How using Social Media use during Lockdown can be detrimental

The more time we spend devoted to our social media interaction the less time we devote to offline communication. This has been shown to be detrimental to our well-being according to a study in Journal of Epidemiology in February by

With lockdown we are more ion social media and communicating online than ever.

Add on the ability of Facebook to track our data so they can more directly advertise to us and it creates the spread of false news and conspiracy theories.

Add on the election and how divided that has made us and it’s even worse.

If people see the same thing over and over whether it’s true or not, it looks like it’s true and so becomes believed as truth. They say when you’re not paying then you’re the product. We don’t pay for Facebook yet we are tied to it like it’s our jobs, like our lives depend on it.

It could be because now we feel our lives do depend on it. With less in-person social interaction, our whole life is now lived online. It’s our only connection to people, which is not good because it’s also another thing making us unhappy. We think it makes us happy because we get a hit of dopamine to the brain every time we open an app, when in fact we find ourselves in full comparison and FOMO mode. It perpetuates fakeness.

Along with coronavirus fears a divided country, an unsettling election, a president who won’t step down, extreme loss due to COVID, the unknown of the economy or how to pay bills, we need comfort right now. One way we console ourselves is to head to social media.

It is a good way to stay connected.

It can also be a good way to feel more isolated and divided than ever.

Even the small boosts that come from liking a post doesn’t come close to the positive effects of stepping away from social media and interacting in person.

So what to do about it? How do we stay sane and connected without becoming sadder, angrier and more isolated on Facebook?

·       Take breaks away from social media – walk around the block and leave your phone at home, notice the small things, cook, work with your hands, created something in real life.

·       Call your friends and talk rather than communicate via text

·       Put your phone in another room while you do something else. Keep the ringer on for phone calls.

·       Give yourself time to wake up – don’t check it first thing in the morning

·       Go outside to gain perspective on what’s important in real life.

·       Talk to people we haven’t been able to go out much but those small interaction at the grocery store, picking up food or coffee, checking in with them and just know you aren’t alone helps us all.