Social Media Can Be Cause of Your Depression

Can Social Media Cause Depression?

How many times have you seen a group of teens or young adults sitting together at a restaurant, all looking at their cell phones and ignoring each other?  Why are they more interested in a small video screen than in the flesh-and-blood people next to them? 

“I’m convinced that too much time spent viewing social media content can damage self-esteem, lower emotional intelligence and even cause social phobia,” says Dr. Michael Hoffman, founder of Sober Buddha Counseling.

“My first case involved a 22-year-old man who admitted to spending more than six hours a day on Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat and YouTube. He complained of loneliness, fatigue and a feeling of hopelessness,” Hoffman reports.

Research by the National Institutes of Health in the April 1, 2016 journal issue of Depression and Anxiety investigated the link between social media and depression.The eleven most popular social media sites are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine and LinkedIn. They can
provide valuable content, but can also cause one or more of these four things depression-related symptoms:

1.  LOW SELF-ESTEEM - Users compare themselves unfavorably to on-screen images of “perfect” people who appear healthier, happier and more successful in life.

2.  PERSONAL GUILT - Spending time on unproductive and often meaningless chat and site-surfing leaves users with guilt because they know they have wasted time that could be spent more productively.

3.  SOCIAL PHOBIA – Over-use of social media replaces healthy face-to-face communication time with other people and can
damage quality of life causing isolation from recreation, education, family activity and work. Social media can also expose users to negative interactions such as misunderstanding of short text messages to uncontrollable cyber-bullying.

4.  ‘DARK’ ADDICTION – Pornographic and violent fetish sites can create extreme neurological responses in viewers’ brains creating cravings for satisfaction that make daily life seem dull.

          A recent study conducted by Brian A. Primack, M.D., Ph.D., director of Pitt’s Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health showed that test subjects aged 19 to 32 had high indicators of depression. A further study by Lui yi Lin, B.A., from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine this spring, concludes that people who already feel depressed may make their symptoms worse by turning to social media to fill the live human interaction void in their lives.

Hoffman concludes that too much social media can effect people just like any other addiction and should be treated the same way. His Sober Buddha Counseling treatment enables clients to build a lifestyle centered around balance between nurturing real-time social interaction and focused mindfulness meditation practice to lower anxiety.