Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health? | Bailey Parnell | TEDxRyersonU — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Translator: MARIA TIAKA Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
2. 0:10I'm fat.
3. 0:13Wow, I'm fat.
4. 0:15She's only nineteen years old, what am I doing with my life?
5. 0:19Hey! Two likes! Nice.
6. 0:21Do I like this photo?
7. 0:24Does she really need more likes?
8. 0:26I hope I'm going to be invited to the wedding.
9. 0:29One more like, nice!
10. 0:31Welcome to the internal monologue of a typical social media scroll.
11. 0:36A monologue that so many of us have every day,
12. 0:39but we don't think about it, we don't talk about it.
13. 0:42In fact, many of us can't even recognize it happening.
14. 0:46I'm Bailey Parnell,
15. 0:48and I will discuss the unintended consequences
16. 0:50social media is having on your mental health.
17. 0:53I will show you what's stressing you out every day,
18. 0:55what it's doing to you,
19. 0:56and how you can craft a better experience for yourself online.
20. 1:02Just over a year ago,
21. 1:03my sister and I took a four-day vacation to Jasper, Alberta.
22. 1:08This was the first no-work vacation I had taken in four years.
23. 1:12On this vacation, I was going dark.
24. 1:16I was turning on airplane mode, no email and no social media.
25. 1:21The first day there,
26. 1:22I was still experiencing phantom vibration syndrome.
27. 1:25That's where you think your phone went off,
28. 1:27and you check and it didn't.
29. 1:29I was checking incessantly.
30. 1:30I was distracted in conversation.
31. 1:32I was seeing these gorgeous sights Jasper had to offer,
32. 1:35and my first reaction was to take out my phone
33. 1:37and post it on social.
34. 1:39But of course it wasn't there.
35. 1:42The second day was a little bit easier.
36. 1:44You might be thinking I'm ridiculous,
37. 1:46but I hadn't been completely disconnected in over four years.
38. 1:50This was practically a new experience again.
39. 1:53It wasn't until the fourth day I was there
40. 1:55that I was finally comfortable without my phone.
41. 1:58I was sitting with my sister, literally on the side of this mountain,
42. 2:01when I started thinking to myself:
43. 2:03"What is social media doing to me?
44. 2:05What is it doing to my peers?"
45. 2:07That was only four days, and it was anxiety-inducing,
46. 2:10it was stressful and it resulted in withdrawals.
47. 2:14That's when I started to ask questions
48. 2:17and have since started my master's research into this subject.
49. 2:21I've worked in social marketing primarily in higher education
50. 2:24for most of my career.
51. 2:26That means I work with a lot of 18- to 24-year-olds,
52. 2:30which also happens to be
53. 2:31the most active demographic on social media.
54. 2:34The other thing you need to know about me
55. 2:36is that I'm young enough to have grown up with social media,
56. 2:40but just old enough to be able to critically engage with it
57. 2:42in a way that twelve-year-old me probably couldn't.
58. 2:45My life is social media: personally, professionally and academically.
59. 2:49If it was doing this to me, what was it doing to everyone else?
60. 2:55I immediately found out I wasn't alone.
61. 2:59The center for collegiate mental health found that the top three diagnoses
62. 3:03on University campuses are anxiety, depression and stress.
63. 3:08Numerous studies from the US, Canada, the UK, you name it,
64. 3:11have linked this high social media use
65. 3:14with these high levels of anxiety and depression.
66. 3:17But the scary thing is that high social media use
67. 3:20is almost everyone I know:
68. 3:22my friends, my family, my colleagues.
69. 3:2590% of 18- to 29-year-olds are on social media.
70. 3:31We spend on average two hours a day there.
71. 3:34We don't even eat for two hours a day.
72. 3:3770% of the Canadian population is on social media.
73. 3:42Our voter turnout isn't even 70%.
74. 3:45Anything we do this often is worthy of critical observation.
75. 3:49Anything we spend this much time doing has lasting effects on us.
76. 3:54So let me introduce you
77. 3:56to four of the most common stressors on social media,
78. 3:59that if go unchecked
79. 4:00have potential to become full-blown mental health issues,
80. 4:03and this is by no means an exhaustive list.
81. 4:07Number one: the Highlight Reel.
82. 4:11Just like in sports,
83. 4:12the highlight reel is a collection of the best and brightest moments.
84. 4:16Social media is our personal highlight reel.
85. 4:19It's where we put up our wins, or when we look great,
86. 4:21or when we are out with friends and family.
87. 4:24But we struggle with insecurity
88. 4:25because we compare our behind-the-scenes
89. 4:28with everyone else's highlight reels.
90. 4:30We are constantly comparing ourselves to others.
91. 4:33Yes, this was happening before social media,
92. 4:35with TV and celebrity,
93. 4:37but now it's happening all the time, and it's directly linked to you.
94. 4:42A perfect example I came across in preparation for this talk
95. 4:45is my friend on vacation: 'brb, nap ...'
96. 4:48(Laughter)
97. 4:50'Wait, why can't I afford a vacation?
