Is Social Media Affecting our Mental Health?

Submitted by Sam Redgate-Large on Fri, 13/12/2019 - 11:56
Audio: 

Social media has been in our lives for a long time now. Most of us are familiar with it, but is social media having a positive effect on our lives or is it becoming a negative?

I interviewed Ross Albury, a senior advisor within Navigo's open mind services, Luke Roberts, a full time software developer who has left social media and Aleksander Batista, a graphic design student with a love for social media to find out more about the impacts on social media. 

Who do you side with on this topic? Do you believe social media is the problem, or you believe it's our online personalities that create a hostile environment?   

Comment below!

Music: Thanks to Patrick Spence-Lewis for producing it.
www.instagram.com/wearequentin/

Photograph: Shutterstock images 
www.shutterstock.com

And of course a big thank you to Ross, Aleks and Luke for their time.

Tags: 

Comments

Dave (not verified)

Fri, 13/12/2019 - 12:00

Thought provoking and some very good observations.

Luke (not verified)

Fri, 13/12/2019 - 12:07

Being a part of and listening to this really made me evaluate my own opinions and understand other people's opinions on the topic - really interesting!

Erin (not verified)

Fri, 13/12/2019 - 12:09

A very relevant and important topic today. Very interesting to hear the various opinions on this.

Liz (not verified)

Fri, 13/12/2019 - 15:04

I do think social media can affect a persons mental health. I agreed with Luke people can become upset if they don’t receive enough likes, then they start to question themselves. That can be very negative. People can also say things over social media about people , that normally they wouldn’t say , that can be negative too. I quite admire Luke for coming off it.

Amanda (not verified)

Fri, 13/12/2019 - 17:25

Frightens me to death that my child has a different persona when he is hidden behind the screen. Social media also leaves digital history on your thought and feelings at the time that can have negative consequences later in life and is difficult to remove the original source.

Jaron (not verified)

Fri, 13/12/2019 - 18:41

An interesting discussion, I don’t think social media itself or the persona we make on it is the problem, just when people misuse or overuse it. It becomes so much easier to keep scrolling than to deal with real life situations.

Ollie Hopewell

Fri, 13/12/2019 - 18:43

Serial UK with Sam Redgate-Large! An informative, thought-provoking, and interesting podcast, I think you're past blogs about social media played well into your audio piece. My one criticism would be that there needs to be more variation in the music you have used; though the track is the right tone for most of your recording there are areas where different audio styles would be better suited. A nice rhetorical conclusion and a really good listen, nice work, Sam!

Jake (not verified)

Fri, 13/12/2019 - 19:46

I believe that the people are collectively to blame and we all play a part in that. We only show off what we’re best at, the highlight reel of our life. That’s what makes social media so important to so many people, the chance to show off, social media gives them the platform to do it.

Rohan (not verified)

Fri, 13/12/2019 - 22:22

Social Media is definitely affecting our mental state because it encourages some kind of self-obsession. It's something that these companies could not have predicted before they rolled out these websites but now companies should try and implement small changes such as removing likes so that people aren't pressured to compare their likes with others, and keeping the platform healthier.

Oliver Eaton

Fri, 13/12/2019 - 22:48

Social Media will become the biggest contributer to mental health, if it isn't already. Despite their 13 age ratings, I think you'll struggle to find many 9-10 year olds who are not on at least 1 social media site. I'm sure most people (including myself) use social media to present a small window into your personal life, however you choose what content people get to see of you thus generating your online personality. People may say that they are being 100% real on social media but the lack of poor photos or true feelings when down suggests overwise. Therefore linking back to mental health, I think there is an automatic pressure to look good in the eyes of your friends and what comes with that is feeling anxious or left out if you don't get the response you want.

Paddinho (not verified)

Sun, 15/12/2019 - 13:37

A very interesting podcast with broad points of view. Social media is definitely positive but people just miss use it and let it affect them. Also, who's the musical genius?

Amy Louise Tough

Sun, 15/12/2019 - 19:14

checking social media is like breathing to me, I’ll just look at Instagram/twitter and Facebook without realising that I’m doing it. I think looking at people on social media who have edited their photos can make you think why don’t I look like that, when In reality the majority of the time influencers don’t actually look like that. As an impressionable young female it’s difficult to not feel bad about yourself when you’re surrounded by all these accounts of beautiful women therefore encouraging us to want to get things like lip fillers, veneers etc, then again I don’t think I’d ever be able to delete it, love how informative this piece was and the original music was great, really enjoyed listening

Oscar Lyttle

Mon, 16/12/2019 - 17:35

Top Podcast This Mate!! Great structure. Clearly a lot of thought has gone into it and a very good listen. The content is also highly engaging. Social media is unavoidable these days with every generation getting involved with it in different ways. As good as social media can be a fantastic way to communicate and relax with your friends, I do believe that it is having more of a negative impact on our lives. The concepts of anxiety, loneliness and a decrease in social skills are heavily influenced by this rise of social media and this is raised during the podcast. Nice work mate!

Andrew (not verified)

Tue, 17/12/2019 - 17:15

Very interesting discussion Sam, I found the conversation with Ross particuarly interesting, highlighting that further issues of feeling left out might results from a hard break with social media.

Annie Blackburn

Tue, 17/12/2019 - 21:05

I believe that social media is affecting our mental health in the sense that we are all so attached to our devices and care so much about there people's opinions on the things we post. I think a world without social media would result in so many less people suffering from different mental health issues.

Niamh Griffiths

Tue, 17/12/2019 - 21:06

i totally agree that social media is affecting our mental health as i for one know what it is like to focus on what other people think bout me instead of putting my thoughts first. Really good podcast to listen and relate to.

Isheanesu Mutyambizi

Thu, 19/12/2019 - 10:50

A lot of people are addicted to social media and very time consuming. The amount of information we get and see on social media is taken by most as facts which then impacts their view. It has its advantages of-course but with the times we are living in, its become more gloom.

Louis George Edwards

Thu, 19/12/2019 - 13:12

I would agree to a certain extent that Social media is affecting people's mental health, but I think this is mainly because people surround themselves with others that judge people based on their instagram profile. Personally I've never had friends like that therefore I never think much about what I post online. I guess I use social media in a very different way, I don't follow many people but instead accounts based around things that I like, therefore I knwo when I'm on social media I'm going to see more stuff that I'm interested in rather than self-centred people who love to flaunt how amazing their lives are and get thousands of likes. I'm very much behind Instagram removing the amount of likes you get from other people's profiles. Therefore people don't judge themselves against these people. BY doing that I think it could help the problem significantly.

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