Social Media and Its Impact on Mental Health

Social media apps on a smartphone.

Source: Jason Howie/Flickr, "Social Media apps."

Love it or hate it, social media plays a big part in our lives. It mediates many of our personal and professional relationships, keeps us clued into local and national events, and provides us with an addictive, endless stream of pictures, videos, quotes, pop culture snippets, stories, jokes, and other content that keeps us engaged, sometimes maybe more than we would like. There’s more evidence now than ever that social media can have a negative impact on our mental health and self-image, but does that mean we have to cut ties with these platforms forever to maintain our balance and peace of mind? Like most topics connected to mental health, the answer is more complex than we think.

The Good

Social media deserves to be celebrated for bringing people together. Users half a world away can communicate, share content and ideas, and stay in touch much more easily than they ever could before. People can also use social media sites to find others who share their interests and life experiences. A cursory look through Facebook Groups shows thousands of online communities united by hobbies, sports, careers, religion, sexual orientation, and other important markers of identity. In this way, social media helps people identify and join their “tribe.”

Social media platforms have taken on even greater social importance during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in its early months, when isolation and loneliness were rampant. The platforms gave people a feeling of connection and belonging that wasn’t possible in person. It instilled comradery and hope that people were not alone.

That sense of belonging and interaction is a particular draw for young people. A survey conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health found that nearly 7 in 10 teens reported receiving support from friends and peers through social media during particularly challenging times in their lives.

Social media also provides a quick and efficient way to promote different methods and platforms for people to get help with their mental health. Just a click of a button can get someone connected to much-needed services with minimal effort.

And there is some evidence that concerted, state-directed social media efforts can make an impact on people’s thinking. A review of mass antistigma campaigns published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine highlights Scotland’s “See Me” campaign, which aimed to correct inaccurate portrayals of mental illness in an effort to reduce stigma. Surveys conducted two years after the start of the campaign showed an 11 percent drop in the expressed belief that the public should be better protected from people with mental health problems and a 17 percent drop in the perception that mentally ill people are dangerous.

The Bad

Social media has a reputation for being bad for one’s mental health, and there isn’t just one reason for that.

Different social media platforms have different effects on different people. For example, an internal report from Facebook found that 32 percent percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram, a Facebook-owned product, made them feel worse.

With most of these platforms, there are ways to filter what you see or don’t see. But social media algorithms are designed to detect users’ interests, then serve more of the same content. While this may not be a problem for benign topics such as hobbies, there is concern that algorithms can gradually warp users’ worldviews by exposing them only to ideas and opinions they already agree with and failing to challenge them. Indeed, social media has been singled out by members of Congress for exacerbating partisanship and ideological extremism, especially since 2016.

Theodore Roosevelt once said that comparison is the thief of joy, and this can hold true for social media users who find themselves jealous and depressed by the sight of their friends, relatives, coworkers, and celebrities living seemingly glamorous lives. While it is widely understood that social media influencers carefully curate what they share online—maybe even taking dozens or hundreds of pictures to capture a seemingly spontaneous moment—the nonstop bombardment of content can cause people to develop a distorted perception of reality, along with anxiety and a never-ending “fear of missing out.”

The Royal Society survey mentioned earlier in this article also found that social media can open the door to cyberbullying. Around 70 percent of respondents said they had encountered cyberbullying on social media platforms, and 37 percent said the abuse they received was frequent and sustained. Studies have shown that cyberbullying can worsen depression and lead to symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder in teenagers.

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Striking a Balance

Overall, social media is a paradox when it comes to one’s mental health. Like anything, when used appropriately and in moderation, the effects are mild, and the sense of connection and belonging it creates may be beneficial in staving off feelings of isolation. When taken to extremes, however, social media can take a toll on users’ self-esteem and overall mental health.

It is important for individuals to be aware of how social media use impacts their day-to-day and long-term functioning. If a certain platform seems to produce more negative emotions than positive emotions, users should take a break from it or get off that site completely. There are so many things that can affect our mental health that we cannot control—social media, however, is thankfully not one of them.