So we hear about negative effects all the time, but what are the positive
effects of social media under mental health? Let's take a look at that today.
Social media has become a huge part of our culture and our society. It's
something that we deal with all of the time. What are the effects that it has on
our mental health? Well there's some upsides and there's some downsides. We
did another video about the negative effects of social media. You can click to
it right up there, to see what I had to say about that. And really, as I've looked
over the the literature, both the popular literature and the things that have been
done in actual studies, it's pretty clear that they tend to focus on the negative
effects. Are there any positive effects of social media? Well yeah, that's why we
use it. I remember years ago, when Vicky and I were just married. And we were
having a conversation about wouldn't it be nice if there were some way, some
magic phone number is all we could come up with, because this was before the
internet. Magic phone number that we could call and we could just find out
where someone is or what they're doing. And there wasn't any magic phone number
that we could call, but now there is. And it's not a phone number, it's social
media. You can look up someone you haven't heard from in years and you can
find out some basic information about them. It is easier now to find out what's
going on with people than it ever has been. And it's probably going to get even
easier as the technology develops. One of the most powerful boosts to our own
mental health and feeling good and being confident, is to be connected with people.
And social media has made it easier to connect with people than it ever has
been. Now, let's talk about that connection for a moment, because one of
the downsides of social media is that it's a superficial more of a distant
kind of connection. It's not like having a
face-to-face close interaction with someone, so if there's a little
difference in the quality. I found one study that was talking about the
difference between passive versus active social media engagement. So passive
social media use would be just swiping through and looking at this and
looking at that, and just kind of browsing and going through your
social media feed in a very passive way. Active social media use, would be
intentionally engaging in conversations and adding comments and posting
something about yourself. The difference between active and passive involvement
is profound, when it comes to how it impacts your mental health. And the
research is showing that active involvement tends to be much more
beneficial than just the passive browsing. The key here seems to be in
actually connecting with people, instead of getting into a passive consumption of
the material that's already been posted. Social media, has made it more obvious
than ever, that we are not alone on this planet. And we are not alone in the
struggles that we're having. This tends to be especially true with those who are
experiencing some kind of a specific life challenge or a health concern. When
they post that on social media what happens?
Well the friends and the connections start to come out and say, "oh we have had
a similar experience" or they're able to connect with that person in a way that
shows empathy and understanding. This leads to another benefit of social media,
which is the formation of groups who share a common challenge or interest.
This is another thing that helps us to feel less alone and more connected with
the people that we share the planet with. As I started this video, I mentioned that
most of the published opinions out there, seem to focus on the
negatives or the downsides of social media. And I think that what it comes
down to is having a real human connection as opposed to a more
superficial or phony or fake connection. That seems to be the real key. It seems
to me like social media is more like fire, is fire good or is it bad?
Well, fire heats our homes, fire cooks our food, fire even runs our automobiles, but
it's really destructive if it gets outside of the context where it's useful.
The fire gets out of the fireplace and can burn down the house. If he gets out
of the fire pit, you can have a forest fire.
So it's powerful. It's neither good nor bad, it's powerful. As we understand the
power of social media, we can take some appropriate steps to minimize the
downsides and maximize the upsides through our mental health in our
relationships. So a few tips, for how to handle social media. Number one, schedule
a time to check your social media feeds or to engage in your social media
platforms. It can become very consuming, if you haven't allocated a specific time.
And I would recommend that you have a start time and an end time. So that you
can allocate a little chunk of your life to it without getting sucked into it.
That's where some of the negative effects seem to have. Number one, schedule
a time. Tip number two, remove the push notifications. In other words, put it into
your settings that it doesn't buzz your phone every time you get a little hit on
your social media feed. You want to be in charge of this and not the other way
around. You don't want your social media life to run you. But you take charge of
this, so take those push notifications off of your phone and just check it when
you've scheduled your time to check it. Here's tip number three and I really
like this one for a lot of reasons. Consider a media fast. What this means is
you're going set a specific period of time when you
will completely abstain from social media. You'll just stay away from
entirely. You're not going to check your feed,
you're not going to post anything, you're not going to like or swipe anything. A
social media fast. Especially if you can engage the people you love to do this
with you. What if your family for example, agreed to have a social media fast for
24 hours. What would you do? Could you connect a little more with the people
that are around you, in a real life face-to-face sort of a way? I'm not
saying that social media is bad. I think there's a lot of upsides to it. I think
is we take intentional control over our use of that social media and we learn
things about ourselves when we abstain for a little while from that. It's going
to enhance our experience of it and actually increase the positive benefits
to our mental health. I just love that this YouTube channel gives us a chance
to stay in touch like this and I'm glad that you're here. Please click Subscribe
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