The influence of social networks on the human psyche and emotions

In 2012, a medical news outlet reported on a study that suggested that using Facebook could make people more anxious and more inferior.

A relatively recent study led by psychiatrist Ethan Cross of the University of Michigan found that Facebook could make its users unhappy.

"On the surface, Facebook seems to offer an incredible opportunity to satisfy a basic human need for social connection," Cross says. "But instead of being beneficial, increasing a person's well-being, it turns out that using Facebook can actually have the opposite effect."

What is social media?

Social media is a collection of websites that connect people from all over the world. These can be conversations, holiday greetings, exchange of photos, videos and audio products.

The latest statistics say that about 42% of people use several Internet resources for communication. The main contingent of social network users are people under 30 years old, although the number of users over 60 years old is constantly increasing.

But what attracts us to social media?

The main mission of social networking site owners is to give people the opportunity to get to know each other regardless of the point of the globe where they are, stay in touch with friends and family, be aware of world events, and share those emotions and things that are important to them.

Addiction to social media

According to statistics, more than 60% of Facebook users visit the site daily, while 40% of users of this Internet resource go there several times a day.

Of course, each individual has his own reasons for using social networks. Someone likes to view status updates and photos of other people, and at the same time other regulars of the resources use sites as a means of expressing their emotions. However, one of the compelling reasons that drives us to use social media is to relieve boredom and escape from the life around us. As a result, we get doping every time we log in.

"For those who constantly add new entries to their account, reinforcements often come in the form of comments and likes from other users. And as you know, behavior patterns that are consistently repeated become a habit that is difficult to get rid of.

As a result, a regular user has a high probability of developing an addiction to the Facebook network. Moreover, such behavior has become widespread, which is why researchers have developed psychological scales for measuring Facebook addiction.

The scale, developed by researchers from the University of Bergen in Norway, has six gradations for assessing Facebook addiction. They are from different operators, such as "you spend a lot of time thinking about Facebook and making plans for how to use it" and "you use Facebook to distract yourself from personal problems." As a result, a rating of "often" or "quite often" for four of the six criteria is a sure sign of Facebook addiction.

Psychiatrists have found that people who have psychological instability and social insecurity are more likely to visit the social networking site.

It was also noted that people who were praised by their Facebook followers had stronger activity in the region of the core of the brain, which is associated with the "reward" for actions.

Based on all the studies conducted, it turned out that many users who are addicted to Facebook specifically use the site as a means to get the attention of other users and increase their self-esteem.

The Negative Impact of Social Media

In 2012, a survey was conducted in the UK about communication services and their impact on the emotional state of users.

As a result, it turned out that 53% of respondents said that social networking sites changed their personal behavior, while 51% of them said that these changes were in a negative direction.

Those who confirmed that their lives were getting worse due to the use of social media resources also reported that they began to feel less confident, compared to friends.

In addition, the survey results showed that 2/3 of participants reported difficulty relaxing and sleeping after using the sites, with 55% noting that they felt "anxious or uncomfortable" when they were unable to log into social networks.

It was also found that social interaction on the pages of such communication services, in particular this concerned Facebook, can have a negative impact on face-to-face meetings of people who already have a high threshold of anxiety.

Another concern associated with the use of social networks is cyberbullying. According to one organization that is trying to make internet use less dangerous for children and families, 95% of teenagers who use social media have witnessed forms of online bullying on such sites, and 33% have been victims of cyberbullying.

While most studies point to the negative impact of social media on psycho-emotional health and well-being, some psychologists say that it may have the opposite effect.

This is proven by research by a group of scientists who found that status updates with positive emotions evoke the same emotions in the readers of such statuses.

In fact, scientists believe that the viral spread of happiness is so great that it may cause an "epidemic of well-being."