98. 4:53Why am I just sitting here in my PJ's watching Netflix?
99. 4:56I want to be on a beach.'
100. 4:58Here's the thing, I know her very well.
101. 5:01I knew this was out of the ordinary for her.
102. 5:04I knew she was typically drowning in schoolwork.
103. 5:06But we think, 'Who wants to see that?'
104. 5:09The highlights are what people want to see.
105. 5:11In fact, when your highlights do well,
106. 5:13you encounter the second stressor on social media.
107. 5:16Which is number two: Social Currency.
108. 5:21Just like the dollar, a currency is literally something we use
109. 5:26to attribute value to a good or service.
110. 5:29In social media, these likes, the comments, the shares
111. 5:31have become this form of social currency by which we attribute value to something.
112. 5:36In marketing, we call it the 'Economy of Attention'.
113. 5:39Everything is competing for your attention,
114. 5:41and when you give something a like or a piece of that finite attention,
115. 5:45it becomes a recorded transaction attributing value.
116. 5:48Which is great if you are selling albums or clothing.
117. 5:52The problem is that in our social media,
118. 5:55[WE are the product.]
119. 5:57We are letting others attribute value to us.
120. 6:00You know someone or are someone that has taken down a photo
121. 6:03because it didn't take as many likes as you thought it would.
122. 6:07I'll admit, I've been right there with you.
123. 6:09We took our product off the shelf because it wasn't selling fast enough.
124. 6:15This is changing our sense of identity.
125. 6:17We are tying up our self-worth of what others think about us
126. 6:20and then we are quantifying it for everyone to see.
127. 6:23And we are obsessed.
128. 6:25We have to get that selfie just right, and we will take 300 photos to make sure.
129. 6:30Then we will wait for the perfect time to post.
130. 6:35We are so obsessed
131. 6:36we have biological responses when we can't participate.
132. 6:40Which leads me to the third stressor on social media.
133. 6:43Number three: F.O.M.O.
134. 6:46It's a light phrase we've all thrown around.
135. 6:49F.O.M.O., or the 'fear of missing out', is an actual social anxiety
136. 6:53from the fear that you are missing a potential connection,
137. 6:56event, or opportunity.
138. 6:58A collection of Canadian Universities found that 7/10 students
139. 7:02said they would get rid of their social networking accounts
140. 7:05if it were not for fear of being left 'out of the loop'.
141. 7:08Out of curiosity, how many people here
142. 7:10have, or have considered deactivating your social.
143. 7:14That's almost everyone.
144. 7:17That F.O.M.O. you feel, the highlight reels, the social currency,
145. 7:21those are all results of a relatively 'normal' social media experience.
146. 7:26But what if going on social every day was a terrifying experience?
147. 7:30Where you not just question your self-worth
148. 7:32but you question your safety?
149. 7:34Perhaps the worst stressor on social media is number four:
150. 7:37Online Harassment.
151. 7:4040% of online adults have experienced online harassment.
152. 7:4573% have witnessed it.
153. 7:48The unfortunate reality is that it is much worse and much more likely
154. 7:52if you are a woman, LGBTQ, a person of color, muslim -
155. 7:55I think you get the point.
156. 7:58The problem is that in the news we are seeing these big stories:
157. 8:02The 18-year-old Tyler Clementi,
158. 8:04who took his life after his roommate secretly filmed him kissing another guy
159. 8:08and outed him on Twitter.
160. 8:10We see women like Anita Sarkeesian being close to shamed of the internet
161. 8:14and sent death and rape threats for sharing their feminism.
162. 8:17We see these stories once it is too late.
163. 8:21What about the everyday online harassment?
164. 8:23What about that ugly snapchat you sent your friend
165. 8:26with the intention of it being private, and now it is up on Facebook?
166. 8:29'And so? It's just one photo, it's funny.'
167. 8:32'Just one mean comment, not a big deal.'
168. 8:35But when these micro moments happen over and over again, over time,
169. 8:40that's when we have a macro problem.
170. 8:43We have to recognize these everyday instances as well.
171. 8:46Because if they go unchecked and the effects unnoticed,
172. 8:49we are going to have many more Tyler Clementis.
173. 8:54The effects are not always easy to recognise.
174. 8:56How many of you have noticed the notifications at the top of my screen?
175. 9:00How many of you, like me, are bothered that they're not checked?
176. 9:04Ok, let me check them for you. (Sighs) Okay!
177. 9:10Just one small example of what this can do to you.
178. 9:13Maybe you simply cannot focus because your notifications
179. 9:16are going off the handle, and you need to check.
180. 9:20That need, eventually becomes addiction.
181. 9:24Regarding social media, we are already experiencing
182. 9:26impairment similar to substance dependencies.
183. 9:29With every like, you get a shot of that feel-good chemical, dopamine.
184. 9:33You gain more of that social currency. So what do we do to feel good?
185. 9:37We check likes - just one more time.
186. 9:41We post - just one more time.
187. 9:44We are anxious if we do not have access.
188. 9:47Doesn't that sound like every drug you have ever heard of?
189. 9:50Yeah!
