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Social media is great to follow to know what is trending! But, are you aware of social media addiction? Social media addiction can take a toll on your mental health. It can affect your overall well-being. The majority of us have got addicted to social media during the COVID phase and this addiction has been following since then.
GS Hospital Ghaziabad, the best hospital in Uttar Pradesh takes pride in taking the initiative to bring about awareness about social media addictions for overall mental well-being. As per research, it has been proven that there is a strong link between social media addiction, depression or anxiety, and other mental health issues. A healthy mental and physical balance is a must for us to function well. None of us want to fall prey to mental health issues due to social media dependency and end up searching for the best doctor in India to treat it.
GS Hospital Ghaziabad, the hospital in India joins hands with its best doctors in India for valuable insights on how social media affects your mental health. Let’s begin to learn more about social media addictions, their dependency, and how to deal with them.
If you are habituated and addicted to the ever-increasing number of platforms from Facebook, to Instagram, and spend a lot of time on it in front of your mobile, laptop, computer, or iPad, you have social media addiction. As per research, it is confirmed that social media can be as addictive as coffee, smoking, alcohol, gambling, or shopping. This can interfere with your daily life and may get in the way of your jobs, relationships, and other responsibilities affecting your quality of life.
In simple terms, social media addiction is the overuse of social media with the inability to control it causing difficulty in functioning at times.
On the other hand, social media has many benefits such as connecting with people, socializing, new updates, and other information. However, overuse of social media is seen in all age groups from children to elderly people as we are growing in the digital world. In the digital age, it is quite difficult to stay away from social media.
Let us learn how social media affects your mental health and you can live with social media more healthily.
Social media has a major impact on the brain. It stimulates the brain’s reward center, which is the ventral striatum, to release dopamine and serotonin. This is considered as “feel good hormones” which make you feel happy. This gets you addicted to social media.
Here are some warning signals to know that you are dependent on social media:
Here is how social media affects your mental health:
1. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO): If you are addicted to social media, you are always in fear of missing out on certain updates. Many of us are prone to scroll on Facebook, and Instagram to look for what’s trending. One may get addicted to social media to get recent updates and trendy or happening behavior. This may lead to social media addiction behavior.
2. Social Isolation: Staying addicted to social media may prevent spending quality time for yourself as well as for your loved ones. This may cause dependency on social media leading to social isolation.
3. Trigger Sadness and Depression: Avoiding self-care and self-love due to social media dependency may trigger sadness and depression. Moreover, if you are not spending time with your family and friends at social gatherings for good bonding, it may lead to social isolation causing sadness and low mood.
4. Continuous comparison with others: We are always in competitive spirits to go trendy when it comes to recent updates. This may create a continuous comparison for others. The chronic comparison may create a worsening of things at times.
5. Trigger Jealousy and Negative Behavior: Comparison factors may create a vicious cycle leading to negative feelings for yourself. This may give rise to a feeling of jealousy and rage causing mood swings affecting overall mental well-being.
6. Delusion and Overthinking: Being dependent on social media may create a need to overthink at times. Too much thinking with overcrowded thoughts may lead to confusion and lack of clarity to think at times.
7. Disturbed Sleep: Sleep disturbance is one of the main features of social media addiction. The majority of us will agree to a behavior that is common to most of us. This is scrolling through social media apps before sleeping to know what’s happening around you.
8. Disorganized and Sedentary Lifestyle: A timely schedule is a must to keep yourself organized. If you are spending long hours in front of social media, it is time to think again as this may lead to a couch potato feeling similar to sitting in front of a TV leading to a sedentary lifestyle and obesity.
9. Binge Eating Behavior: Staying in front of mobile phones for scrolling over social media apps will cause binge eating behavior. This may release hunger hormones causing more dependency on social media to look out for more updates.
Here are a few signs and symptoms of social media dependency which are as follows:
Dealing with your social media behaviors can be quite difficult at times. Unusual social media addiction can affect mental health and cause clinical disorders such as anxiety, depression, hyperactivity in children, restlessness, insomnia, weight gain, and more issues.
GS Hospital, the best hospital in Uttar Pradesh, provides expertise in dealing with clinical disorders that arise due to social media addiction. They have a team of doctors and psychologists who provide treatment interventions for your social media addiction after taking your detailed case history. This makes them count among the top 10 hospitals in Ghaziabad to provide the best solution for social media addiction. Here are certain therapies which are effective for social media addiction.
Early intervention is key to dealing with social media behavior. Certain lifestyle tips may help with social media addiction. Let us go ahead and discover the best lifestyle tips that can help us deal with social media addiction in the right way.
Here are the best lifestyle tips for social media addiction: