Sudies show there is a relationship between high social media use and mental health issues. Source: insightextra.com
Social media scrolls every hour or so. Honestly, that can’t be good for us. Maybe that is why it is often so easy for us to blame the use and introduction of ICT for the deterioration of our mental health and we are often right.
But my question is: At what point do we take a step back and think that maybe to a certain extent we are also to be blamed? When do we blame ourselves? If we were to be honest with ourselves, we would realise that we are the users of Information and Communication Technology not the other way around. So why does it have the hold and effects it has on us? How do we break we break that hold and reverse the negative effects?
The world’s top 10 countries spending the most time on their screens. Source: www.iol.co.za
Sortlist, a company specializing in connecting suppliers in marketing and digital, created an interactive calculator that allows businesses and individuals to calculate how much time they spend online and compare it to the rest of the world.
From the gathered data, South Africa ranked 4th in the world in terms of hours spent online, with the average person spending 10 hours and 6 minutes a day browsing the internet (about 154 days per year).
The statics are astonishing! And I simply cannot help but wonder how toxic this must be for our mental health.
Truth is that no matter how hard we try, we will never have control of some of the things that ICT allows us to access but we do have control over ourselves and what we choose to access through ICT. Take social media for example, no matter how much you filter the content on your timeline, the apps will still suggest or show you posts that you would not like to see. For me, this would be retouched celebrity photos because I struggle with my body image, and they trigger me.
I am clearly not the only one because a study conducted by Dr. Jean M Twenge from the San Diego State University’s Department of Psychology and New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, and Kevin Cummins, an assistant professor of public health at California State University concluded that “the correlation between mental health and social media use is larger than that between mental health and binge drinking, early sexual activity, hard drug use, being suspended from school, marijuana use, lack of exercise, being stopped by police, and carrying a weapon.”
This is why I believe it is important that we have a technology detox every once in a while. to take time off screen and experience the real world without the influences of the things we see online because most of it is not even real.
The point of this blog is for us to take back control of our lives and our mental health. To hold each other accountable while helping each other unlearn our toxic ways of ICT consumption. Over the next posts I will be sharing the different methods I have been using to gain back control over my life and mental health in a world of ICT.
I have said my piece and I would like to hear yours. Do you think we have control over the matter at hand? Perhaps you would like to share your personal experience, make use of the comment section and let us engage further into this topic!
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