The Psychology of your 20s - 182. Social media is ruining my mental health

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Social media is impacting our mental health in ways we are not ready or willing to acknowledge, and it's time we talk about it. In today's episode we discuss all the psychology of social media and how it is embedded in our social lives, our relationships, our beliefs, our daily routines, our news and our self worth. We break down how social media was designed to be addictive, how it captures more of our time than we think, the differences between people who have been on social media for over 10 years versus who have never been and what we can do about it. We also discuss the role of algorithms and misinformation. There is so much negativity spread online and innate need to compare ourselves to others, but I also believe we can have a positive and moderated relationship with these platforms. Listen now.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s. To begin with, I have a new microphone. My last one broke. I feel like a few of you noticed it in a few of the last episodes. It was just like not doing its job. It wasn't working out for me. So I have this new one. I'm hoping that. I'm hoping that. from here on out there is less crackling. This is a funny story but I recently moved to

us and I accidentally moved underneath a international flight path. So yeah, that has been a factor in recordings recently whereby every time I try and sit down to do an episode, suddenly there is like a Boeing 707 flying over my ceiling. This microphone will hopefully stop that from filtering in because I feel like I want these conversations to be nice and peaceful and not interrupted by loud, obnoxious noises. So that is my first update. My second update is not an update. I'm just going to introduce what we're talking about today. Because today we're going to be discussing social media. Arguably, one of the biggest influences in our lives and I think society to emerge in the last 10 years. And what I really

want to do today is just have a discussion around how potentially harmful it has become, how little we tend to consider its impact on our health, on our beliefs, on our confidence, our self-esteem, our relationships, our friendships, even our careers to an extent. It just seems that social media has become this all-consuming influence in our lives. It's become so ubiquitous. that we don't really sit with the feeling and the thoughts and the psychology behind what that might be doing to us as a species. For so many of us, I think it's honestly so strange to imagine a world before social media became part of our lives.

You know, when we took pictures just for ourselves and our photo albums and we got our news from a newspaper and we picked our restaurants from the local guidebook rather than going on TikTok. It really is just completely changed our way of life. And I think for all the good that it has created, yes, we cannot deny the benefits. I think it's also time that we start talking about the societal, cultural and individual impact of our social media consumption and how it continues to dominate so much of what is important and priceless in our life. Our time, our self-esteem, our self-perception, our beliefs, our understanding of the world. We are really seeing in front of our eyes a complete shift in how.

we interact with each other, how we connect, how we date, how we establish our identity. And I don't think that we think about it nearly enough, nor do we take the time to identify when our social media usage is taking over and perhaps even making us sick in a way. It has made me sick mentally and then emotionally and finally, physically, it all kind of took its toll. And I think also when you come to that point of realization of like social media is ruining my mental health, it is making me so tired, so burnt out, it is turning me from a very optimistic person to a negative person. What do you do about that? How do you move forward? I feel like you have a diagnosis and there isn't necessarily a solution and you might be rolling your eyes right now

thinking, well, no one's forcing you to stay online. Like, just log off, just delete your accounts. But I also think that that is a lot easier said than done when we begin to really examine how addictive these platforms have been designed to be. There is intention behind capturing our attention. Let's not deny it. And also how you really, by choosing to not be present on social media, you kind of lock yourself out of a lot of possibility for interaction and to create,

friendships and to maintain friendships as well. The only way I can kind of describe this impact, the impact that this has had on me is that my brain has begun to feel very rotted, kind of from the inside out. Something has been getting rewired in my mind for a while. And I think there have been certain things that have just made me snap recently, certain experiences. There is this spotlight that seems to be constantly on us on social media. Anyone can find out anything.

