that social media has done to this and the previous generation. I wont go into it all here as I know there are some topics that are triggering for people but suffice to say young people's mental health has been severely damaged by social media. Things like body image and self esteem have been destroyed by it. I believe that it has also made young people mentally ill, believing things about themselves that aren't true and believing they are things they are not. Most young people are on social media from the second they wake up to the second they go to bed. As adults we have stood by while our young people ruin their minds and their lives on this stuff. It is something that, as an educator, worries me greatly. We talk about safeguarding children and then allow them to be exposed to the cesspit of social media all day. In fact many schools and colleges actively encourage it by encouraging students to engage with work and school news on social media like sites. Its very concerning

Honestly, free yourself from the mind numbing effects of social media and it will be like the scales have fallen from your eyes. You will feel free and alive again 

It's a cat-and-mouse game between the State, and the Critics they insist on defaming.

It's a cat-and-mouse game between the State, and the Critics they insist on defaming.