There’s Too Much Digital Discord for You to Have Gratitude
By: Nicole Akers
Tags: Self Improvement, Social Media, Travel, Advice, Parenting

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

We know social media is bad for us. There’s nothing revolutionary about this news, but you may not realize how harmful it is to your psyche. Science says the use of social media is detrimental to your mindset, especially if the desired approval and validation are not forthcoming.

We see the effects across most social platforms, but some are worse than others. Which platforms are the worst for adverse effects? A new report, #StatusofMind, published by the Royal Society for Public Health, out of the UK, names Instagram as the most detrimental to young people’s mental health. Snapchat and Facebook follow closely behind for negative impact.

“Social media has been described as more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol, and is now so entrenched in the lives of young people that it is no longer possible to ignore it when talking about young people’s mental health issues,” Shirley Cramer, the chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health

Social Discourse Affects Your Health

You’re probably already aware that social platform interaction affects your thinking, but you may not have realized that your health is at risk from too much exposure. Common side effects are loss of appetite, disrupted sleep, and the feeling that you are not good enough when you compare yourself to others. Social interaction may make you even worse at multitasking by affecting the grey matter in your brain. The evidence may have you ready to pause your use of social media, at least temporarily.

“Sleep and mental health are tightly linked. Poor mental health can lead to poor sleep, and poor sleep can lead to states of poor mental health,” explain the authors of #StatusOfMind.

Take a Much Needed Break

It may be time for a digital detox. Go cold turkey, if you have to. Take a complete break to reset your mind. It’s easy to follow a patterned behavior of being connected or being disconnected for a time, but moderate engagement is tougher to maintain. Instead of diving into social platforms, consider setting a timer and shutting down the apps when the timer goes off. Limiting your time on social media may be helpful to foster positive effects for your mindset and on your health.

“We live today not in the digital, not in the physical, but in the kind of minestrone that our mind makes of the two.” — Paola Antonelli, senior curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art

Add Gratitude Back to Your Life

Follow the happiness trail. Surround yourself with online interactions that bring a reason to smile. YouTube topped the list as the most positive, with Twitter coming in after it. Sure, there are trolls on every site, but you don’t have to engage with them. You can ignore them and inject positivity into your own feeds. The Story Exchange can be real, light-hearted, joyful, or funny. When you fill your feeds with positivity, it can be as contagious in the opposite way that negativity can be. People who want light-hearted, feel-good subject matter tend to hang in places that create the environment they seek. If somehow you’ve offended a real-life person you wish to have ongoing connections with, it may be best to delete the post and pick up the phone to re-establish the relationship.

“People are spending less time meeting up in person and learning how to express both positive and negative emotions in a healthy way. Instead, people are learning to depend on their emoji to express what they are feeling or thinking,” — Dr. Anastasiou.

Develop Acute Self Awareness

Social media steals our joy, but we don’t have to let it. You can reduce adverse side effects by spending less time on the most negative websites. When you become aware of how negative interactions affect your health and well-being, you may want to develop a community of people who positively affect you. With a good framework in place, you’ll be able to reduce negativity, increase self-awareness, and bring back gratitude. The choice to renew digital diplomacy starts with you.