Mental health friendly social media – How can we achieve it?
Social media has become a big part of our lives. We start and end our day with social media. And we get everything we want from it, – social interaction, new friendships, inspiration, validation and most of all, an outlet to express yourself. No matter what you use your social media for, one can’t deny that it has taken over the real world and carved its place in our lives.
When we spend so much time in these digital platforms, we come across different types of content, and it can have a significant impact on us. Recently, social media has become a place to flaunt unattainability – whether it is your appearance, your wealth, your career or your lifestyle. The contemporary culture of influencers and digital success has brought upon us a spree of content that can often be harmful for our self-concept and overall mental health.
We often don’t even realize how much our social media feed can impact our mental health and it’s high time we take control over the content we consume for the benefit of our overall health.
Here are a few ways you can make your social media feeds social media friendly-
Table of Contents: Mental health friendly social media – How can we achieve it?
Unfollow any page that makes you feel insecure.
There are many pages on various social media sites that have a large number of following who unapologetically promote unrealistic standards of beauty and lifestyle. They portray an ideal life of perfection which makes their followers’ lives seem mundane and not so great. These pages not only make you feel insecure and unworthy but also make your social media experience unhealthy.
Follow people and pages making a positive impact in the society.
Sadly, many of the ‘influencers’ are not influencing society for the good. But they have a larger number of followers. The social media algorithm promotes the pages that are getting more likes and follows, which suppresses the voice of pages and people with actual positive impact. When you unfollow these influencers and follow these impactful pages, you will not only be supportive of the voices that need to be heard but also be helping yourself have a more positive social media feed.
Follow small artists
It is no surprise that actors, models and sportsmen have large followings. They have worked hard to get that. Follow them, too but at the same time, follow small artists – follow painters, graphic designers, writers, theatre actors who are equally as talented and need the exposure and audience that social media provides. You will be helping them, but on a more selfish side, you’ll have a feed that is filled with creativity and inspiration. A win-win, isn’t it?
Related: THE ERA OF INSTAGRAM – EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON MENTAL HEALTH
Avoid the filters
We are all obsessed with filters, aren’t we? It hides all our flaws and imperfections and makes us all feel like the most beautiful people, which is always great. But while we are portraying these filtered versions of ourselves, we are also promoting this unrealistic standard of beauty that we don’t subscribe to in real life. Noone is perfect and we should stop hiding behind a filter. What’s real is more permanent. These filters and social validation is temporary. If you want a mental health friendly feed, start from yours.
We make hundreds of comments on people who will probably not even reply to us. But we fail to like, comment and share the posts made by our friends or someone we know. Being kind on social media doesn’t just mean leaving alike, it also means supporting those who need your support and spreading positivity. Be kind on social media and help others. Don’t spread hatred. Be nice.
Social media should not be taking till on your mental health – sadly for many of us, it is. Let’s start from today and instead of filtering our photos, filter out feeds to make it more positive.
