Bailey Parnell spoke at TEDxRyersonU in February 2017. She was talking on the subject of “Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health?” In short, she says it doesn’t have to be. I couldn’t agree more. She opens with an inner dialogue of scrolling through social media to show the toxic thought process. She gives a personal anecdote of when she woke up to how social media was making her feel. It was a 4 day trip to Jasper with no social media. She reflects on being anxious without it and this created a change for her. Parnell highlights research from The Centre of Collegiate Mental health that connects the usage of social media to an uptick in disorders such as depression and anxiety.

In her master’s research, she studies social media after these experiences. She states that she is young enough to grow up with social media but old enough to critique it, which is exactly what she does. She highlights four main stressors that she found in her research.

  1. Highlight reel: She sees social media as only a personal highlight real and warns that you are comparing yourself to a perfect life that isn’t the truth.
  2. Social currency: This is defined as how we have attributed value to likes and attention which can be defined as the “economy of attention”. On social media, we are the product that is assigned value.
  3. Fear of missing out (FOMO): This phenomenon is what keeps most on social media. The fear of being out of the loop. It keeps you coming back over and over because social media humour and trends are so ingrained in society that without them, you are forced to feel left out.
  4. Online harassment:
    1. 40% of online adults experienced online harassment
    2. 73% have witnessed online harassment
    3. Micro-moments that happen over time become a macro moment

Parnell then goes on to say that humans are addicted to social media. The dopamine response that it creates and the withdrawals that we feel when we can’t use it couple to create the perfect storm. She offers steps to help curb this addiction:

  1. Recognize the problem
  2. Audit your social media diet
    1. Ask yourself if the scroll made you feel better
  3. Create a better social media experience
  4. Model good behaviour

She closes by saying that social media is not good or bad. It is just “the most recent tool to do what we have always done”. That in fact, social media isn’t bad but that it only brings out “the dark side of people”. 

 

Overall, I loved the ted talk. I think it is important to take responsibility for your conduct online, as well as, the experience you are creating for yourself.  Social media isn’t the bad guy, but instead, it is a tool that makes people disregard basic kindness, or expectations of life, or even priorities that lie outside of the digital world. Take time to reflect on how you use social media and how those that you follow use it.  

 

 The video is well worth a watch!Â