
One friend said “why is everyone so rich and beautiful and fashionable and successful and we are here just struggling!!”
Another person recently shared with me “I don’t interact much because my family is gone and I do not know many people here. Social media makes me depressed because there is so much “bad” on it. Strangers are fighting. If I add an opinion strangers gang up on me and call me filthy names, and insult others. Horrible things trending like killing, animal abuse, people worshipping useless celebrities, crimes, hate, rage, videos of child abuse, when I spend time on social media I leave feeling like I fear the world and don’t want to leave the house.”
Another young girl said “usually just photos, funny tweets, something that will keep my mind off of class,” While her site of choice is Facebook or Twitter, yours might be Instagram, or Pinterest.
We already know using too much social media can turn the hobby from fun to a full blown addiction. Because social media has become such an integrated component of human interaction, it is important for us interacting with young adults to recognize the balance to be struck in encouraging potential positive use, while redirecting from problematic use.
It isn’t just depression or addiction, either. There are actually a whole slew of powerful, negative emotions that Social Media can easily generate. Feeling too much of those emotions can lead us straight to a bout of “Social Media Depression”. This isn’t our typical Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but it sort of feels like it. People with Social Media OCD feel the urge to constantly check their Social Medias for updates. This is really exhausting and takes us away from other things we could or should be doing. And,do we experience that?