INBALANCE
Don’t Get Dragged Into The Social Media Wasteland Social media can be a wonderful tool for promoting your business and connecting with others, but it also can damage your mental health. How to recognize the dangers and protect yourself. By Susan Rupe
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ear of missing out — popularly known as FOMO. It’s a feeling that can propel us to achieve more, and it’s a feeling that can drown us in despair. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can fuel FOMO by making it seem as though everyone is leading more interesting lives than we are. Meanwhile, some social media users turn into “keyboard warriors,” sending off nasty screeds and even bullying and harassing others online. You may have opened a social media account in the hope of keeping in touch with far-flung family and friends or promoting your business. But the barrage of political opinions, memes that often contain false information and the demonization of “others” is irritating and even 52
depressing. And seeing images of other people’s perfect-looking homes, parties and vacations can trigger FOMO. So how can you enjoy the good things about social media without letting it destroy your mental health? Rasto Ivanic is a cofounder and CEO of GroupSolver, a market research technology company, which conducted a survey on the impact of social media on mental health. GroupSolver published a blog
post about the results of the survey, “Are We Connected or Isolated? How Social Media Impacts Our Mental Health.” The results show that some social media platforms impact mental health more than others do, with Facebook having the largest impact, followed by Instagram. Twitter was found to be home to more arguments than other platforms. The survey results also provided insights as to why this is as well as whether the overall
Which social media platforms do you believe have an impact on your mental health, either positive or negative?
InsuranceNewsNet Magazine » November 2021
SOURCE: GroupSolver
