Social media has often been referred to as a modern day crisis or epidemic, which has had even more detrimental impacts on our mental health since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Social media has been a blessing and a curse during the pandemic. It is our only means of communication and allows us to stay in contact with friends and family during this difficult time. However many people are experiencing feelings of isolation and alienation, and consequently use social media to cope with the lack of social contact.
Despite its advantages, social media also can have harmful effects on our mental health. Thousands of peoples mental health has regressed during lockdown, due to spending a lot of time at home surrounded by the same people and lack of social contact. However social media is only increasing the regression of mainly adolescents' mental health, due to; unrealistic workouts, diets, dream figures and celebrities. Social media forces us to compare ourselves to others and this puts an unrealistic pressure on ourselves and our self confidence.
The pandemic has also put a strain on people who are already struggling with their mental health, the loss of routine and structure, combined with social isolation is making lockdown very challenging for many people. Due to most of us spending the majority of our day staring at screens, in online lessons, or completing homework, we may not realise that phones and social media usage also involves staring at a screen for long periods of time. This has not only negative impacts on our mental health, as we are not socialising, even if it is just with our family, or leaving the house, however also on our physical health.
I do understand that it is difficult to draw ourselves away from the toxicity of social media however simple tasks like going for a walk, exercising, reading a book and calling a friend have more beneficial impacts on our mental health than you might realise.