The increasing peril of social media to mental health

PEOPLE have long debated the roles the Internet and social media play in our lives, attributing without facts many pitfalls and positives to the common use of online platforms. However, a recent study conducted by a group of psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania has shown — for the first time — a causal link between time spent on social media and depression. By all measure, the report forces a rethink in our general attitudes towards social media usage and  the towering depression rate in Nigeria. There is a sense in which the study serves as a clue into our unrestricted social media consumption and the mental health issues that have become rife in the country. To be sure, a whopping  64 million Nigerians suffer from some form of mental illness or the other, and on specifics, the World Health Organisation (WHO) in its 2017 report reveals that about 7,079,815 Nigerians suffer from depression. The figures are likely to get worse and this makes it especially important, now more than ever, to think about the perils of using others as a benchmark for our own worth – which social media hallmarks.

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Increasingly, evidence suggests that the heavy use of social media is having a negative effect on mental health. Yet the number of internet users in Nigeria keeps growing every year. For instance, it is estimated that about 75 per cent of Nigeria’s population that use the Internet are on the social media, with  41% on Facebook, about 45% on Whatsapp, Instagram and so on. Statistics have also revealed that more than 90 million active users of the Internet will come from Nigeria in 2019. The above statistics is worrisome because, the more we use social media, the less happy we become as Facebook use for instance has been linked to both less moment-to-moment happiness and less life satisfaction—the more people use Facebook in a day, the more these two variables drop off. This is because Facebook conjures up a perception of social isolation, in a way that other solitary activities don’t and these effects appear to become worse as time spent on social media increases. And to be sure, it has also been asserted, through very many studies, that social media usage is very addictive, as users tend to be dependent on the platforms over time to even live life!

Even so, social media induces social comparison which is generally the fast track to perpetual unhappiness and in the long run, depression. All it does is to keep us focused on what we don’t like about ourselves and our life. By comparing yourself to others, you lose sight of your own personal value and uniqueness and set yourself up for a life of dissatisfaction — a life of wishing and wanting everything you don’t have. We fall into the trap of thinking the grass is greener on the other side. We compare our clothes, cars, wealth, grades, family, friends, makeup, hair, skin, features, height, weight and so on; to our imaginary friends  and celebrities online.

Be that as it may, it’s human nature to compare as It helps us orient ourselves in the world, add context, and communicate better. The dark side however emerges when we use others as a mirror or benchmark for what we think our life should be. Instead of forming genuine relationships, we burn out our empathy, grace, gentleness, creativity and insight, performing comparisons, building pecking orders, seeking validation. And we all do it all the time especially on social media platforms like facebook, instagram, twitter and so on, where people present their edited version of reality, often to the detriment of one’s and others health. The truth is that rather than making comparison one of human engagements, social media turns it into the the most important and pivotal, if not the only, engagement, thereby focusing all our attention on it to the detriment of our health and satisfaction!

The implication of all this is that we would have to start focusing on the issue of internet and social media usage, not necessarily with a view to checking or stopping such usage, but to have an overview that takes into account the perils of their otherwise excessive usage even while promoting the positive effect. In essence, to comprehensively address some of the mental health problems our country is facing, we are going to need to approach the issues through a systematic including perhaps by beginning to see digital tools and online information as other inputs into how we understand and manage interfamilial dynamics and interactions to the benefit of all.  In any case, social media and Internet access has grown to be a large part of our daily life and would continue to grow and assert and exert enormous effect on life as we know it, infusing a new and rapidly changing culture and helping to dramatically alter the way we communicate, socialize, make and maintain friendships with critical implications for now and the future and it should be our duty to want to ensure that we maximize the positives and minimize the negatives from such access.

In this regard, Albert Einstein once said, “we can’t solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.” Yet,  in this situation, it would look like the social media giants could help contribute to solving these problems with the exact same thinking they used to create them. The same way they figured out what it would take to make these platforms addictive, they could and should be able to figure out what it would take to make the them less addictive. But don’t hold your breath because the people who created/create the problems and (continue to) profit hugely from them, have no clear incentives to solve the problems. Hence, It appears that educating users to help manage the increased mental health risks from heavy social media usage is just as important as action from the companies.

It is essential that we collectively leverage our understanding of online platforms and resources to create a legacy for the next generation while helping the current generation best know how to make sense of it all. In fact, the focus may need to shift towards educating people on how to cope with the emotions that social media may bring and make them aware of the potential risks of using it excessively. Learning how to balance the online world with the real world is critical to maintaining personal relationships and keeping depression and other mental health problems at bay.

• Yakubu is of the Department of Mass Communication, Kogi State University, Anyigba, Nigeria.