Digital Mental Health

So, it's been about a year since the last blog post, this one has been sitting in my drafts on my phone for about the same time, so thought it was time to publish!

I wrote in my last post that my life now is very different from when I used to write a number of years ago, and I alluded to thinking about things differently now, particularly in the context of being a parent.

This particular post is close to my heart for a number of reasons, one of which is my daughters. Most things I think about now are about them; their futures, their education, influences on their lives (like social media), etc...

I think back to what life was like for me and us (as a generation) before social media; or should I say social media as we now know it? 

In an age where social media is part of normal life, specifically Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc...we forget that social media was available to us in different forms when we were growing up, with probably similar consequences of use, I'm thinking of Hi5, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Chat, etc.. 

Back in my younger days using something like MSN was almost a direct replacement for talking to someone on the phone I.e. You would have real time interaction with someone, by conversing with them almost like speaking on the phone.

These days, although Facebook Messenger and other forms of chat are available, we seem to interact indirectly, for example, I can post a message on Facebook which some may respond to by leaving a comment but not necessarily having a real time interaction with them.

We as a generation and society seem to have become so engrossed in posting pictures, usually of how "amazing" our life is or the other extreme of how "crap" life is. I've been as guilty as anyone of this in the past and some would argue I still am (stop picking on me!). I guess it puts me in a good position to ask "why do we need to post and tell the world what's going on in our lives?", "did the world ask to be told about my day?", "would it make a difference to the world if I was having the most amazing time of my life?", I think you get the gist of where I'm going with this, right? 

We seem to have lost our abilities to interact with others, in that, not many of us (I don't believe) pick up the phone and say "hi (insert name), how's your day going today?" Which used to provide a sense of realism, a sense of warmth that someone is/was genuinely interested in my life. 

Is it a coincidence that we hear so much more about people suffering from mental health issues? No, I don't think it is. When I thought about writing about this topic I searched google for links between social media and poor mental health, and the majority of results referred to "young people", and that's why I wanted to write this post. I feel like the next generation will suffer from the adverse effects of social media more so than this generation does. We seem to be seeing the start of this already with online bullying, shaming, etc...

People will think I'm a hypocrite for raising concerns around social media, particularly because I'm a regular user of Facebook but that doesn't mean the questions I've asked are any less relevant. If anything, I feel like I'm in a good place to bring it up.

I mean, how many of you log on to a social media platform as soon as you wake up? Or check your phone to see what the latest updates are on whichever social media platforms you use? 

I do it most of the time; wake up, check phone, and then do other things. You probably too!

Social media, no matter how many connections, friends, and followers you have can be a very lonely place. It's hard not to see posts on social media and then compare them to your own lives, however people only post what they want you to see, you have no idea of the real truth or what's truly happening on the other side of that screen. 

This in turn can effect a person's mental health. Comparing someone else's perfect or amazing life to their own and developing a false picture can have more of a deeper adverse effect than people may realise.

This is all relevant to the Digital age we live in, and as things become more digitised, the situation gets worse. Why is life becoming more digitised? In my view it's because we want it to, we want things to make life easier for us regardless of the consequences.

My view on a digitised world and mental health is that, as social media and the digital world matures more, we need to better equip ourselves and our children particularly against the pros and cons of it all. It's important I feel to ensure we can handle the pressure of this evolving world, because if we don't we're going to see a lot more cases of people with mental health issues. 

I think I've waffled on enough here, what do you guys think? Do you think the digital world is a problem? Do you think there's an overreaction to the causes of social media on mental health? What do you think we need to do to help the situation?

Oh and here's a recent written piece I found on bbc.com, makes interesting reading!