190. 9:52So when that grows,
191. 9:54when your social media use goes unconfronted overtime,
192. 9:56that's when we see the rising levels of anxiety and depression:
193. 9:59the F.O.M.O. the distractions, the highlight reels, the comparisons;
194. 10:03It's a lot, and it's all the time!
195. 10:06The Canadian Association of Mental Health
196. 10:09found that grades 7-12 students who spent two hours a day on social media
197. 10:14reported higher levels of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts.
198. 10:19For those of you doing the math, that's as young as twelve years old.
199. 10:26Here is the thing, I like social media. I do, I love it.
200. 10:31Hearing what I've said today
201. 10:32might make you think I want you to get off of it.
202. 10:35But I don't.
203. 10:36I don't think it's going anywhere,
204. 10:38so I'm not going to waste my time
205. 10:39telling you to spend less time on social media.
206. 10:42Frankly, I don't think absence is an option anymore.
207. 10:45But that does not mean you can't practice 'safe social'.
208. 10:51Everything I have talked about today
209. 10:54has nothing and everything to do with social media.
210. 10:58I mean, social media is neither good nor bad.
211. 11:01It's just the most recent tool we use to do what we have always done:
212. 11:05tell stories and communicate with each other.
213. 11:08You wouldn't blame Samsung Television for a bad TV show.
214. 11:12Twitter doesn't make people write hateful posts.
215. 11:16When we talk about this dark side of social media,
216. 11:18what we really talk about is the dark side of people.
217. 11:21That dark side that makes harassers harass;
218. 11:23that insecurity that makes you take down a photo
219. 11:25you were excited to share.
220. 11:27That dark side that looks at a picture of a happy family and wonders
221. 11:30why yours does not look like that.
222. 11:33So as parents, as educators, as friends, as bosses
223. 11:38this dark side is what we need to focus on.
224. 11:41We need preventative strategies and coping strategies
225. 11:45so that when you have your low days - because you will -
226. 11:48when you're questioning your self-worth, you never get as low as Tyler Clementi -
227. 11:52and the many others like him.
228. 11:55'OK, Bailey, how do you find social media wellness?'
229. 11:59Here's the good news:
230. 12:00Recognising a problem is the first step to fixing it.
231. 12:04So hearing this talk is just that, step one: recognise the problem.
232. 12:08You know the power of suggestion,
233. 12:09when someone tells you about something and you start seeing it everywhere.
234. 12:13That's why awareness is critical.
235. 12:15Because now you will at least be better able to recognise these effects
236. 12:18if and when they happen to you.
237. 12:22The second thing you are going to do is audit your social media diet.
238. 12:27The same way we monitor what goes into our mouth,
239. 12:30monitor whatever goes into your head and heart.
240. 12:32Ask yourself: 'Did that Facebook scroll make me feel better or worse off?'
241. 12:37'How many times do I actually check likes?'
242. 12:40'Why am I responding this way to that photo?'
243. 12:43Then ask yourself if you are happy with the results.
244. 12:45You might be and that's OK!
245. 12:48But if you're not, move on to step three.
246. 12:51Create a better online experience.
247. 12:54After my partner did his audit,
248. 12:56he realised his self-worth was too tied up in social media,
249. 12:59but particularly celebrities reminding him of the things he didn't have.
250. 13:03So he unfollowed all brands and all celebrities.
251. 13:06That worked for him.
252. 13:08But it might not be celebrities for you.
253. 13:10For me, I had to purge other people off my timeline.
254. 13:13Let me tell you a secret.
255. 13:14You do not have to follow your 'friends'.
256. 13:17The truth is that sometimes our friends,
257. 13:19or the people we have on Facebook as a courtesy,
258. 13:23they just suck online!
259. 13:24You find yourself in this passive-aggressive status war
260. 13:27you didn't even know was happening.
261. 13:29Or you are looking at 50 photos of the same concert from the same angle.
262. 13:33(Laughter)
263. 13:35If you want to follow artists, or comedians, or cats,
264. 13:39you can do that.
265. 13:41The last thing you will do is model good behaviour.
266. 13:43Offline we are taught not to bully other kids in the playground.
267. 13:46We are taught to respect others and treat them how they deserve.
268. 13:49We are taught not to kick others when they are down,
269. 13:52or take pleasure in their downfalls.
270. 13:54Social media is a tool.
271. 13:55A tool that can be used for good, for more positive groups,
272. 13:59for revolutions, for putting grumpy cat in Disney movies.
273. 14:03(Laughs)
274. 14:04Internet is a weird place.
275. 14:07Is social media hurting your mental health?
276. 14:09The answer is: it doesn't have to.
277. 14:11Social can tear you down, yes, or it can lift you up,
278. 14:15where you leave feeling better off, or have an actual laugh-out-loud.
279. 14:20Finally, I have 24 hours in a day,
280. 14:22if I spend two of those hours on social media,
281. 14:25then I want my experiences to be full of inspiration, laughs, motivation,
282. 14:29and a whole lot of grumpy cat in Disney movies.
283. 14:33Thank you.
284. 14:34(Applause)