Seamlessly scrolling on social media is one of the most favorite activities that people nowadays love to perform.
Some people manage their social media time in a way that doesn’t lead them towards a problematic path but some, on the other hand, end up developing an addiction to it.
Social media addiction is a sort of behavioral addiction that is often characterized by an undeniable urge to use social media and devote much of your time to its use. This may eventually start impacting your important areas of life.
Engaging in excessive usage of social media can affect your relationships with friends and family, and can also decrease the tendency to communicate face-to-face.
13 Reasons Why Social Media is BAD
As with every other thing, comes along both negative and positive sides – social media has its part too. However, in this article, we are going to highlight the negative effects of social media.
Here are the 13 Reasons Why Social Media is BAD and that is why one should consider limiting its usage.
Related | 13 Reasons Why Social Media is Good for Us
1. Fear of missing out (FOMO)
FOMO has been there around for a while but social media platforms have been said to aggravate the concept a bit more.
Posts and videos about others having more fun in life can make a person feel left out. They can begin to doubt their self-worth and can become prey to depression and anxiety.
What exactly FOMO is – Fear of missing out is a form of anxiety that an individual can experience while having a feeling of being left out of a positive moment that someone else is having.
For instance, you may keep a constant check on notifications to see whether you have been invited to a party or event or scroll your Instagram feed to check whether people are having fun without you being there.
2. Feel insecure about your life or appearance
Social media is all about looking beautiful and sharing enthralling instances of life experiences. Body image has now become more of an issue for almost everyone on social media.
Seeing people who look perfect every day will make you feel conscious about how you look. But what’s more to this is – not everyone wakes up with that perfect contoured look, people opt for a completely different lifestyle to fall into the category of looking attractive.
There are cases, where many in search of gaining likes have opted for unhealthy routes for looking fit and fit just to stick to the futile beauty standards.
3. Depression and anxiety
Face-to-face interactions with people we love, can help us keep our minds healthy. Your favorite person can lift your whole mood whenever you feel stressed and depressed.
The more time you spend talking with your loved one, the more free and happy you’ll feel.
Being active on social media platforms for the majority of the time will take a toll on your in-person relationships, which will further exacerbate severe mood disorders such as anxiety and depression.
So how exactly does it lead to mood disorders? It doesn’t require much thinking – social media is a place where everyone shows the best part of their lives leaving behind the dark sides of their lives.
This will make a person compare themselves with others which may induce negative thinking in his mind, ultimately leading a path to mental disorders.
4. Experiencing cyberbullying
Cyberbullying is one of the most dangerous types of bully a person can go through. It can make an individual depressed – we all know what cyberbullying is and what effects it can have on one’s life.
Research conducted on cyberbullying concluded that bully on social media is usually subjected to offensive comments.
Popular social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are prime locations where hurtful comments, rumors, lies, and abuse are spread about a person. This can eventually lower a person’s self-esteem and the chances of him becoming a victim of depression will increase.
5. Differences in sleep patterns
Several research bodies have concluded that spending too much time on social media can lead to a negative effect on your sleep patterns.
So if you are experiencing irregular patterns of sleep and are therefore unable to focus on your day-to-day activities, then you should definitely limit the amount of time you are active on different social media platforms.
Especially, during the nighttime – make sure you’re not spending more than ten minutes on your favorite social media platform before going to bed.
Before if you don’t, you’ll endlessly keep scrolling without keeping a check on time. So limit your social media usage throughout the day and sleep tight!
As you may know, social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are full of popular celebrities. There you’ll find beautiful people with perfectly shaped bodies and expensive clothes.
It may also seem that they are living the best-ever life out there.
Amidst all this happening on social media, one may start comparing their lives to theirs.
They may feel like they are not living their best life but it is necessary to know that what you see on platforms like Instagram is not all real.
There are filters used and celebrities/influencers don’t show the negative parts of their lives.
So it would be best in your capacity that you don’t compare yourself with those on social media platforms.
7. No time for reflecting on your own self
Ever since social media platforms have come into existence, people are seen to ignore their self capabilities.
Meaning, earlier when social media was not a popular concept – people were thoughtful and innovative.
Not that they are not today but the level at which people used to reflect on their self capabilities and perform activities have reduced tremendously. And that blaming social media for that won’t be wrong.
8. Engaging in unsafe situations to gain likes
With so many beautiful thighs around us on social media, every other person is trying to gain more and more likes.
For this, people have started to engage in difficult situations and places in search of unique content.
But what they don’t know is that for a few more likes, they can end up falling into a difficult circumstance.
So make sure that before making risky content, one should ask himself -whether people’s likes are more important than their lives.
9. Being distracted most of the time
When we are into our phones, nothing else really matters. We use social media to fit into the so-called new generation criteria.
Social media have emerged the concept of online conversation, which many of us have accepted with open arms.
We wait for a notification from our favorite person and therefore look for our phones whenever a notification pops up.
Several research bodies have concluded that the use of social media has distracted people from performing important day-to-day activities.
10. Feeling of loneliness
A research journal published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine concluded that individuals who spend the most time on social media were twice as likely to feel lonely.
This is turn induces a feeling of social isolation, social belonging and even reduces engagement with others and ruins relationships.
Researchers say that spending more time on social media could make people feel excluded and could also displace face-to-face interaction.
11. Spending less time with real-time friends
Have you ever experienced a situation where you are actually to start a meaningful conversation but have felt disconnected instantly just by seeing your phones on their phones?
Unfortunately, people around us sometimes use too much of their phones which makes it really difficult to start an actual conversation.
And this can happen with you too – you may get engrossed in reading a blog or playing a game that you may actually miss on the opportunity to connect to people in real-time.
12. Addiction
Social media platforms can become really addictive if you overuse them. It comes with the ability to draw people’s attention towards it so that they end up browsing social media sites frequently.
To check whether you are addicted to social media or not, try to recollect the last time you decided to go a day without checking your social media accounts.
How do you feel when you restrict yourself from browsing your favorite social network?
Do you feel depressed or empty when not active on social media? If you feel any of these, there are chances you might be already addicted to social media.
13. Expectations that are rather impractical
Social media forms unrealistic expectations of life and about almost everything in our minds.
People share instances about their recent vacation on Insta and snapchat stories; post about how they care about their significant other on different social media platforms.
And what may look real to you would actually be some heavily staged photos, which I am sure you would later start comparing yourself with. When social media starts taking a toll on your daily life, consider quitting it already.
FAQs
Is social media a danger to our privacy?
The risk of data breaches has grown with the increased usage of social media over the years. An increase in the number of hackers mining for data has been observed by several research bodies which indicates a threat to privacy while using social media platforms.
Why social media does more harm than good?
Several research bodies have shown that increased use of social media can cause negative effects on one’s mental health.
How social media manipulates your mind?
Social media can sometimes determine how you feel and therefore can affect your emotions too. Meaning, it can intend to manipulate your mind.
Why social media is bad for your self-esteem?
The content shown on social media can trigger doubts about self-worth which can further extend to causing mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.
Conclusion
By analyzing the above-mentioned points of why social media is bad, it can be rightly said that social media when used excessively can impart negative effects to one’s life.
Meaning, social media affects everyone differently, and that whether it is bad for a particular individual depends on factors like how often a person is active on social media, the level at which they are trying to ignore real-world issues, severe mood swings, and so on.
If we were to come to a conclusion in deciding whether or not social media is bad for us, the right answer to this certainly would be if one doesn’t take social media too seriously and is aware of managing time on its usage, one will surely not get affected by the negative effects of social media.
So use social media wisely!
