Share your thoughts on Social Media

Italia

Hey Everyone,

Chris, The Mix's CEO is doing a bit of thinking about social media and mental health. We know there are lots of good things about social media, and also things that could be done better.

We would love to hear your thoughts on two questions below.

1. What are the best things about social media (in terms of mental health)?
2. If you could change anything about social media to promote better mental wellbeing what would it be?

Please tell us what you think - and as always we will post here what we hear from other young people and what comes out of the conversation. Hopefully, with all our voices together we can have some influence and create a better world for our mental health.

Talie

Former Member

1.) Spreading awareness of mental health and creating positive role models.
2.) More needs to be done by the sites and the administrators to block racist, homophobic hate etc. I feel like, to create a social media account, there should be requirements to attach personal info so that there are consequences for comments like this.

Former Member

Hey @Italia!

This is so exciting! I hope the community can help provide some insight

What are the best things about social media (in terms of mental health)?
For me, the best thing about social media in terms of mental health is how empowering and uplifting it can be! I don't have a much personal social media, but I use Beyond The Stigma's accounts to follow other pages - I mostly follow ones about mental health and so my Instagram feed is full of empowering quotes, people posting self-care tips, and raising awareness!

As well as this, I've learnt so much about mental health! There are soooo many awareness days/weeks/months and it's more than likely at least one page on social media is talking about each one at any given time. They share so many facts, statistics and real life stories that I'm always learning so much which is amazing.

Another thing is that social media has (and can) be used to create positive change - there are hundreds of thousands on people challenging stigma everyday, or fighting for better mental health funding from the government. It can be a place that really get things done.

If you could change anything about social media to promote better mental wellbeing what would it be?
I think one thing that could be changed about social media to promote better mental well-being, is when people comment harmful/trolling comments. These comments are not only harmful to the poster, but those who come to read them. For example, its currently Pride (which is amazing, happy Pride everyone!) but when someone comments homophobic or transphobic comments etc. they're there for everyone to see too, which can be unempowering.

If there were more strict guidelines on social media against this, it could make social media a much more healthy place to be. This could also be combatted by educating people more too on the impact a comment can have, and protecting social media users from hate groups!

AislingDM

LOVE THIS and super important because the internet is ever-changing, we want to keep up-to-date with how users experience and navigate it

BEST:

Allows one to develop an understanding of how mental health needs can present differently in different people. For example, there has been lots of really informative TikToks about how young Black girls and AFAB people can have their symptoms of mental health needs and neurodivergence written-off as them being 'disruptive' in school settings which is 1) racist 2) completely prevents these children/young people from accessing support and can be really demoralising. Without the fast information-sharing of the internet, people may not have been able to share these experiences with as wide of an audience. Hopefully by seeing these TikToks, young Black girls will identify with some of these creators and be able to recognise how different symptoms might present differently/similarly for them.

WORST:

there are so many, including all which have been stated already which are way more important, but I'll write about one that I personally find to be anxiety-inducing. The internet makes it seem like we are always available 24/7, whether that applies to socialising or working, it's pretty messed up. You see friends getting mad at each other because 'i saw you were recently active on insta' or employers thinking it's okay to email staff after hours with work requests, just because we CAN see these things now, doesn't mean we should.

Another one is messed up algorithms which companies control and it allows certain creators to be prevented from gaining a large following, this particularly applies to marginalised creators and creators who dedicate much of their space to activism.

Azziman

The best thing about social media for mental health in my view has to be the supportive communities that you can create. Having that space to discuss issues, support others and draw motivation can be really powerful. It takes a lot of work to create that environment, but from what I gather from friends, once it's created it's really valuable to those involved in the communities!x

In terms of what I'd change, I think we all have to have a think about how we're going to regulate these spaces that over a billion people use and interact with every day - it's a very new challenge for humanity to figure out something on this scale! It's a megaproblem that I think underpins our ability to improve our relationship with social media.