Title: How Social Media Is Affecting Our Mental Health, According to Top Experts | Vogue
Headings: ‘The Social Dilemma’: Are Facebook and Instagram Really Affecting Our Mental Health?
‘The Social Dilemma’: Are Facebook and Instagram Really Affecting Our Mental Health?
Fear of the Unknown
Digital Dependency
Nature vs. Nurture
Remaining in Control

Content: But as Nadia Craddock, research fellow at the Centre for Appearance Research, argues, “the relationship really depends on the content we engage with and how we feel about our body before we use social media.” Which is to say, if you’re already predisposed to worrying about how you look—a result of genetics and social-environmental factors—staring at images of yourself and comparing them to curated influencer feeds is bound to exacerbate these anxieties. Furthermore, given the nature of algorithms, the more you visit these feeds, the more the platforms will recommend more of the same feeds to you. This leads to an echo-chamber effect, where we constantly compare ourselves to our news feeds of filtered influencers, thinking this is what everyone else in the world looks like. In actuality, we are just stuck in an algorithm designed to show us what it thinks we’ll be interested in—and without anyone there to regulate it. In this sense, The Social Dilemma presents an over-sensationalized generalization of social media’s negative impact when its relationship with mental health is actually more nuanced. In an increasingly digitized world, and particularly now as we are social distancing, social media has become a vital lifeline to stay connected, and its use will likely increase in the future. That said, while they cannot be held solely responsible for poor mental health across the board, these platforms can have a negative impact on those with preexisting vulnerabilities and particularly those with body-image issues. So how can we protect ourselves and those most vulnerable from the negative impact of these platforms? Remaining in Control
“Remember you are in control of how you use social media, how long you spend [on it], and what you consume and engage with,” says Craddock.