Since the mainstream intake of phones in 2007, people’s lives have changed considerably. Phones have worked their way into everyone’s daily routine, and therefore began to impact the population as a whole – especially mental health wise. It raises the question, “How much has this really impacted our mental health? How much has this changed us?”
Using phones can be very beneficial. For example, being able to communicate with anyone, anywhere, and at any time; or having most of the world’s information being right at your fingertips. However, for mental health, unrestricted access across all ages to social media can be very harmful.
Phones are addicting and addiction is always a problem. Excessive use of phones and social media show a result in increased rates of depression, anxiety, body image issues, and sleep deprivation issues. When people start having these problems, they go right back to that addiction- because that is what addiction is- it is a cycle of doing, having the affects, and going back to that thing in hopes it will make you feel better, but it doesn’t. This is exactly what people are doing with phones, and it is causing severe problems that many do not realize are happening.
Over time, people can be exposed to things on social media that they may not be ready to see or know- causing them to think that those things are normal. For example, seeing people being vulgar all the time makes someone think it is ok to be that way too, and if you aren’t, or you disagree with it, you are seen as the problem. As well as seeing gory or not age-appropriate content- people watch these things and become desensitized to them, they become normal, and overtime, they become a part of our culture. These things mess with people’s heads, it distorts an individual person’s personal perception of right and wrong, leading them to bad decisions and worse mental health, creating a downward spiral that is difficult to come back from.
Social media algorithms are designed to maximize engagement, pulling someone in with a captivating hook and making them stay with the self- perpetuating cycle of anticipation, action, and reward; Which releases dopamine and changes the brain’s reward system- leading to a short attention span, causing increased agitation and boredom. This in turn causes people to chase the dopamine until they are stuck in an endless loop of doom scrolling. This ruins relationships, and consequently creates a decline in mental health.
Overall, constant and unregulated use of social media can cause immense mental issues. A good resolution would be to promote apps like Opal, the built- in screen time settings on phones, or others in the app store, to self block social media at certain times during the day, leading to increased focus, therefore learning habits of being able to live without a phone, and mending the problems caused by over use and abuse of constant connection to people.
