TikTok, Social Media and Its Usage: The Effects on Mental Health

Abstract:

Nowadays social media plays a vital role in everyone’s lifestyle because of its ease of transmission of information which covers mass population. It provides facility of such platforms on which each one of us can update anything in a way that others can see and track what others are doing. It is very common in celebrity clubs too; even they also using to influence their fans. From productive view it is very helpful but social scientists are worried about its overuse in youth; they just use such things just to pass the time, in that time they are getting involved in such activities that their main goal gets aside and their paths are changed. Article covers some examples of how things are changed when anybody overuse social media.

The easy access of internet services helped social media platform set their position across the globe. These platforms have really helped people to overcome some challenges of communication such as geographical, information transmission and so on. Nowadays it very normal to see daily updates of people, daily news, trend, shopping, bookings, trading like everything through such platforms with the help of any smart device having internet service and applicable OS. However, such technologies really helped us to stay connected but overuse of these, is really harmful as it made them lazier. It is true that our time is saved for getting something with the help of internet and such social media applications but there is always a flip side of the coin.

Before this era, people used to go meet offline, attend family functions, and stay closed with friends-family members, neighbors. People who passed that era are now feeling free to share their problems with their closed ones. In that era, they were contented with their need, especially, they never get jealous by anyone, and they used to enjoy their own world. Even they did invest their time to read from hard stuff, adopting creative hobbies such as photography, drawing, music and so on. These activities kept people engaging with others which helped them meet new people in a way that social need of belongingness get satisfied and jealousy, loneliness never came into the picture.

After people were introduced to social media platforms, the scenario is completely changed, the advancement of such technologies was supposed to keep people connected but the objective doesn’t meet the outcome. People has misinterpreted its advantageous and kept their overuse. Social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Tiktok and many others for different needs, are commonly used by those having internet services.

Nowadays, people using WhatsApp for sharing humors, wishes, updating daily stories, sharing quotes, chatting, calling and video conferencing; Facebook for sharing new thoughts, uploading pictures, sharing memories, advertising, selling, chatting, political controversy, daily news. These things are absolutely right in a way but users are found so much busy in these platforms just to ‘stay updated’. The overuse of such thigs made them feel jealous, loneliness, feeling depressed, having fear of sharing something and so on.

One research study on undergraduate youth which was about: ‘is social media influencing one’s behavior?’ Students using such platform significantly, are found feeling loneliness, jealousy, having fear of meeting new people, having less friends and depressed even cannot focus on study as well. Students having less use of it found spontaneous, part of a larger group, never feel shy in front of anyone, can easily share problems to friends, and are good in study. How social media changed lifestyle and overcome to people heads. It is true that people overusing social media are shy, lonely, jealous, having fear and made them less connected with highly updated. Here the objective of ‘stay connected’ got replaced by ‘stay updated’ and that’s where all issues are come into picture.

The answer to why ‘stay updated’ came is the presentation of posts and stories. These social media platforms had designed comparative structure of posting update which made people to compare themselves with others and human psychology tends to behave accordingly, people feel jealousy when they get less ‘likes & comments’ than their friends on Facebook. To get more active accounts, social media applications keep updating their levels in a way that when somebody post something, that post becomes an equipment to ‘showoff’ something to another one and one tries to post something more attractive than that; that’s where jealousy comes in picture. Before that there were no such platforms to ‘show-off’ so people used to talk in usual way whereas people now tries to show themselves something extra with the help of such platforms. Like Facebook, Instagram has such comments, likes and share options in which people can see who likes whose post, who is commented by whom and based on that they judge one and compare themselves with one. Unlike Facebook, Instagram used terminology of ‘Followers’ and ‘Following’ and segregate both of them. If ‘A’ follows ‘B’ but ‘B’ is not followed by ‘A’, they came out with poor judgement that A is having ‘ego’, in a result ‘B’ unfollows ‘A’ as to show ‘ego’ in reply. These active users have set parameter just to judge one. Previously, people used to talk offline and tried to know one’s attitudes and values with spending some time together whereas now they don’t care about it and make direct judgment based on one’s social media activity. Even mass media platforms such as newspaper, TV channel promote these activities; even they do same thing too. They makes headlines titling ‘Why ‘A’ unfollowed ‘B’ and so on. The presentation of such things on social media, the text these platforms use, the structure and many other things make them do so.

Snapchat keep bringing such lens to catch a picture, active users on snapchat judge one based on their style of catching picture. Normally, it is used to keep daily updates which can be seen by one’s friends just to know how they doing. But a bad habit of judging people based on one’s social media activity lead them to judge one based on how good one is taking snaps and showcasing them. This bad habit make them feel jealous than other, and shyness, fear come into head. It happens because of less amount of time spending with friends, spending more time just to see social media activity, fewer amounts of creative activities such as drawing, writing, photography etc.

Nowadays, something called Tiktok became most popular in India among all age group Tiktok provides platform where users of Tiktok can upload their small dramatic video which gives a small message to viewers. Tiktok facilitates cinematic presentation of these videos in a way that catches attention of each viewer. The application makes busy all viewers to see videos meanwhile Tiktok video makers are found busy in making videos, they use their valuable time just to make videos since famous Tiktok stars get offers from film producers. And that’s how users and video makers are kept busy with Tiktok but they forget that such mentally harmful feelings are increasing because of its overuse.

That’s how social media has made people ‘stay updated’ instead of ‘stay connected’. People who know the right use of it and actually doing, got succeeded and could really ‘stay connected’. People who use these things just to get felt jealous, loneliness, is less likely to ‘stay connected’. The use of social media decides whether one is ‘connected’ or just ‘updated’.

Spending extra time for social media doesn’t make sense rather one can invest that time to do some creative, productive at least do something which can change routine. The solution for the addiction is to set timer for the use of social media and gradually one can reduce huge amount of time s/he used to spend then, so that extra time can be invested in such a beneficial way. there are no doubts that social media helps us to stay updated, track what others are doing, what is the new trend but that doesn’t mean to make social media everything for oneself or spend extra time on such things.

The overuse of such things can be controlled with social media diet. One study found out students spend 2 to 3 hours just to stay updated were having feeling of depression, loneliness. The reason behind that was they are totally involved to look what others are doing, how well they perform on social media and meanwhile they forget their capabilities, compare themselves, tried to do same thing that others did and forget their ambitions; then they realize they had not done any productive things; that’s how feeling of depression comes. People who regulated their use to 30 minutes in a day are found open minded, free to share problems, having optimistic view. Since these people spend less time on social media, they can have more time to do other creative activities through which one can engage with anybody, they talk face-to-face regularly, they are able to understand one’s feelings and can easily decide one’s values and attitudes. If one reduce time spends on social media significantly (around 45 min. in a day), one will be able to make new friends, avoid loneliness, depression and make optimistic decisions; for that a perfect social media diet is to be followed so that saved time can be used to do other things too, and one can improve.

Social media is supposed to help people connected but users of it had mistaken the objective and make it as an instrument of showing something extra, however, somewhere the design of social media platforms make them to do so.