Mental Health and Technology - How They Mix (And How They Don't)

There is an "understatement that social media [and technology] has had a significant impact to our culture and our lives" with a 65% jump in usage from 2005 to 2019. But is this impact to our culture good for our mental health?

Now everyone responds to technology differently, and studies have even shown the using VR headsets can help people experience positive emotions by putting them in calming places, but other studies have shown the opposite. Some studies show that while those with depression, anxiety, and even PTSD can go to social media for comfort and support, if they use it for too long or too excessively it can have negative impacts on them. Those impacts can include a higher or more sensitive response to items that trigger them as they have not been able to immerse themselves enough in the outside world from the digital one. With rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide going up right around when smartphones got popular this is not hard to imagine.

Another effect on mental health is the way that social media and other new media technology is our sleep cycle. The artificial and blue light from our screens can throw off our circadian rhythm, thereby affecting our mood. Social media can be addicting to users, causing a "black-hole allure of techno-realms and crippling social isolation." By being online all the time, you could miss out on important social interactions that are in-person, which could bring on feelings of loneliness and that feeling can get you to go deeper into social media - creating a never ending cycle. And while there are groups of people out there without social media who still have high rates of depression, the reasons for their depression are related to how their society run, and nothing to do with technology. For something that stated it would help connect and reconnect people together, there's much evidence that it's doing quite the opposite.

So it might be a good idea to look into your own media usage and determine if it's all good for you, or if removing one or two scrolls a day could potentially uplift your mood for the better.

Resources

1. Binford, J., Dolan, M., Elhai, J. D., & Contractor, A. A. (2022). Examining relationships between posttraumatic stress disorder severity and types of media/technology usage. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1037/tra0001333.supp (Supplemental)

2. Brivio, E., Serino, S., Negro Cousa, E., Zini, A., Riva, G., & De Leo, G. (2020). Virtual reality and 360 degrees panorama technology: a media comparison to study changes in sense of presence, anxiety, and positive emotions. VIRTUAL REALITY. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1007/s10055-020-00453-7 

3. HealthCare. (n.d.). The Link Between Technology and Depression. Health Care 2 U. Retrived from https://healthc2u.com/link-between-technology-and-depression/ 

4. Singh, M. (2022). It’s Easy to Blame Mental Health Issues on Tech. But Is It Fair? Wired. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/depression-social-media-tsimane-mental-health/

5. Media sources: mental health world cloud | teen in phone