In today’s world, social media has become a huge part of our lives. With the promise of connecting friends, bringing people closer and constantly giving a space to interact with people, what could possibly go wrong with social media?

The fact is, it just might be making all of us lonelier than we think.

There are significant emotional risks when someone is using social media – the risk becomes significantly higher if it is a teenager or an adolescent in question!

Using social media moderately is a great way to ensure that you benefit out of the positive things without falling prey to the negativity but here are a few ways in which social media can contribute to depression.

1. Online Bullying

Online bullying and cyber-stalking is a serious concern especially if the person being bullied is a minor – since social media is a platform where we share so much private information including our photos and personal details there is a lot of scope for falling prey to this.  The inability to handle cyber stalking in the right manner by reporting it and taking further action can really cause someone to sink into depression.

 

2. Constantly questioning ones self-worth

Facebook gives us an invitation into the lives of people we know very well, friends or even acquaintances – the problem is it gives us an invitation only to the best part of their lives. Everybody is constantly posting about their success, happy relationships, travel and perfect lives while it instills in us a sense of uselessness without realising that nobody is posting about their troubles online!

 

3. Increases Anxiety

People who use various social media platforms and constantly keep switching between these applications tend to develop attention deficiency and the inability to focus on a job at hand – this tends to evoke mood related disorders and also increase anxiety which can ultimately lead to depression.

 

4. Prevents you from making actual connections

Being constantly active on social media gives you a false sense of being close to a lot of people – when was the last time you met someone over a cup of coffee? Social media keeps us in this illusion that we have people in our lives even if they are just in the virtual world. This can sometimes make us compromise on actual human connections which would actually make us really lonely.

 

5. Constant need to be clued in

When you develop a huge network of friends online, you feel the constant need to be clued in to what is happening in each of these platforms – this leaves very little time and attention for the rest of very real world things including focusing on work or relationships! When this becomes a habit it definitely tends to become depression.