What can excessive social media do to your health?

Question: My 24-year-old grandson spends many hours glued to his cell phone, as if that were his world. What effect or damage can it cause? He was always introverted and unsociable. Thank you. (Samuel Klicowiscky. CABA)

The new digital technologies are not only here to stay, but also to reorganize the lifestyle by currently be the main resource for personal communicationinformation exchange and work connection.

In 2021, South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han published the essay Non-things in which pointed out some dangers of the accelerated digitalization process, especially for everything that “dematerializes.” There he states: “Instead of storing memories, we store immense amounts of data.”

We try to understand reality through the screen, obstructing the connection with the things that surround us and define us.

And he adds: “Information, as discontinuous units of brief relevance, do not combine to build a story,” dismantling the concept of time, fragmenting life into various parts and generating a lack of interactions in personal life.

Many people spend hours on social networks, looking at the lives of others, forgetting their own and thus risking their mental health.

Tech companies prioritize more Get attention and the participation of users for their profit purposes that consider the consequences on health.

Every image you see, every sound you hear and every word you read are stimuli that trigger psychological effects and chemical reactions in the brain that incite behaviors because of the emotions they generate.

As an example, researchers Meredith David and James Roberts from Baylor University – in a 2023 study – found that 28% of those who used Instagram and 24% who did so on TikTok met the addiction criteria due to the increase in the production of brain dopamine, a key substance in the induction and continuity of all addiction.

Using digital devices before bed can disrupt sleep patterns not only because of the content, but because the blue light emitted by screens interferes with the production of melatonin, the hormone responsible for regulating sleep. And any alteration in sleep quality affects mental health and general well-being.

The habit of endlessly browsing the Internet can be done for many different reasons, but a common denominator usually prevails: feeling in control of a world while most of the time feeling outside of it.

Feelings of isolation, anxiety and depression can then intensify. many users suffer from it, especially – but not exclusively – in adolescents.

Another risk is that the various platforms, by displaying perfect images and lifestyles, can encourage the trap of making harmful comparisons if reality is perceived in such a biased way, affecting the self-esteem and mental health of those vulnerable people.

Many wonder if the perfect images that are shown can contribute to distorting body image and induce disordered eating behavior.

However, the digital world also offers valuable tools and resources for personal growth, creativity and subsequent mental well-being. This requires awareness of its proper use.

Whoever achieves this will be able to have a healthy relationship with the digital world and take advantage of that enormous potential for greater personal and mental development.