Retweets and Instagram likes are earned at cost
By Ann Shelley
Future Shock, a book by technology writer Alvin Toffler, is more relevant today than it was back in 1970. A recent TIME magazine article, “Is Media Making Me Miserable?”, discusses how the book’s main plot is about humans that are struggling with too much evolution in the technology industry within a short amount of time. With everyone trying to keep up with the latest iPhone releases to buy the best and newest; Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are all constantly updating to one-up each other with what new features they offer. How does this concept coincide with your mental health?
There was a recent study done about how Facebook could have a negative impact a person’s well-being. This study was done by Holly Shakya, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego. Shakya explains how the time a person spends on Facebook could lead a person to have a more negative outlook on life in comparison to a person who spends less time on facebook. Not only does it cause negative mental health but it is also said to be causing an increase of stress levels within 18 to 22-year-olds. Anna Vannucci, the co-author of the study and a research associate at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, describes how the results show evidence to support the idea that the more time individuals spend on social media per day caused a greater likelihood of developing an anxiety disorder.
Recently at High Point University, there was a poll taken by 127 girls involved in Greek life around HPU. The girls were asked about their preference of social media site. The options were Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tinder and Tumblr. Instagram was the top pick with 92%. The social media sites of Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest received only three votes each.
In the TIME magazine article, Markham Heid describes how Instagram is a lifestyle-focused site instead of a news-heavy like Facebook or Twitter can be. On Instagram, most users are following celebrities such as Kylie Jenner, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian, Beyonce, Rihanna and any other famous star. It is hard not to feel stressed or be negative about your lifestyle after seeing these celebrities live their glamorous lives. For example, Kylie Jenner is an example of someone who is constantly changing their hairstyle, cut and color every week. It makes her followers believe that is a normal, practical lifestyle to look up to. This causes individuals to have anxiety about it when they realize they could never afford to change their hair that consistently. Even if that seems like a ridiculous concept to you, to someone else it seriously could be impacting them. That is how much social media has control over our lives.
Overall, the main concept to be learned from this study is the idea that what you spend the most time doing, can seriously impact the way you feel. Experts involved in the study found that social media and negative moods challenge the cause-and-effect relationship. In other words, it is really hard for individuals to stay connected on every single account all the time. It’s stress-inducing and exhausting. Take some time away from social media, it might just have a bigger impact than you would expect.