Anyone can say anything that they want with really no repercussions. And that is just so strange. It is a huge difference from the environment, our brain and all of its neurological systems originally developed and evolved in one of limited mass group contact and small communities. You know, we aren't meant to have this much exposure to so many connections and be aware of so many people and have so many opportunities to judge and to be judged. Not only do I think it really skews what we see as normal and it promotes a sense of inadequacy, innate social comparison, whether that is to do with our bodies, our lives, how many

friends we have, our jobs, but I also think sometimes there is just too much information for our brains to process and we just experience an overload at times. everything just seems a little bit too serious and real online when it's not. Social media is not real. And I know it's insanely cliche to say that, but seriously, if you were to base your perception of reality on what you saw online, I would not want to live in that world. Okay, I know I'm sounding so pessimistic. But that has just been my experience, as everything in my life has gotten progressively better

and more stable and positive. The one aspect that remains a source of real frustration and sometimes pain is social media and all the secondary emotional states and reactions that it just seems to cause within me. And this has been especially exaggerated in the past three months. And I want to talk about it because how can we not talk about it? As people in our 20s, arguably this is the most formative decade of our adult lives. How much is social media impacting our own? psychology in unconscious ways because it is more than we are probably willing to acknowledge

or confront and what is the solution there? I don't think I'm one to complain about something whilst also not thinking about what comes next, what else is possible because social media is embedded in our lives in so many ways. I think it's kind of like alcohol or caffeine or processed sugar. It's addictive but we can find ways to be healthier and more sustainable about out consumption whilst also not completely limiting ourselves from some of the pleasure and some of the good that it does give us. To begin with, I'm going to kind of talk through my own experience and what's kind of led me to come to this revelation that social media is negatively impacting, perhaps ruining my mental health. I think that I never imagined that social media was going

to play such a huge role in my life. When I was, you know, younger in my teen years, I kind of stayed away from social media. I think I quit social media for like a year at one point. There's always kind of been this conscious part of me that's recognized that it is doing things to our brains that we are probably not fully aware of. And then I started this podcast. When I started the show, obviously, if you have been a loyal day one listener of which there are probably very few of you because it really was just like my parents and my friends and my grandma. I really just wanted to share my own experiences in my 20s.

I remember having this thought that this kind of project would be great for me to look back on in the future and have like a catalog, like an almost diary-like entries and voice memos of what I was experiencing at the time, like a journal. And then I just got so into it. I was so passionate about it. There was so much to talk about. people started following and now social media has become a component of my career as the podcast has become my full-time job which I'm so lucky to be able to say it's interesting that social media

becomes is hand in hand with that even though I'm doing something that it's completely separate from Instagram from TikTok you know I'm making a podcast I'm talking into a microphone about psychology and mental health and our 20s, there is this expectation that you need to have an online presence to kind of make your podcast, or I guess, like make your job and your career seem legitimate, right? Like, how can people know that you are doing good stuff and how can people find you if they can't find you through the platforms that they spend their most time on through Instagram, through TikTok, through X, through whatever it is? Social media is now, I think, equal part of my job as just, you know, content creation through an audio sense. I've even had

meetings where people will be like, well, we want you to improve your numbers or we need you to improve your online engagement before we can do a project with you. Even though like the project has nearly nothing to do with my Instagram presence or my follower account, like that's on an entirely different platform. I'm like a podcaster. I'm not as an influencer or a content creator. but it just goes to show that if you want to do anything that requires public acknowledgement for success, you have to kind of sell your soul a little bit to the algorithm. And it made me really obsessive. It made me not want to create for myself.

It made me want to create for others. And it kind of made me not enjoy the thing that I loved anymore, which is podcasting, which is storytelling and information sharing through audio. right like that was the main purpose from day one and it just felt like social media became a bigger beast than i perhaps wanted it to be on top of that let's just acknowledge that social media is such a time wasteer it is a absolute vacuum for our energy and our productive hours and i always think about this saying how you spend your days is how you spend your life and if you are spending five hours a day on your phone, on your screens.

That is sometimes a third of your waking hours, a third of your life, plugged into this constant hollow entertainment source. And I just think that we can't help it. It's addictive. It is a whole way of life in itself. And the thing that makes me really realize that is when I started contemplating how long I could spend without picking up my phone when I was working, how long could I spend off my phone before I started,

noticing the urge to automatically pick up and scroll for five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. It was like a 10 minute interruption system. You know, even if I'd left my phone in another room whilst I was working, I was like going on Facebook in like my Google search bar. Who uses Facebook anymore? Like there was nothing there that I needed to know. There was nothing there that was like a pressing information source. it was just a distraction.

