In 1971, the first email was delivered. More than 40 years on, social media has taken the world by storm. Social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are now used by 1 in 4 people worldwide. Such activity may seem harmless, but some researchers suggest social media may affect our mental health and well-being. On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. But rather than enhance well-being, we found that Facebook use predicts the opposite result. On average, Indians spend 8 hours using social networking sites, such as Facebook, every month. This amount of time is far greater as compared to the time which they devote to sleep or any other activity. The latest statistics show that around 42% of online adults use multiple social networking sites. Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of social media users are under the age of 30, although the number of older users is on the rise. Around 45% of Internet users aged 65 or older now use Facebook, increasing from 35% in 2015. Here, a deeper look at how all those “likes,” “pokes,” and status updates are really affecting you and your family’s well-being, and how you can outsmart some of the potentially negative side effects.
Negative impact of Facebook:
An unwelcome distraction: Facebook is known to cause addiction to the teens as they continue to check the phone. As a result, people are not able to focus on important tasks. The continuous receiving of jokes and trolls can drive people insane and makes them crazy. Lots of irrelevant questions cloud the mind when somebody on the other end is not responding to the messages on the phone.
Aloofness from the real world: People engaged with Facebook lose their touch to the outside world. As a result, they become social inaccessible and aloof. Non-interaction with the society proves harmful to the Facebook addict. They are extremely obsessed with sharing of selfies, videos and audio files among the friends and colleagues.
Health Risks of Facebook
Facebook depression — a condition said to result when tweens and teens spend too much time on social media, leading them to turn to “substance abuse, unsafe sexual practices, or aggressive or self-destructive behaviors.” The more time adolescent girls spent on the social networking site, the more likely they were to develop eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and extreme dieting, researchers recently found. But researchers aren’t saying that social networking sites necessarily cause eating disorders; as with Facebook depression, it may be that people prone to eating disorders spend more time online. What’s more, the researchers found that parents can help protect their daughters from harmful effects of media: The children of parents who were aware of what their daughters were viewing online and talked to them about what they saw and how much time they spent were less prone to develop eating disorders, according to study.
