THIS IS HOW SOCIAL MEDIA OVERUSE MAKING US SAD AND LONELY.

BY DEORAO K.

Social media has become the most popular platform for connecting people with each other in the twenty-first century. You will get connected with anyone with a few clicks. You can easily get to know other people and places around the world. Any news or event that happened in a distant part of the world is accessible through social media.

Entertainment, promotion, marketing, training, employment, and many other things you can access through this medium.

But along with all these good things social media have detrimental effects on our health. Social media overuse can make us addicted and make sad and lonely.

Social media is ruining our lives because people are spending hours on social media. A normal person spends 2-3 hours on social media in a single day and this is not a  piece of good news for your health.

Overuse of social media has a wide variety of adverse effects on us.

The adverse effect can be differentiated into two categories, i.e. physical or physiological effects, and psychosocial effects.

“Social media is not life, it is a part of life”

1) PHYSICAL OR PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS.

Overusing social media and eventually mobile phone can cause finger joint pain, wrist, and shoulder joint pain, neck pain, Upper and lower back pain are common in many people.

Thumb can be the most common finger that gets affected first, followed by the index finger. The ligament of the thumb joint gets inflamed and painful. This happens due to the prolonged use of thumb for scrolling by mobile phone users.

Other effects by prolonged sitting in a single position e.g. sitting with slightly leaned forward, standing with the neck bent down, or Sitting on a chair for hours.

Physiological effects such as increased weight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, joint stiffness, muscle cramps, headache, eye irritation due to inactivity, and increased screen time.

2) PSYCHOSOCIAL EFFECTS.

Social media addiction is a prominent psychological effect of overuse. Other effects are byproducts of addiction. This addiction ranges from mild to severe in intensity. 

Psycho-social effects such as stress, anxiety, irritation, negativity, jealousy, resentment, anger, inadequacy, helplessness, hopelessness, disgust, guilt, feeling of lost in life, procrastination, lethargy, competitive nature, insecurity, fear, rage, antisocial behavior, obsession, loneliness, anxiety and panic, sadness, depressive illness, sleep disturbance, insomnia or hypersomnolence and the list is still increasing.

Lack of creativity, overthinking, the fullness of mind, attention sickness, and other addictions like overeating, pornography, smoking, and drinking.

REASONS FOR ADVERSE EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA OVERUSE.

1) SOCIAL MEDIA OVERUSE CAUSES INCREASED SCREEN TIME.

Increased screen time is the most important reason for the adverse effect of social media.

People are spending hours accessing social media. Except, a small number of people are doing actual constructive and important work. Others just use it for chatting, reading comments, replying to post, or doing lifeless scrolling on mobile devices or computers.

If you use social media daily, with increased time for days, after a few days you will feel lost, hopeless sad, and lonely. Because, though virtually you are connected to friends but in real life, it is just you.

2) SOCIAL MEDIA OVERUSE CAUSES PHYSICAL INACTIVITY.

This is the second commonest reason for the adverse effect of social media. Because you sit down in one place for hours which results in inactivity responsible for weight gain, blood pressure, diabetes, Cardiac diseases, neurovascular diseases. Neck and back pain, muscle cramps, etc.

3) SOCIAL MEDIA OVERUSE MAKE US COMPETITIVE.

Social media makes you competitive. People share their life events on social media in the form of posts or photos or videos like enjoying a good and fulfilled life, touring to different countries, getting promoted, getting engaged, getting married, and hanging out with girls/boys.

When you notice this all you will start feeling left out, competitive, insecure, demotivated. You hold yourself responsible for not achieving all that your friends and peers did. You feel that you are falling behind than them.

When you think more about this, you will start feeling anxious, stressed, hopeless and demotivated, sad and lonely, and depressed.

4) SOCIAL MEDIA OVERUSE CAUSE ATTENTION SICKNESS.

If you post something on social media your reward pathway gets activated. When people like, comment, and share your post, it stimulates our reward center in the brain to secrets dopamine in your mesolimbic area and you feel happy and overwhelmed. But, if they don’t like your post you feel nervous, sad, irritated, and angry.

You become obsessive about people’s attention and if you don’t get enough you feel sad and lonely. You want people to always give attention to your posts.

HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT,

1) DON’T RELATE WHAT’S HAPPENING ON SOCIAL MEDIA WITH YOUR LIFE.

What is happening on social media may not be real. Maybe others faking their success on social media to catch other people’s attention.

If your colleagues or friends achieved something before then you, it may be possible that he has started from 10 and you from zero. Though someone has a nice and cool car but he may have other serious trouble in his life.

Don’t compare your level 1 with others level 10 because everyone has their time and clock.

2) DON’T SHARE EVERYTHING ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

Don’t share everything that is happening in your life on social media. Either People don’t want to know about your life or they feel bad for your achievements because of jealousy. Just keep it to yourself.

If you share something don’t obsess on replies. Because, If people don’t like and comment on your post that doesn’t mean you are a bad person altogether.

If something good happens in your life keep it yourself and enjoy the moment. Do cool stuff in life but keep it with you, don’t ruin its melody by sharing online.

3) DISCIPLINE YOURSELF.

Set the fixed screen time every day and follow it. Make this habit, while doing some important stuff you will stay away from social media.

4) FIND DISTRACTIONS.

Find distractions like go tracking, join the gym, read books, help needy, start working on a side hustle. Distraction will motivate you to stay away from social media. Start tapering screen time and don’t indulge yourself in lifeless scrolling.

5) EXERCISE.

When you are stressed or overwhelmed body secretes corticosteroids and dopamine which are responsible for nervousness and euphoria.

When you exercise body secret happiness hormones such as oxytocin, serotonin. Exercise will keep you fit and healthy.

6) MIX WITH ACTUAL PEOPLE.

Hang out with family and friends. Join groups, go on tour with your pal, go and make friends with people offline. 

These things may help you to stay away from social media overuse and get rid of sad and lonely feelings.

7) GET HELP.

If you think that you are experiencing above mentioned signs and symptoms of addiction and self-improvement is not helping.

Just go and get help from a licensed professional for instance psychology counselor or psychiatrist. Join the rehabilitation group if required.

Be honest with yourself. There is nothing wrong with getting help. It is for your betterment.

CONCLUSION

Though you are coming closer to people in the virtual world, you are distancing yourself from people and family. If you are not doing any constructive work, then you are just wasting your valuable time.

Overuse of social media makes us sad and lonely so it is better to limit the use.