RESEARCH According to a recent RSPH (Royal Society for Public Health) report, in the UK 91% of young people (between 16 and 24) use the Internet for social networking. Social media has been described as being more addictive than cigarettes or alcohol. The rates of anxiety and depression in young people have increased by 70% in the last 25 years. Social media use has been linked to increased rates of anxiety, depression and poor sleep. Cyberbullying is a growing problem, with 7 in 10 young people saying that they have experienced it.
FACEBOOK FOMO You have probably already come across the acronym FoMO (Fear of Missing Out) on social networks. It is a very fashionable expression today, which refers to the anxiety and fear of being left out and is characterized by the need to be constantly tuned in. Seeing friends on holiday or having a fun night out, for example, can trigger in young people feelings of loneliness, dissatisfaction and frustration about their own lives, as they find their lives not as interesting as their friends’. Social media can also cause unrealistic expectations and fuel feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. This explains why Instagram is the social media that most causes feelings of anxiety and inadequacy as a result of the perfect images it broadcasts- images only attained by extensive use of artifices like filters and image editors.
A Pew Research survey conducted among Facebook users, found that ‘liking’ friends’ posts was a common daily activity for 44% of users. In fact, the ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ may be the main reason why people post contents on websites like Facebook. In the same survey, 16% of men and 29% of women declared that receiving support from others was the main reason why they used Facebook, and about 16% of all users confessed that receiving feedback from their posts was their main motivator. Research shows that when people, ‘like’ our posts, we get the feeling that we are supported and have someone to count on, especially when the support comes from our closest connections. Another recent countrywide survey of social media users (average age 45) found that those who received more feedback from their posts (such as ‘likes’ on Facebook) tend to feel more secure and supported by their peers. This suggests that both the quality and the volume of response we get from social media can affect the way we feel supported.
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ADVANTAGES Social networking also has its benefits. Studies have proven that social media platforms offer young people a useful tool for creating, maintaining and strengthening interpersonal relationships in the real world. This can occur through connections with friends and family in different parts of the world, something that would be more difficult without social networks. It also offers opportunities for greater interaction with friends online as well as the reviving of ‘inactive’ relationships, and indeed of making new friends. The ease with which social events can be organized and coordinated or how a date can be set with a few simple clicks was unimaginable before the advent of social networking and has now become inherent to the way young people live their lives. Social media can also act as an interaction ‘following step’ after an initial face-to-face encounter. This means that even brief interactions can be built upon with the help of social media, whereas they could have been lost otherwise.
CONCLUSION There will always be someone more attractive, more popular, with a fitter body and dressed more fashionably, who travels more, is smarter or has something better to offer. And that is part of life. When we choose to be grateful for what we have and not compare ourselves to others, social networks will then become a source of inspiration for places and people we wish to know or relate to. We cannot allow social networks to influence what we feel about ourselves and our lives. If we value ourselves, we will not need to seek the approval of others to feel good.
