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) 

Based on the above understanding, mental health is something that includes all physical and psychological well-being, the ability to cope with stress, adapt, build relationships, and it's hard to get through life 

Negative Impacts of Social Media on Mental Health 

1. Depression 

Depression is an emotional condition that is usually characterized by extreme sadness, feelings of indifference, guilt, withdrawal from others, inability to sleep, loss of appetite, sexual desire and interest and pleasure in activities that are usually done. (Siregar, 2016). 

Depression is an emotional disorder or bad mood characterized by prolonged sadness, hopelessness, feelings of guilt and meaninglessness.(Aries, 2016) 

One of the most serious mental disorders is depression, which is characterized by deep and prolonged feelings of sadness, feelings of guilt, lack of self-confidence, difficulty in building relationships, and feeling difficult and hard to live life. 

"Depression arises due to social relationship problems that occur through social media."(Al Aziz, 2020). 

One of the causes of depression is because there are no restrictions on the use of social media that can cause problems such as cyberbullying, or social relationships with other people. This can make a person feel hurt, guilty, and insecure which makes them depressed.

2. Anxiety 

"Anxiety is a mental disorder that causes excessive anxiety and fear. This makes a person not enthusiastic about doing daily activities, including their favorite hobbies "(Mitra Keluarga, 2022).  

Anxiety is one of the mental disorders, this anxiety is anxiety that occurs excessively, lasts continuously to interfere with daily activities. 

"The exact cause of anxiety disorder is not fully understood. There are many factors that can influence the condition. Life experiences such as traumatic events can also trigger a person to experience anxiety disorder, especially for those who are already prone to anxiety. In addition, inherited traits can also be a risk factor for someone experiencing anxiety disorder." (Muhammad Zaenuddin, 2022). 

The factors mentioned above often interact, so anxiety disorders are not caused by one aspect alone, but rather a combination of influences that shape a person's emotional response to stress. 

3. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) 

"FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out, is a psychological phenomenon that involves a person's fear or worry of missing out on experiences or activities that are considered important or interesting." (Nabila Alifiani et al., 2024). 

This phenomenon is often attributed to the use of social media, where one feels the need to always be connected and aware of what is going on so as not to feel left behind by their social environment. Fomo can also affect emotional health, such as causing anxiety, stress and dissatisfaction with oneself. 

"Major Causes of FOMO In the digital age, social media provides instant access to the lives of others, from personal achievements to publicly shared moments of happiness. When users see friends or influencers living seemingly "perfect" lives, it triggers feelings of dissatisfaction with oneself." (Hendra Prasetya, 2024) 

 here are ways to overcome FOMO: 

a. Limit Social Media  

reduce time and use reminder features to limit duration

b. set Priorities 

Choose activities that are truly important and rewarding 

c. Technology Detox 

Schedule screen-free time for productive activities 

d. Change Mindset 

Accept that not everything need to be followed, focus on your own happines 

4. Social Media Addiction 

Social media addiction is a condition where an individual cannot control his desire to play social media and also finds it difficult to limit social media interactions. Usually individuals who are addicted to social media for a long time. 

"Besides having many advantages too losses or negative things you have social media. The negative thing some of which take up a lot of time to access social media, individuals become unproductive, and tend to being a lazy person."(Hartinah et al., 2019) 

"Internet addiction behavior can be caused by many things, including the individual's ability to control himself. Self-control is an important element to be able to escape this addiction". (Muna & Astuti, 2014) 

5. Eating Disorders  

Eating disorders are a situation where a person experiences significant changes in their eating patterns, which can decrease or increase. 

Eating disorders themselves have factors that may be the cause, one of which is the effect of using social media which can affect a person's psychology because they get unpleasant feelings from social media so they experience eating disorders. 

"Factors related to the incidence of eating disorders in adolescents include biological, psychological, as well as environmental and sociocultural factors". (Sempaga, 2021) 

"The phenomenon that shows the role of social media in forming a negative body image can occur due to the unique features of social media, one of which is the ability of social media features to provide effects that can cause manipulation of photos or videos uploaded and displayed on social media. Negative body image is known to be able to affect the physical and psychological health of teenagers, because of the tendency of teenagers to experience stress and depression, withdraw from social environments, experience anxiety, have low self-confidence, and trigger a reluctance to eat regularly or change eating habits, because perception and dissatisfaction with one's body image can trigger health problems, namely eating disorders". (Tunga, 2022) 

6. Schizophrenia 

Schizophrenia is a critical mental or mental disorder, where this disorder will affect the way you think, feel and even act. Social media can also affect schizophrenia sufferers because it can trigger hallucinations due to the content contained in it, besides that it can also help sufferers from cyberbullying on social media. Because sufferers of this disorder usually have symptoms such as hallucinations and inappropriate thinking. 

"This type of schizophrenia mental disorder is a serious mental disorder, which is characterized by disorders of thought, language, perception and self-awareness. According to Basic Health Research (Riskesdas) in 2013, the prevalence of serious mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, was 1.7 per 1000 population or around 400,000 people." (Wardhani et al., 2017) 

Based on the explanation above, it shows that the use of social media must still be considered even though social media can have quite a lot of positive impacts such as increasing creativity, adding insight, and expanding the circle of friends, but if there are no restrictions on its use, it can have a negative impact, especially on the mental health of its users such as depression, anxiety, social media addiction, FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), schizophrenia, and eating disorders. 

The points that have been explained in this article are very important to note both for now and for the future. In the digital era where people cannot be separated from their gadgets, and if left without supervision or limits, it can have a serious negative impact on its users. 

Thus, it can be concluded that in today's digital era, it has become a necessity for many people to be actively involved in using social media. Indeed, the use of social media can provide quite a lot of benefits and convenience in everyday life if its use is still reasonable.  

The use of social media does provide many benefits and convenience for everyday life, but if its use is not supervised or there is no clear boundary then social media can have a bad impact such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, social media addiction, FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), and schizophrenia. Therefore, it is important for the community to pay attention to the adverse effects of social media in order to minimize the adverse effects of social media.