The Negative Effects of Social Media Addiction
Have you ever experienced a situation that while you were having dinner together with your friends, all of them kept scrolling on their phones without having interactions? With the development of technology, the Internet provides us with a new communicating field, and thus people can easily share their lives with friends through social media.Although social media enrich people’s lives and expand our living experiences to some degree, they also trigger new behavior problems and mental disorders. According to Longstreet (2017), a report in Technology in Society showed “over 210 million people worldwide suffer from internet and social media addiction, and the situation will only become worse” (p.73). Social media addiction may lead to three significant negative effects: getting depression and anxiety symptoms, being affected by the social anxiety disorder, and having an unhealthy lifestyle.
One of the most obvious drawbacks of social media addiction is that people tend to get depression symptoms and anxiety disorders. As Aydin (2021) indicated, “Internet addiction can lead to serious social and psychological problems and deterioration in individuals”. (p.2) In the Internet generation, on the one hand, people benefit greatly from the rapid speed of information transmission, and it reinforces the social connection among people and makes them closer. On the other hand, people tend to feel unpleasant and isolated because of the increasing sense of social comparison.While people are browsing on Instagram or Facebook, they may see others posting their fancy sports cars or gorgeous villa on their homepage. Some people may feel cheerful and get inspired by their sharing, but others may feel jealous and anxious since their lives are not as ideal and perfect as others’ lives. For this reason, abusive usage of social media may lead to dissatisfaction with life and further cause mental problems such as social depression and anxiety disorders.
In addition to emotional and psychological influences, social media addiction may also lead to one kind of social anxiety disorder, which is also called symptoms of Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). The term “FOMO” is used to describe the situation that someone who often desires to highly focus on what other people are doing, especially repeatedly checking the posts on social media. For example, people tend to fear that they may be excluded if they fail to continuously connect with others through social media, like following the latest news worldwide or the gossip in school, and thus causes a sense of isolation and loneliness. In Edmonds’ (2021) opinion, he believes that FOMO has much to do with the excessive use of social media and thus causes depressed feelings and lower satisfaction toward life. Consequently, social media addiction may also bring about the rising possibility of the pessimistic psychological phenomenon—symptoms of FOMO.
Another negative impact of social media addiction is that it may cause sleep disorders and then further lead to an unhealthy lifestyle. People are prone to be too focused on social media to be aware of sleeping time, and it may disrupt our internal clock (circadian rhythm pattern) in our bodies and result in sleeping disorders. According to Holland (2019), “A night of healthy sleep can help our body restore energy and allow our brain to process new information, not to mention many other benefits of sleeping well.” Without having a good sleep at night, we may not be able to fully concentrate on class or work; what’s worse, it may also further affect our real personal interaction in daily lives. As a result, the increasing level of dependency on social media may decrease overall physical activity and influence our own health condition.
Social media indeed facilitate and advance our lives. Nevertheless, there are three problems and challenges that people need to face psychologically and physically: getting depression and anxiety symptoms, being affected by symptoms of FOMO, and having an unhealthy lifestyle. Although social media aims to help people improve life and accelerate the speed of information transmission, the prevalent abuse of social media can be out of control if not used properly. Hopefully, people can regain control of the convenient social media, instead of becoming “slaved” by these “sweet but dreadful” technical products.
References
Longstreet, P. (2017) Life satisfaction: A key to managing internet & social media addiction
Retrieved from:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X16301634
Aydin,S. (2021) Investigation of the Effect of Social Media Addiction on Adults with Depression.
Retrieved from: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/9/4/450
Edmonds, R. (2019) Anxiety, loneliness and Fear of Missing Out: The impact of social media on young people’s mental health
Retrieved from: https://reurl.cc/02GoMA
Holland, K. (2019) What Do You Want to Know About Healthy Sleep?
Retrieved from: https://www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sleep