How Social Media Affects Your Health!

With the rapid advancement of technology, it has now become easier to connect with anyone from any part of the world. 

Not only we can engage but can figure out every problem with just 1 click.

Whatever we want to know, we instantly search it on Google or Youtube and get the desired results.

It has become our best friend. More then our real friends, we spend time with our phones accessing our social media networks.

We always have an urge to pick up our phones and go through our social media accounts.

Whenever our phone is not with us, we get anxious to scroll through our Instagram account or Snapchat. Even if nobody texts us or there aren't any relevant notifications, still we want to see our social sites.

All of these points towards addiction.  Actually, it's not the social sites that cause anxiety. It is the addiction of using social media more than a limited time per day.

If you are like me who puts her phone down for a minute then again picks it up and starts scrolling all your social sites then you are obsessed with your phone.

If before going to sleep you randomly see a cute dog picture and then you check the whole account of that particular picture then you are obsessed with your phone.

Ask these questions to yourself:

Do you also think of taking a short break while studying and end up spending more than half n hour on Facebook?

Do you also use your phone while talking with someone face to face?

If you said YES, to any of these questions or you relate yourself to the above points then you may be experiencing Social Media Anxiety.

How Does Social Media Affect us?

Social media affects us in many ways. It has an everlasting impact on us, on our health, on our work, and even our relations.

Before we continue to explore the effects of social media, let's see why do we use social media so much that it becomes an addiction!

In this quarantine, I have used social media way more than I have ever used in the past years. As we all were free and could not go outside, we all binged on our favorite shows, making tik-tok, obsessing over each other's Instagram account, and doing a lot of other things.

We use social media for various purposes but then end up being addicted to it. They can be :

So we know these sites consume our lot of time and distract us from doing the other meaningful work.

On average a person tends to spend 1.15 hours a day on various social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. This number is going to increase within the coming years because these companies are making a lot of profit from them. They place different and catchy ads on your newsfeed which you cannot resist and you end up clicking on them. Hence, you make profits of other sites also.

Now let us see how social media is affecting our health. 

Consequences Of  Social Media On Health

• You Compare your Real-Life To Someone Online

If you are self-conscious of your body and you see someone on Instagram wearing tight gym clothes, you start comparing yourself with them, this leads to anger, sadness, and more hatred towards your body.

On the other hand, comparing ourselves to our friends, family, colleagues, batchmates causes us depression. It's okay if they got a new job and you are still figuring out what you have to do with your life. Your skills and talent are different from what others possess.

• Lack of Real-Time Conversation

We all want someone to talk to us, to hear our problems, and provide us with relevant solutions. But over the past decade, with the increase in the number of social sites and trends, we are more okay with chatting with someone on messengers and avoid talking with them face-to-face. This has really damaged our personal relationships and friendships.

• Disturbance in Sleep

There are certain rays and lights in smartphones that react on our eyes and mind which keeps us awake for longer hours. Using social sites for more than a limited period of time disturbs our sleep and hence we sleep late at night.

Try turning off your phone 1 hour before bedtime.

• Unnecessary Stress

Whenever we go through our Facebook or Instagram feed, there are always some negative posts that we cannot avoid but check and some of us even take it very seriously which causes us unnecessary stress.

Initially, social media was built to connect us with our long lost friends and to provide us with relief from our day to day work.

But nowadays with the increase in the number of crime rates, unfavorable situations, these negative problems often come up on our feed in the form of news and videos which give us mental stress and anxiety.

• Impact on Physical Health

It is said that using too much phone can cause adverse effects on our physical health too such as :

1. Pain in wrist and hands- Holding the phone for too long can cause numbness in the fingers. This condition is known as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. It states that typing either on phone or on a laptop or even on a typewriter can cause numbness and tingling sensation and can cause pain in the wrists and fingers.

2. Eyestrain- As told earlier, there are some rays and light of mobile phones that forces us to stay awake for longer hours and also cause pain in the eyes.

Have you ever felt your eyes are paining without any reason?

Then your phone may be the answer.

3. Distorted Posture- Phone addiction can cause poor postures which result in leg pain, back pain, neck pain, and various other problems.

Also, with a distorted posture, you cannot do exercise as you are already in pain. This leads to the additional problem of lack of exercise.

Here Are Some Ways to Get Rid Of Social Media Addiction

1. Be Conscious

Instead of just grabbing your phone and getting lost in the world of the internet, be aware. Be aware of how much time you are spending or going to spend on social media. Repeat this to yourself, "now I am going to spend 10 minutes on my Instagram after that I will do some other work."

2. Don't Take Out Your Phone While Talking

We all know that using a phone while driving is a serious offense. But using your phone while someone is talking with you is disrespecting them. Keep your phone in your pocket when you are meeting with someone unless you have to show them something, this will not only make your conversations strong but will also exert your control by not splitting your attention 

3. Turn-Off The Notifications

It's not bad to reply to a dm or comment on someone's post, but these notifications build our habit to always go through the app, hence wasting so much of our time. Turn away all the notifications except your Gmail account or any other important app that you know is consuming your time. This way you will slowly get rid of the social media addiction.

4. Do Not Argue With People Online

You will find many people online who are thinking and posting something opposite of what you think. And whatever you post, they comment on that and provoke you which ends up fighting online. Don't argue with them because by doing that you are only making your health at risk and causing yourself a lot of stress. Let others speak what they think is right. Try explaining them once, if they don't understand, leave that topic there only.

5. Try Productivity Apps

If your addiction problem is severe and you seriously want to limit off your access, then try using productivity apps that limit your access and also show you statistics of the apps you use. I personally use this app :

 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mindefy.phoneaddiction.mobilepe&hl=en

It not only tells you how much time you are consuming on each app per day but also makes the daily reports. Moreover, it has various challenges from beginner to advanced levels which are a great way of minimizing the use of apps.

CONCLUSION

Social media is a great way to connect with friends & family. It's always nice to see amazing and wonderful things on the internet and gather knowledge. I too love social media. In fact, because of this, I can share these tips with you all.

You must understand that social media is fun, but excess use of it is bad!

Share these tips with your friends and family and make them aware of social media consequences!