Ted Talk- Bailey Parnell

Today I watched a Ted Talk on Youtube in which a woman named Bailey Parnell talks about the possible effects that social media has on us 'Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health?'. 

I found this Ted Talk extremely useful to watch as I was able to see how badly social media can effect us if we let it, but how to prevent these negative impacts from happening and make social media a better place for yourself. I was also able to gather some statistics which I found useful, some of them were often quite heavy.

Bailey starts by mentioning how she went on a 4 day vacation with her sister in which she decided to turn her phone off as it was her first non work related vacation in 4 years...meaning she hadn't been completely disconnected from social media in these 4 years. 

Over the trip she found herself needing to check her phone all the time, for example when she saw something nice her first instinct was to capture it on her phone but of course she couldn't. It wasn't till the 4th day of her vacation that she felt completely comfortable without her phone, this got her thinking about the impacts social media has on us...

Some important points that I gathered after this point:

• 18-24 year olds happen to be the most active on social media 
• It was found that the top 3 diagnoses on university campuses was 1. Anxiety, 2. Depression and 3. Stress. Numerous studies have linked high levels of social media use to these issues 
• We spend at least 2 hours a day on social media, we don’t even spend 2 hours eating food... shows how we make it at priority 

Bailey then leads to discussing the 4 stressors on social media:

• 1.Highlight reel- a collection of the best and brightest moments that we chose to show on social media, however we compare our highlight reels to other people’s highlight reels that we think are ‘better’ ? E.g why is she on a beach and I’m just sat here watching Netflix? The highlight reel is Personal to us

• 2. Social currency- the likes, the comments and the shares have become a sort of ‘currency’ just like money currency by which we give value to something, in marketing they call it the ‘economy of attention’. In social media we act as the product and the likes are the currency, for example people often delete posts because they didn’t get enough likes fast enough aka we took the product of the shelf because it wasn’t selling fast enough 

• 3. Fear of missing out (F.O.M.O)- a real form of social anxiety, statistics showed that 7/10 students would get rid of their social networking accounts if it wasn’t for fear of being left “out of the loop”. It is normal to have the urge to delete your social media accounts 

• 4. Online harassment- 40% of online adults have experienced online harassment, 73% have witnessed it, 100% of the time, it is worse if you are female, LGBTQ or a person of colour. Online harassment can be classed as as small as a friend taking a screenshot of an embarrassing photograph and posting it to social media, however when these micro moments happen repeatedly they become a macro problem. These everyday instances need to be acknowledged before they become macro problems 

Social media is like an addiction- with every like you get a shot of that ‘feel good’ chemical, you gain more of that social currency, we get anxious if we don’t have anxious to it.

The Canadian association of mental health found that as young as grade 7-12 who spent over 2 hours per day on social media reported higher depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, this is as young as 12 years old

However, Bailey then goes on to talk about the fact she actually loves social media and that it’s not going to go anywhere... abstinence is not an option but that you can ‘practice safe social'.

Social media is neither good or bad, it’s just the most recent tool we use to tell stories and communicate. So when we talk about the ‘dark side’ of social media, what we’re really talking about is the ‘dark side’ of people aka the dark side of insecurity that we have, the dark side that makes us compare ourselves to others etc

This then leads to the discussion of the 4 steps to social media wellness:

• 1. Recognise the problem, be aware of the social media effects if and when they happen 

• 2. Audit your social media diet- monitor what goes into your head and heart, e.g ‘how many times do I check how many likes I got?’ ‘Why am I responding this way to that photo?’ And then ask yourself if you’re happy with the results...

• 3. Create a better online experience- unfollow all of the accounts that make you feel insecure about yourself, remove all the accounts that have a negative impact on your self esteem. This could be celebrities and icons or as close and personal as certain friends.

• 4. Model good behaviour- offline were taught to treat others how we want to be treated, apply this online as well.

Social media can tear you down OR lift you up, it’s how you use it.