How Social Media Shapes Your Mind : The Hidden Impact on Mental Health

At this time the use of technology is often used in all circles, both young and old, especially the use of social media such as Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, Facebook, and others. And currently recorded at 5.07 billion users in April 2024. This social media is often used as a place to share information, a means of communication, and as entertainment for its users. 

Basically, social media can provide quite a lot of benefits such as easy access to information, increasing creativity, increasing knowledge and insight, and expanding the circle of friends. However, in addition to the many benefits of social media if there are no restrictions on the use of social media, it can have a negative impact on users' mental health such as depression, anxiety, FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), social media addiction, eating disorders, and schizophrenia. 

Essentially, the use of social media can have a considerable impact, either in the form of positive or negative impacts. It is important for people to know the negative impact of using social media so that they can make limits in its use. Therefore, there must be clear boundaries in the use of social media in order to minimise the negative impact of social media. 

Definition of Social Media 

According to Antony Mayfield (2008) "social media are media whose users easily participate, various and create roles, especially blogs, social networks, wikis / online encyclopedias, virtual forums, including virtual worlds (with 3D avatars / characters)." (Purbohastuti, 2017). 

According to Philip Kotler and Kevin Keller (2012) "that the definition of social media is a means for consumers to share text, images, video, and audio information with each other and with companies and vice versa." (Purbohastuti, 2017). 

From the above understanding, it can be concluded that social media is a tool or container that can be used to share information and create communities in cyberspace or search for information in the form of text, images, or videos. 

 

Definition of Mental Health 

"Mental health refers to the health of all aspects of a person's development, both physical and psychological. Mental health also includes efforts to cope with stress, inability to adjust, how to relate to others, and is related to decision making." (Fakhriyani, n.d. 2019. p. 10)