It was just a source of a nice little dopamine hit. And it made me realize what am I actually getting from this habitual behavior and action of experiencing boredom or experiencing, I don't know, a bit of a rut or a mental rut and just picking up my phone immediately? This is a question I always ask myself and I think I've posed it on the podcast before but could you honestly tell me five things you've seen on social media today? Could you actually describe to me five TikToks that you've watched in the last week? And how did they improve your life?

What impression are these things really making? But more seriously, what is it contributing? How much of what you are observing for sometimes hours on hours a day, on an end, how much of that is actually permanent? you know what I mean? Like, could there is not, like those hours that you spend on social media are dead hours to me. They are dead hours. There is nothing that is sitting in your permanent long-term memory that is useful that you are gaining from scrolling.

I will say there are certainly good things. I do follow some creators that have had a really important impact on my life. There is this New Zealander creator called Riley Jay. She posts running content and that has really inspired me to like start running again and being really serious about it. Kielan Moncrief, she gives me a lot of things to contemplate my friend Sal and Al. They are just like such a positive influence online. They have great lifestyle tips, great saving tips. I take their advice.

Those are people that I think are really worth following and I can consciously remember things that they've said or questions that they've posed or content that they've posted that makes me stop and contemplate or change something about how I'm living my daily life. The community aspect is also brilliant. You know, I love seeing what my friends are doing who have moved to the other side of the world without having to wait for them to, you know, send me a postcard every three months. There is a lot of good, but it is this weird trade-off. The trade-off is, do you receive some of those perks and those benefits of community,

of inspiration if the trade-off is your time, which is one of the most precious things that we have? if the trade-off is your own, I guess, intelligence and your capacity to have original thoughts. The other element of this that I think we are speaking on a lot more is just the general negativity that is everywhere at the moment. I just started to see the world as a bad place. I would be scrolling social media, scrolling Instagram mainly, and I would go into the comment section of Reels. Don't do that. There is nothing good for you in there. There is literally nothing good for you in there. It is just like a terrible hellfire pit of everyone's worst thoughts

and worst feelings towards another human that they somehow feel they have the right to express openly on their platform. There was just so much hatred and troll accounts. And I think I began to anticipate what the comment section was going to say before I was even opening the comment section, before I was even posting a video of my own. You know, so organically, I began adopting the negativity of those who were already negative without them even needing to say anything, right? Like my mindset had shifted into their mindset to be protective or preventative to kind

of anticipate what they were going to say, but in, as a result, that made me a negative person. That is like, talk about indoctrination. That is just like a complete mind fucked me. You know, the hate that we have for each other is just like actually devastating. And those words have like a meaningful impact. As someone who has like an online presence and I hate saying that because I just feel like icky about it. But as someone who does have an online presence and it's something that obviously I'm grateful for, but it's kind of like the devil line. know, those words that people say that you might type out and be like, I'm just going to send that off,

that has a meaningful impact on someone. That can ruin their day. That can stick with them for months after you have already forgotten who they are, what they posted, what angered you. And there are just certain people who I see commenting on things where I'm like, I would hate to live in your brain. I would hate to be in there. That just seems so tiring. That just seems so exhausting, so negative, so unhappy that you have these thoughts that are so powerful in your head that you can't help but share them tangibly with others. And I just started to believe that having seen all these people and all this, you know, this like pattern of comments and troll accounts and whatnot, that the world was a bad place, that the world was negative, that people were becoming mean and cruel,

even if I can consciously step back and say, you know, these people don't know me, they will never know me. They have never spoken to me. They don't know what thoughts I have, internal feelings, what moral dilemmas I face, the guilt that I experience at times, the relationships that I have, the problems of my own that I'm trying to manage. I just think that social media gives you, like, the highlight reel, of course, but also gives you like just the film on top of the rest of life, right? like just the surface level of everyone's lives and everyone's feelings and everyone's feelings towards other people. It's also been so interesting comparing this to my boyfriend who has zero social media

presence. He has like an Instagram account he uses to follow his sisters and me and that's it. And it's really interesting because for the last 10 years, as we have, most of us have gotten sucked into basically a social media addiction or a social media dependence. He hasn't had that experience. And some of the things that I've noticed is that he experiences a lot less phomo, you know, a lot less of this fear of missing out. He is a lot more secure in his opinion of himself.

