Social Media Addiction: It is affecting way we view our bodies

Social Media Addiction

Eighty-eight per cent of women said they compare themselves to images in the media — and most find the comparison unfavourable, according to new survey results.

It’s no secret that social media, with its style stars and perfectly toned fitness gurus, can have a negative effect on our self-esteem.

Now, new research from the Florida House Experience, a mental health and addiction treatment facility, shows just how damaging all that scrolling can be.

It also reveals the different factors that affect how men and women feel about their bodies. Women, for instance, are most heavily influenced by social media, followed by TV and movies and their significant other. For men, their significant other is the top factor affecting how they feel about their bodies. Read more.

Social Media Addiction & The negative Effects of Social Media on Your Brain

When two German universities joined forces to investigate social networking, researchers discovered that one in three people surveyed felt worse (“lonely, frustrated or angry”) after spending time on Facebook, often due to perceived inadequacies when comparing themselves to friends. Make sure you teach your kids these lessons about social media so they can have better habits early on.

Susan Greenfield of Oxford University has compared online chats to buying prepackaged meat at a store: “Perhaps future generations will recoil with similar horror at the messiness, unpredictability and immediate personal involvement of a three-dimensional, real-time interaction.” Worried about all the effects social media has on you? Try to understand how social media can damage your relationships so you can make them better. Full Story

Social Media Addiction & It’s Side Effects

A study published in the journal the American Journal of Epidemiology found that IRL interactions led to more positive feelings than online interactions. One of the reasons for this is because people tend to compare themselves to others on social media. This is damaging is because people tend to present the best version of themselves online, which means that the comparisons aren’t based in reality.

A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that heavy social media users performed worse at being able to effectively switch from one task to another than moderate to light social media users. “These results suggest that heavy media multitaskers are distracted by the multiple streams of media they are consuming,” the study authors wrote. Full Story