How Social Media Harm You? How to Deal with It?

Nowadays, folks are mostly sharing their joyfulness through their social media. Some of the social media are including such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, and so on. However, nowadays, people tend to use Instagram as social media to share their activities. And, some of those are sharing their achievement which by this it could be impacted on the individual’s self-esteem. This day, people are suffering from their self-esteem.

Figure 1. The ranking of worst social media that can harm the young people (Blair, 2017)

            The Instagram platform can be one of the highest ranks that can affect the mental health of young people (Blair, 2017). According to the Royal Society in Public Health and the charity Young Health Movement has conducted the survey and the survey shows the result as the young people nearly 1,500 are social-media users in Britain. Figure 1 shows that Instagram harms young people. The Instagram platform is found as social media which can damage the perceptions of body image, raise the fear of missing out, and it can harm you with a messed-up sleep schedule. While, as we can see above the YouTube platform result is opposite to the Instagram platform. YouTube platform is the social media platform that has a positive effect on mental health which ranks above the net positive line. YouTube platform is the platform that can increase awareness, building a community, and self-expression. For instance, the YouTube platform provides as with a variety of channels which included such as how we going to plan our finances, thoughts, tips and tricks, relationships, and so on. While, by these kinds of channels, everyone can enjoy by watching and implementing it in real life. And lately, I’m hearing some of the podcats from the Gitasav channel. This channel will help you to think more and concerned more.

Figure 2. Gitasav Channel

And, I will suggest you watch the TED talks channel.

Figure 3. TED channel

And, lately, I was following this channel too. This channel is from Korea and they will invite kids into the channel, so, they can share their feeling based on the question asked. So, the channel itself will ask some questions.

Figure 4. ODG Channel

While according to the figure above, twitter is placed as the second place that harms young people. As I’m a twitter user, twitter can be less harmful than Instagram. The reason is that Twitter is also providing us with new knowledge. Some people may share a lengthy-tweets that we called as a “thread”. And, as I come across, twitter made me know the current issues.

 

And, lets we jump up to the worst platform that impacts the young people nowadays. People nowadays tend to use Instagram as their main social media when there’s leisure time. So, when we go to the Instagram platform, during their leisure time, they tend to scroll up and down, left and right in its timeline only to see the good post. Being an Instagram user, for the first time, it is really fun. We post something, then we can share our best-post in the world aka publicly. And indirectly, as I observed back then, we all human trying to compete to share our best post. As a result, whenever there is someone who posted better than us (as you think), it is often for you to feel bad about yourself. Then, you may start to shame on you, as a result, it isn’t rare that you trying to compare yourself with others.

 There are so many people who through this phase, include me. Until I’m feeling like unworthy, blaming me because of wasn’t that good then everyone. This phase makes me think more about how I handle and deal with this problem. You may ask me how to cope with this issue(?)

 

        So, three days ago, I was trying to go off from Instagram thingy. As I saw back then, people tend to show off their daily life which I thought that it doesn’t need to be posted publicly. And, sometimes people show off their luxury life. And as I came across, people tend to share their posts as their rewarding form. This thing may trigger someone to compare themselves with others. As a result, this is not good for our mental health.

 

        So, to minimize these issues, the first thing is you need to stop or (at least) minimize your social media usage. You need to break for some time. While you stop to use social media for a while, trying to reflect yourself. For example, trying to ask yourself what area you need to improved or what things you want to master. Adding more skills is good, since, the company becomes more selective and needs employees which different than other candidates.

        Second thing, it’s good if you practice making journals, like how was your day. You can write your feeling and emotion through your journals. All you need is a small book and a pen. I’m suggesting you start practicing writing the journals. This may heal you and you can shed your emotions.

            The last thing is, start to be productive. After you reflect on yourself, trying to do something that you want to master in some areas. For example, buying some books to improve your self-knowledge. Other than that, you can also buy some courses and get a certificate for your self-improvement. Instead of not doing something and ashamed yourself, self-care is really important. Being productive is the formation of self-care. By being productive, your mental health will be maintained.

          Self-love is important. Loving yourself doesn’t mean you’re the most talented, beautiful, smartest person in the world. You must accept that humans are imperfect. Instead of blaming and ashamed of yourself, accepting your weakness and knowing the strength is the main thing to start self-love. The self-love is likened you taking care toward others. You need to ask others if you saw someone looks bloomy. And, it should be the same thing as you. The self-love has the same meaning as you have a compassion to yourself.  You need to confess and tell yourself if you’re not okay. It’s okay not to be okay.