He is on his phone a whole lot less. He procrastinates less. He is able to focus for more extended periods of time. He has a greater attention span compared to me. It's almost like an observational experiment, right? It's like I've gone through the last 10, 12, 13 years with social media being part of my daily life, and he hasn't. And these are the kinds of people that we've turned out to be.

And I can't help but think that it really just truly comes down to how unplugged this man is. You know, his screen time is often less than like an hour or two hours each day. And that is just so much extra time. Like when you really think of it, that is like three. additional hours, sometimes four additional hours that he spends like actually looking at the world with his eyes upwards, whereas a lot of us are trapped in what feels like a bit of a cult, right? Like all my connections are built around it. Slowly my career is tied to it. It's at times where I get a lot of my news first. You know, if I open Instagram first thing in the morning,

there will be like the New York Times article, the variety article, the BBC, I. article, that will be the first thing that I see that is giving me like the headlines for the day. It's integral. There is no way of imagining what life would be without it. And yet everything is pointing to us needing to take a step back nowadays. We've gone too far. Anecdotally, I can see that we've gone too far. Scientifically, even legally on a global level, we can see that this has gone too far. There are some papers that have come out recently linking excessive social media usage, which is over two hours a day, I think a lot of us are hitting that. It's links that that's what they call excessive with poorer mental health outcomes. That means that you are more likely to experience

chronic stress, anxiety, depressive symptoms. And just recently, if you've been watching the news, meta, the company that obviously owns Instagram and Facebook, they had to like stand up before Congress and say yes, we are sorry. We know that our apps are used for me. misinformation. We know that our apps are used for cyberbullying that has caused people to take their own lives. We know that our apps have been designed to be addictive. We're sorry. Not that that really means much because they continue to do everything in their power to keep you hooked. Their paychecks really rely on your inability to say no to all the temptations that they are offering. And it's not to say that you have poor self-control or poor self-discipline. Like there are entire teams of neuroscientists

and data engineers and literally sometimes even psychologists who are helping them design systems that are addictive. You know, it is hijacking the systems by which we experience and kind of administer and process dopamine. Essentially, social media provides this endless amount of immediate information and immediate reward in the form of attention from others or bright, light, slashes, colors, information that you see as important. And so the brain rewires itself through this positive reinforcement,

either the pleasure that we receive, the dopamine that we receive from being entertained or from people's likes, people's views, people's retweets, people's reactions. And that we get these like short bursts of hits of dopamine that actually overall lower our sensitivity to not real dopamine, but sustained long term, kind of healthy dopamine is what I would call it. Essentially, we are receiving a lot of instant gratification from these apps, which means that we have a lot more of this neurotransmit dopamine available to us in our brain. And so our brain is like, well, we have all this, you know, we have this like drug, this happy chemical running around in our brain. Maybe we should shut off some of the receptors because we can't actually process all of this dopamine that's running between our neurons and passing through our synapses.

So basically what that means is that you have a lowered sensitivity. So over time, you're going to need more hits, more content, more attention, more time to receive that same level of pleasure that you were previously getting. That's before we even include the role of algorithms in the equation. My sister said something really interesting to me the other day. She said, if you download TikTok, you have about a two-week period before it gets really addictive. So that is, that two-week period is all you have. Because after that time has passed, that is how long it takes for the algorithm to learn what

you like and to start feeding you all the things and the themes and the topics that are really going to get your brain, specifically your brain, firing, that are really going to sit within a niche that had already existed beyond social media, that you obviously are going to be attentive towards. So I tested this out. I actually don't use TikTok anymore because like I said, it's addictive. It was really negatively impacting me. So I deleted TikTok about two months ago, maybe a little bit more now. But right at the start of when I did that, I red downloaded it and I couldn't get into my account. So I created a new account. And what started off as like just general content and like dancing videos and cooking videos and just things that everyone would kind of like within two weeks. I was

