Social media has many benefits, but unfortunately, everything in this world has its negative sides. Despite the many advantages associated with social media, there are a number of negative effects caused by its usage. Among the common negative effects of social media use are stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, cyberbullying, hacking, scams, cheating and relationship problems, drug abuse and even death.
Stress is a way of life because we can’t avoid it but there are some activities that increase stress levels. Social media has been found to induce stress in different ways.
Keep reading to learn how using social media adds stress to your life and some tips that can help you avoid stress related to social media.
Social media is addictive
The use of social media is very addictive. Once you sign up, logging out becomes a problem. Many people have been addicted to social media, meaning they are always on their phones and computers liking, commenting and tweeting. It becomes impossible for such people to spend more than an hour without their phones. Now you can imagine a person who has been addicted to using a smartphone without access to it, he or she is actually stressed. The urge to be updated with new social media posts makes you feel like you’re aren’t living in the present world.
Social media deprives you of qualitative sleep
Social media addiction comes integrated with low quality sleep. The time you’re supposed to be sleeping you’re checking the viral content on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, which limits your sleeping hours. People addicted to social media often chat with their friends till late at night. Despite your sleeping time, you still have to wake up early to go to school or work.
As you didn’t have enough sleep the previous night, your day will likely be filled with anxiety. You’ll likely find it hard to concentrate on your day-to-day activities, which could lower your productivity. If you’re a student, your performance starts dropping and in the end you will be stressed by your poor grades. If you’re employed, lack of enough sleep denies you the ability to interact with fellow employees, your productivity depreciates and eventually, your employer can add up the stress by firing you based on your low performance.
Read also: Social good of social media
Social media affects daily activities
Social media affects our way of life. Because you’re interacting with people from different regions and backgrounds, you may end up copying some of their characters. Spending much of your time on social media reduces your self-control because you start copying new behaviors from your pals. Reduced self-control is evident on how you spend money if you start spending more than you used to, not because your salary has increased but because you want to buy something you saw on Facebook. Increased expenditure causes stress at mid-month when you have spent all your funds and you still have some important needs not met.
The need to quit social media when you are unable is another cause of stress. Many people are addicted to this, you aren’t stressed by Facebook contents but by the need to stop using it. It sounds funny but many people are stressed by this, they want to quit or reduce the time they spend on social media in order to deal with stress but they are unable to.
Social media can isolate you
Social media gives you grounds to make friends no matter their location, thus enabling you to have hundreds or thousands of friends and followers. This reduces your physical interaction with the people next to you because you’re virtually connected to distant friends. In the long run, this could make you feel isolated.
Social media platforms are crowded with different people who have different perspectives. Positive comments you get on your posts could make you feel great but negative comments could also haunt you. When you read a post that is encouraging, it builds on your mental health. But reading a post full of bad things could also leave you feeling stressed. Parents are also stressed whenever they come across posts they feel their children are not supposed to see.
Despite all the mentioned effects of social media, we can cope without it. All we need is to know how to use it in a healthy way. Life coaching training is there for people like you, enroll in these classes to get skills that will help get off the mystery you are struggling with. One of the ways to reduce stress induced by social media is reducing the time we spend on them. Use social media with an intention other than having to pass time. The people you interact with on social media plays a major role in adding up or reducing your stress, thanks to our social media platforms as they allow you to choose who and what you want to follow. (wng)
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Lena Linetti is the director of a career center, helping many students and others make the right career choice. She usually evaluates the individual’s background, training and education to help and develop realistic goals and help guide them in choosing a profession or type of degree necessary to be successful. When she is not helping others, you can find her exploring the deepness of writing.
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