How Do We Deal With Social Media Stress?

Our new age of information resides almost solely on a screen. As beneficial that can be (specifically for data accessibility and networking), it’s opened a new channel for stress. Your phone can seem charming at times and can lead to a negative effect on your mental health. Online usage can be classified as an addiction. How should we deal with it? Let’s dive into this topic. 

Before we talk about potential solvency, it’s essential to identify the causes of screen-related anxiety. As a frequent user myself, I’ve come into contact with the majority of the most common instances. For starters, posting can be challenging. Activists like Gary Vaynerchuk preach that the internet’s opinions don’t matter, but that concept is difficult for most to execute. While it’s true that self-love should be adopted, exposing yourself to the internet can be too daunting. Essentially, the fear that your post will be received poorly is very stressful, and it can lead to posting anxiety. 

Posting stress is not fun to deal with. The solution? Putting down your phone. This sounds very clique, but it’s the best action that you can take in this situation. Unlike other forms of stress, it’s entirely under your control. Posting anxiety can be dismantled in a few ways. First of all, the concept is ludicrous. Realistically, what’s the worst thing that can happen? If an unknown internet dweller chooses to leave a hate comment, it’ll likely have no lasting effect on your life.

Secondly, your perspective of yourself doesn’t always mirror that of others. Most of your followers won’t notice that pimple you worry about, or your “unnatural” pose. While we expect that kind of judgment to be bestowed upon us, it ever really happens. Finally, posting anxiety is avoidable if you simply choose to ignore the analytics themselves. Nothing requires you to check your phone, so a detox from the screen can truly put things into perspective. The most significant step is realizing that your phone life doesn’t always transfer to the real world. 

Asides from judgment-related anxiety, the issue of unrealistic standards is exceptionally prominent. It’s important to realize that everything on social media is filtered to some extent because everybody wants to put their best foot forward. Whether it be through filters, hundreds of discarded photos (in conjunction with the one that is posted), nobody posts a picture without considering how it makes them look. This applies specifically to models. A lot of insecurity stems from this idea that models are ideal, yet this is simply not true. Most Instagram posts are edited beyond recognition, so no emphasis should be put on the comparison. 

Social media anxiety isn’t fun to deal with, and it certainly isn’t an ideal way to allocate your stress. As digital media’s prominence continues to grow, we must consider our health before diving into the online world.