getting boxing content. I was getting Sydney restaurant recommendations. I was getting Taylor Swift updates. I was getting book talk reference, like things from book talk that were like exactly matching the books that I just read. I was getting travel recommendations for places that I'm not visiting for another three months. That is how good they are at capturing your attention by using your data to keep you plugged in. I know this sounds really like. suspicious and very like, I don't know, hoaxy and strange. But there is all this evidence for this occurring. And I think that as they begin to form a monopoly over every aspect of our lives, that monopoly also creates power. It creates power over our lives. And I don't think that

that is doing more good than harm, at least in my own personal life. So what do we actually do about that, right? Like it's one thing to complain about something. But I think, that we also need solutions. I'm going to talk about all of that and so much more after this short break. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter and on my podcast 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers and other health and fitness experts and more. to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry.

We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O-P-P-Cent on the I-Hart Radio. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people.

I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jay. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all. about crack in the 80s.

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Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the. iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kier Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests.

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On my new podcast, learn the whole. Hardway. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Sond's, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected.

They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alespian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.

Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All righty. So in addressing how social media is impacting our lives and what we can do about it, I want to talk about three aspects. What we can do about social media as a source of negativity, what we can do about social media as a time waster and what we can do about social media as a source of inadequacy and social comparison. So starting at the top, what can we do about social media as a source of negativity? Number one, I would say, make sure that you are curating an online environment that makes you feel comfortable.

If you notice that there is certain topics, certain videos that really make you feel pretty awful, whether that is, I don't know, body content, gym content, online, trolling content, celebrity content that is just like overtly negative, set boundaries for yourself that essentially instruct you when it's time to unfollow those accounts or restrict your access. to them. Something that I like to do is when I see something where I'm like, this is immediately making me frustrated and angry. And I know that that is like part of the technique to keep me attached is like, I'm going to disagree with this. So I'm going to become more engaged in what other people are saying. I immediately press like not interested. I scroll. I like find the little settings area and

I go not interested. Like don't show me content from this person again. Just in order to kind of limit my sense that the world is a bad place by constantly seeing content from people who are pretty adamant on making it seem that way. And the other thing that I say is where you see negativity, leave positivity. Interrupt the thought process that is making you see everything as terrible by being the good that you want to kind of see in the world. So I've been doing this recently. Sometimes I'll watch a video and I'll be like, all right, I just know what the comment section is going to look like here. I just know. I know that if it's a woman at the gym

who doesn't look like most women at the gym, there are going to be thousands of men in the comment section just like absolutely abusing her and being so cruel. So I'm going to make a conscious decision to like leave a positive comment on this video. Even though I don't normally like to, you know, I'm kind of like a prowler. Like even though I don't normally like to like leave comments on things because I don't know. It just feels strange. I always try and do it with those videos, right?

The same thing I saw this video of this girl the other day who was like, can you notice my biggest insecurity? Like, no, you can't. So, you know, move on with your life. And everyone in the comment section was like, oh, I can notice it. It's this. It's that. It's your skin.

It's your face. It's your body. What the heck? And so I just left a nice comment. And I think that it just shows, it kind of like rewires your thought process whereby instead of thinking like everyone is out there to be mean. It's like, no, that's not true because I'm not out here. be mean. And there must be other people who are in the same boat. And you see it, people start

engaging with your comments because they're looking for something in that comment section that's going to actually match what they feel, which is that this person is doing an amazing job. This person is beautiful. This person is kind. This person does not deserve criticism. Let's, you know, elevate those voices that are seeking to promote a more kind, compassionate, empathetic, mindset on these platforms whereby, you know, the algorithm does promote negativity and troll accounts above everything else because they capture our attention. Next, in order to kind of address social media as a time waste of for yourself, I think there are a few things that you need to do.

