When used wisely and properly, social media could improve your life. But on the other hand, if it is used without any cautions, social media could have negative effects on your mental or even physical health. To understand the use of social media, here are some pros and cons of social media you should understand.
The Pros of Social Media
The first advantage of using social media is being connected and having social support that can help in your everyday life. You can connect to your friends and family when you can’t see them physically, and you can also connect to anyone around the world. Social support and a sense of belonging can leave a positive impact on your mental health.
By being able to connect to anybody, you can also connect to people to talk about something that is usually taboo such as mental health. Talking to them can increase the awareness of mental health and reduce the stigma that has been existing for too long. Not only that, by supporting each other, you can encourage someone to finally seek professional help.
Another advantage of using social media is you can be free on expressing your ideas and creativity. When you get a platform or a community to share your opinions, thoughts and even arts, you can express yourself freely in any way you want. This would really leave a great impact on your mental health especially if you don’t have anyone close to you to talk about this stuff.
Probably the biggest advantage of social media is the fact that you could get emotional support from your online friends. When you have a certain issue or something you’re not ready to share with your friends or family yet, online friends can provide you with emotional support you need.
The Cons of Social Media
In the pros and cons of social media, now let’s talk about its cons. While social media can be beneficial and advantageous for you, if it is not used wisely, it could be harmful for you. The first disadvantage of improper use of social media is the risk of anxiety and depression.
Social media has been linked with a higher rate of anxiety and depression especially among young people. This is because when young people see other accounts on social media, especially Instagram, they tend to compare themselves and then feel envious of their wealth or success, which also causes loneliness. This could happen without the user even realizing it.
When you spend so much time on social media, the more you will start to compare yourself to others. This could lead to the feeling of inadequacy, and then lead to depression. Reducing your time on social media would greatly decrease this risk.
Another disadvantage of using social media too much is you could feel too comfortable online, that you don’t want to interact with people in real life anymore. So, it is important to limit your use of social media so you don’t turn into an antisocial person. Your brain can only handle a certain number of friends, and you need to interact with them in real-time.
One of the biggest cons of social media is the fact that it is addicting because social media platforms are specifically designed to be addicting. Features such as push notifications, personalized content feeds, and infinite scrolling are made to make sure that users are engaged for a long period of time.
The excessive use of social media where you would open it right after you wake up or look at it hours before sleeping can lead to addiction-like behaviors. When this happens, you will find it extremely hard to control your urge to open your favorite social media platforms.
When you are addicted to social media, you will spend less time being productive, or interacting with actual people such as friends or family members. You can also lose sleep, making not only your mental health compromised, but also your physical health. You can avoid this by starting to do simple things like put your phone away from your bed when you’re about to sleep, or only allow an important social media platform to give you push notifications. Those are the pros and cons of social media you should know. Social media is helpful only when you use it wisely. Always make sure that you’re controlling social media and not the other way around.
