Social Networks have intruded in our life and are here to stay. We can’t deny that there are some positive aspects, however…
Let´s look at this short example…
Kim, a 30-year-old primary school teacher, was the last of her friends to join Instagram. The day she signed up, she followed some 60 accounts—friends and colleagues as well as accounts maintained by celebrities she was interested in. She then started to post photos intensely everyday.
By the end of the month, she was following more than 150 accounts, most of them people she actually knew, but she was only being followed by 15 people…
Obviously celebrities wouldn´t follow her back, but she couldn´t help but wonder why some in her circle of friends hadn´t… «I took it very personally», she told me “Was my life so boring that it was not worth following?» she asked herself or » We weren´t really friends after all»….
And this is where the problem starts…
What´s the answer?
Well, it could have been both… or it could have been neither… Perhaps they didn´t really like her and were trying to convey that…..or thought her life was so boring it made no sense to follow her…
Or maybe it was something much less harmful then what she contemplated… maybe her friends simply don´t take social networks as seriously as she does and would have been surprised to know they´d hurt her. But it was no longer about the intention or cause; Kim was already questioning relationships she´d felt fine with just weeks earlier…
Social media-induced anxiety is happening with increasing frequency. Just as businesses and brands use social media to interact with their target audience and monitor its interests, people are using social media to figure out how their friends and colleagues feel about them.
«Likes» could be signs of approval and not «liking», not following, could translate into disdain. Social media can facilitate a cycle of reward and gain; or conversely a cycle of insecurity. It has changed many aspects of relationships: while following friends living around the world can make you feel more connected to them, making time to meet a friend for coffee seems much more difficult then chatting online.
Social media also triggers feelings of isolation and self-doubt. But this leads back to the root of the problem, that once again we’re dependent on social media for emotional support. Perhaps we´re suddenly getting “unfollowed” or “unfriended” by someone, or we give much more importance to the «likes» and attention that we receive…We could again feel unappreciated and disliked…
That´s why even if you feel irritated when friends respond or comment to a friend but not to you it´s important to remember that social media is pretty shallow…often offering a false feeling of intimacy: one that makes us feel we connect, and we really know how others feel about us.. But isn´t it better to check it offline, grabbing a cup of coffee in real life?
Sinews MTI
Psychology, Psychiatry and Speech Therapy