Oversharing Online

 In recent years social media has taken over. Now it is not only available on a desk top computer, but in the palm of your hand via smart phones. With this increase in technology and social media use, real concerns on how it can be influencing mental health are being brought up. We will discuss the topic and concerns of social media and its affects on mental health with the help from a few question prompts!

Is there an ideal number of "friends" or connections individuals have on Facebook that can improve their mental health?

Social media sites like Facebook, have unique features that allow you to "friend" or "follow" each other. This is a convenient feature that allows you to get updates and see posts that specific people are uploading. While this is a very fun and favorable trait of these sites, it has shown to have a costly affect on people's mental health. Facebook is often used to help friends and families stay connected while at a distance, but can also be used as an "influencing" platform. The more that people are able to get "friends" and "followers" on social media, the more that they feel obligated to produce content and please others. In the article  Too many Facebook Friends?, they found that an increased amount of followers can increase your body's cortisol (stress hormone) levels (Kowalski, 2015). The pressure of pleasing a large number of social media friends or followers can begin to cause negative self-esteem or confidence in users, and overall negatively impact users' mental health.

What factor might influence whether Facebook has negative influences, like links with depression, versus positive results, such as boosts in self-esteem?

Facebook, like many other social media sites has a "like" feature and a comment section option. These two features have the opportunity to both boost self-esteem, and to create negative self thoughts. Seeing how many people enjoy your social media posts is an instant gratification that can be very rewarding. Seeing that the majority of your followers are pleased with your posts can make you feel very good about yourself and the work going into your social media content. This can also create stress and anxiety in people as well. Seeing that a post you put a lot of work into creating did not do as well as others on your profile can be very discouraging and cause sadness in many users. While a decreased amount of likes does not always mean your followers dislike it (they could have missed your post all together), it is often the mindset we have. 

Having comments available on social media posts can create another category of both pros and cons to self confidence. Comments can give another unique way to communicate online. Followers can express emotions like approval, gratitude, pleasure, disappointment, and anger within the comment section. Users get most of their feedback from the comments their followers leave letting know what they can change to better satisfy their audience. Positive comments can boost your self-esteem and give users confidence in their content. Arguably, negative comments stand out more and have a higher impact than the positive ones. Negative and hateful comments can eat away at people's confidence and create anxiety and even depression amongst users. The separation of a screen between social medias users creates a dynamic that is not seen in facet-to-face interactions. It causes users to be more willing to post rude and unnecessary hate in the comments with the shelter of their screen. This aspect of  Facebook and other social media platforms heightens anxiety and depression in users and impacts people's mental health negatively.