Instagram Gives Me Anxiety: 5 Tips To Manage Discomfort
If social networks are the stage where we display our personal world, Instagram is, surely, the greatest representative of this trend.
Many people use the platform to expose their lives to others, or to discover the new tourist destination or success that an influencer has had. The problem is that all this can make us uncomfortable, especially if it is something that we would like to have and that, unfortunately, we do not have.
This makes many people think of the phrase: “Instagram makes me anxious.” How is it possible that a mobile application affects us so much? Let’s look at it below and what we can do about it.
Social networks are part of our lives, both personal and work. Since they became popular in the first decade of the 21st century, especially with the appearance of greats like YouTube and Facebook, there have been many new websites that have tried to emulate the formula. These social networks invaded the lives of their users even more when they made the leap to smart phones The one that has turned out to be the most personally invasive, also affecting the mental health of its users, has been, without a doubt, Instagram.
Appeared in 2010, acquired by Facebook in 2012 and expanding rapidly since that year, Instagram has become the stage on which all kinds of vanity scenes are represented. Every day, its nearly 800 million users, mostly teenagers and adults aged 20 to 30, publish nearly 80 million photographs, with an average interaction of 3.5 billion “likes” and 40 billion “shares.” .
“Insta”, as we users call it, has become the network in which young people receive all kinds of content that may affect your body image, self-esteem and, in some cases, mental health in general. Wanting to emulate the lifestyle of “influencers” makes us feel a not at all healthy envy, which does not allow us to know how to value what we already have, feeling great anxiety as a result.
To top, Instagram algorithm doesn’t help This artificial intelligence is designed so that those images and “stories” appear to us that have to do with our tastes and previous searches. For example, if you search for videos of dogs, you will get photos and videos of puppies, special accounts dedicated to dogs, and similar content.
The problem is that most of us look for things related to image and travel, or in general aspects that are related to a wish that we would like to fulfill in the future. Furthermore, and even if accidentally, the simple fact of gossiping about the image of a famous person without a shirt, while traveling in Hawaii and putting below the typical comment of “here, suffering”, causes hundreds of images of other famous people to appear. in separate tourist destinations with similar phrases. So it is normal for Instagram to give us anxiety, because In certain cases it encourages us to feel bad about our lives
Impact of the app on mental health
To find out the impact of social networks on mental health, especially on the appearance of anxiety disorders and depression, the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) and the Young Health Movement (YHM) studied a group of 1,500 users. British people aged between 14 and 24. According to the research, The most harmful network for mental health was Instagram, and it was mainly related to anxiety, lack of sleep and depression
The young people themselves recognized that Instagram, where they were exposed to all types of idealized photographs, had a very negative effect on their body image. In addition, it was common for a phenomenon known as FoMO to occur: the Fear of Missing Out or Fear of Missing Something. They were afraid that, by uninstalling it or stopping watching the “stories”, they would miss something and that this would isolate them a bit from the peer group.
How to deal with this anxiety?
Social networks have helped us communicate, but also, as we were already commenting, to have negative feelings, especially when they are misused.
Anxiety is a psychological state that in some cases becomes pathological, a symptom of a disorder that has already formed or is developing People who present it can do so for different reasons, in which genetics and environment are mixed. It may be that you have a very dysfunctional relationship with your family, you may have experienced a traumatic experience or other types of stressful events.
These situations, although they can be overcome with proper psychological help, are something that is part of the patient’s life, and they cannot erase the traumatic event from their memory or completely separate themselves from their family. On the other hand, “Insta” is something that we can keep away from our lives, since most of us can get rid of this application without our lives going to hell. Below we will see some tips on how to manage the anxiety caused by Instagram.
1. Control time
We may spend hours glued to the application This may seem surprising, but if we go to the menu and look where it says “Your activity” we can see the number of minutes we have dedicated each day during the last week, and the average in total.
Instagram has enabled an option to avoid spending time with the application, being able to request a “pop-up” to appear when we spend more time than we want to dedicate to it. It should be said that it does not prevent us from using the application, but it does help us keep in mind when we are overdoing it.
2. The Insta in his time
A good option to not be glued to Instagram all the time and take up time, while at the same time causing us more discomfort seeing all kinds of influencers being “super happy” is to have a specific time to look at the app.
He Instas in due time. We can set aside an hour in the afternoon, after doing homework or working, to dedicate some time to the application After the hour, Instagram closes.
3. Distinguish between the real and virtual world
What appears on social networks is not reality. Reality is on the street, not in the live shows, the “stories” and the photos with Instagram filters
The perfect life that famous and not so famous people say they have through the networks does not exist. Okay, the trip to Hawaii makes us envious, but did you have that much fun on that trip? Were you happy the whole time?
People are roller coasters of emotions, and “influencers” are people too. They may have fulfilled some of their dreams, but they are still mortal and Your Instagram life is like makeup: it covers what’s behind it
4. Identify the problem
Everyone uses social media differently, and not all people who suffer from anxiety due to Instagram have a serious problem, although it is advisable to stop using it for a while.
If you are one of those who feel the need to look at the application almost every half hour, while you are studying or working, it is interrupting your obligations.
Furthermore, if the first thing you do when you wake up is pick up your cell phone and gossip about each and every one of the “stories”, while you should be getting ready for the day, You are doing the same thing that smokers do when they wake up: being a slave to an addiction
The “likes”, the views and keeping an eye on what the “crush” or the ex has posted are factors that can be interpreted as meters of our popularity and happiness, but they are nothing more than symptoms that we have a problem and We should consider seeking help.
5. Uninstall it
Lastly, and perhaps the most obvious of tips, is to uninstall the application. It is not an easy task, since FoMO is something that makes it very difficult for us to make this decision.
But, and in relation to the previous advice, if we have a serious problem, if our self-esteem, our body image and our mental health are being harmed Because of “Insta”, it is best to close the account. Let’s not let an application destroy our lives.
