Relationships are formed in many ways and can be crucial for maintaining mental health, but some suggest social media could harm mental health.
Social media can include social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, although the term is broad. Victoria Dunckley, a psychiatrist in private practice in Los Angeles, said she considers social media to include blogs and forums as well.
“In general, I’m kind of anti-social media, at least for the patients that I see,” Dunckley said. “I think pretty much any kind of screen time in general can contribute to pretty much any psychiatric illness, because it causes changes in the brain, it causes sleep problems, and socially it can cause isolation.”
Any type of screen, either a computer, cell phone or TV, could affect mental health in some way, she said.
“There’s various pathways that can get triggered,” Dunckley said. “One thing that can happen is it can trigger dopamine release … it feels good while they’re doing it, but then when they stop, they can have kind of a dopamine withdrawal.”
However, these reactions do depend on the individual.
“That’s sort of dependent on the individual’s brain chemistry,” Dunckley said. “If someone’s kind of having mood problems or attention problems already, then they’re more likely to have that happen when they come off, they might feel irritable or kind of disorganized and out of it. Other people might be able to go on social media sites for half an hour, an hour, and then get off and feel fine.”
She advises patients she treats to reduce or eliminate social media use, but for everyone else they just have to make sure their other areas of life are healthy.
“For a healthy person, it can still cause problems if they’re using it to an extent that it’s interfering with other areas of their life,” Dunckley said. “So someone might not have a psychiatric disorder, but they can still experience problems from using social media.”
She gives the example of young women who has self-esteem or identity issues using social media.
“They go on Facebook, and they start to see what everyone else is doing, and then they get really insecure or they get obsessive about checking what other people are doing and constantly are comparing themselves,” Dunckley said.
Women with mental disorders might use social media differently than women without psychiatric illnesses.
“I think they’re more likely to use it to provide connection and use that connection to replace the need for connection in real life,” Dunckley said. “I think if they’re already feeling isolated, they might be more likely to reach out online, which … in theory sounds like it could be helpful, but a lot of times what that does is it reduces the need to reach out in their real life and it makes it harder for them to do so.”
This can lead to awkward social experiences.
“I think when people start losing that face-to-face contact and eye contact, it becomes more uncomfortable, so once they start doing that and using the online connections, it becomes more and more uncomfortable to have face-to-face contact, especially if it’s intense contact,” Dunckley said. “So if someone already has anxiety or depression and they’re feeling uncomfortable, it’s just going to make things worse.”
She hasn’t really seen patients with social media addictions, but she said excessive use could be very common.
“People don’t complain about it to me, but I think if they’re doing it they don’t complain about it because they don’t usually see it as a problem,” Dunckley said. “It’s usually other people in the family that might see it as a problem. I think to be truly addicted to it probably isn’t that common.”
If patients are having problems, she suggests they “go cold turkey” for three weeks, which could help them realize why social media isn’t a necessity.
“If they can’t do that, then that tells you something else, that maybe they do have more of an addiction problem,” Dunckley said.
She’s not sure what a healthy amount of social media use is, especially since some people use social media for their jobs.
“If it starts interfering with other relationships, with being productive at work, with family time, if other people are complaining about it, those are the things that are kind of red flags,” Dunckley said.
If the addiction is true, it would be best to see a therapist.
“Some people I think really are addicted, but they can still do the three-week trial if they really just set their mind to it, it’s not that hard,” Dunckley said, depending on other life circumstances and support.
She suggests if people want to limit their social media use, then to tell others about it so they have support, and plan other activities not around social media.
Unfortunately, a preoccupation with Facebook and other forms of social media probably won’t go away any time soon.
“I think it is going to become more prevalent,” Dunckley said. “I think the awareness of what all these things can do … I think in general there will be more of an awareness of that.”
Some effects of social media and communications technology are already obvious.
“We’re kind of seeing the effects now, these kids who are now in college that have a really hard time socializing,” Dunckley said. “I think people are going to become more aware of really restricting it or limiting it with their children.”
A recent study showed the link between Facebook, eating disorders and negative body image in adolescent girls, according to a ScienceDaily article. Also, reports of cyberbullying and the possibility of Internet addiction are more common now in the technology age.
Despite some disadvantages and multiple articles focusing on Facebook and social media addiction, there are advantages to using social media.
“The only real advantage I can think of is I think when people feel very alone in what kind of symptoms they’re experiencing or what they’re going through in their life, I think it could be really helpful to reach out to other people who are going through similar experiences,” Dunckley said. “I think it can be helpful in that sense of the connection part.”
Social media can even be used as an activism tool.
“I do think there are a lot of mental health disorders where the stigma is lessened because of social media and people raising awareness and educating other people,” Dunckley said. “It’s just a double-edged sword.”
One study showed how Facebook can increase self-esteem in college students, probably because "users can choose what they reveal about themselves and filter anything that might reflect badly," according to a ScienceDaily article. Also, friends tend to give positive feedback on profiles.
"For many people, there's an automatic assumption that the Internet is bad. This is one of the first studies to show that there's a psychological benefit of Facebook," said Jeffrey Hancock, one of the researchers, in the article.
One psychologist, Susan Giurleo, wrote in a blog post about all the benefits of using social media in regard to mental health care, including an increase of collaboration among professionals. Different forms of social media and communications technology could also be implemented into treatment, including appointment reminders or follow-ups via text message or emails. Patients might also become more empowered through reading about their conditions on the Internet.
What do you think? How has social media hurt or helped your mental health?
Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110207091754.htm (eating disorders)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110301202827.htm (self-esteem)
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/03/social-media-change-mental-health-care.html