In addition, social media may cause feelings of stress, anxiety, or depression if you find yourself comparing other people's lives to yours. Even though you may be talking to friends, social media limits your capacity for face-to-face interactions and makes you spend less time out in the real world and more time on your phone or computer. Remember that social media is a sedentary behavior. That means knowing when to take a break and direct your attention elsewhere. To ensure that social media has a positive impact on your health, it's important to be conscious of how you're using it. "On the other hand, social media is often associated with cyberbullying, social comparison, and other phenomena that can be detrimental to our health and wellbeing." "On one hand, it helps us stay connected to each other and combat loneliness, which could be good for our health since studies have shown that social isolation and loneliness can negatively impact health," Chaudhary says.
Why it's important to take a break from social mediaįrom a health perspective, social media is a double-edged sword, says Neha Chaudhary, MD, child and adolescent psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.