firstly, try and break that urge to pick up your phone whenever you are feeling bored, lonely, distracted, frustrated, see how long you can hold off. See how long you can ignore or suppress that immediate need to satisfy an itch and urge a desire. When you do that, you're experiencing delayed gratification. We talked about this before. Essentially what you're doing, is saying to your brain, like, hey, I actually have a conscious, a conscious voice here. I'm a conscious decider, a conscious actor when it comes to the urges that you send my way. I don't have to act on them. I'm making it a choice based on what I think is best. I don't have to do what you say I need to do. You know, it's not like an urge or it's not like a craving for

water or a craving for food or for sleep or for safety. It's just a craving. for dopamine, it's a craving for distraction, that can be ignored and you can hold yourself back from fulfilling that and see how long you can do it for. Is it five minutes? Is it for 10? Is it for an hour? And slowly train your brain and train yourself to recognize that you don't always have to give in to what you immediately want. It's also about identifying behaviors that cause you to look for that quick boost, right? Is it when you are bored? Is it when you are lonely, like we said before? I think that knowing what the root kind of trigger is for this seeking behavior, this social media seeking behavior, is really important in limiting it. This is where the idea of a dopamine

detox often comes in detox meaning you know just just an opportunity to kind of cleanse your body of a bad thing in this case excessive social media usage the premise of a dopamine detox is that you reduce your brain sensitivity to dopamine by removing that kind of like removing a behavior or a substance or stimuli or an experience for a period of time so that that your brain gets used to not having it. Ideally, by the end of the detox, you feel more centered, you feel more balanced, less affected by your usual dopamine triggers. However, I do think that we should be a little bit suspicious of this. I do think it's important to take time away, to step back to provide your mind and your brain with a place for clarity and for peace that is

not constantly interrupted by loud music and dancing and controversy. I think a more accurate description though of dopamine detox is actually just a period of abstinence or unplugging from the world, which just serves to minimize distraction and reliance to kind of show you that you can live without this thing even if it's hard, right? You are essentially battling a system that wants to keep you addicted and plugged in. And I think it's important to sometimes show ourselves that we can live without that, that the world would not end, that you can take a step back and it might feel hard, it might feel difficult, but that very, the very reality that it feels difficult and that it kind of feels painful in a way, feels like you're in a state of withdrawal. The very fact that it feels

like that is probably a sign that you needed to do it, that there was something there that was borderline unhealthy, borderline dependent. Finally, let's address social media as a form of inadequacy and social comparison. The very nature of social media in that it keeps us interconnected means that we have thousands if not millions of opportunities at any time of the day to compare ourselves on any number of factors. We can compare our bodies to people we see on our for you page. We can compare our careers on LinkedIn.

We can compare how many friends we have to TikToks that we see of people who seemingly have it all. how fashionable we are, how happy we are. Like there are just so many opportunities to look at someone else's life and feel like you are lacking and for that sense of lacking, for that sense of having less, to impact how you enjoy your reality. I just want you to remind yourself, this is not real. Social media is not real.

anyone can present or say anything without it being true, without it being accurate. I think about my own social media presence, right? You know, so many of those photos that I posted from like ages ago, or they're from like spread out over weeks, or they're from like the one day that week that I like looked nice. I'm recording this podcast right now and I am wearing a wolf shirt, my hair is up in a bun, I look foul. I'm not wearing pants, I will say.

that's just a little secret. Like, I'm not going to post this on social media, but people, I got this comment from someone the other day being like, oh my God, I'm just like, so jealous of you and how many friends you have. And I was like, that is not true. Like, that is, this is just an impression. This is your perspective. I still am someone who is like deeply lonely at times

and who deeply struggles with the sense of permanency around my friendships. I am still someone who struggles with how I see my body in comparison to other people. but you can choose to kind of curate what that looks like for people. It's not real. It's not real. I also think that a really great way to counteract this sense that it is, is to, or not even just the sense that it is real, but the sense that what other people are showing you is important for your life,

is to spend time in nature. We know that it's so healing to be outdoors, to touch and feel and smell and see something that matters, and to see something that is real and that you can confirm is real. I think it really brings you back to reality. It's a bit of a perspective shift so often. Like we get stuck in this like the space between our mind and our screen. And that seems like the only thing that matters.

And it seems like it is a lot more important than it is when going outside and being like, there is a whole world outside of this. And nobody cares about what that person is saying. Nobody cares about what that person is doing. Like they may do. but is it really impacting like all the other things that are going on in the world that require our attention? Probably not.

You know, it's just this, I think, an important practice to pull yourself out of phantom reality from time to time, either through what we said was a dopamine detox or through just making a conscious decision to like put yourself in a situation where you were completely unplugged, outdoors, enjoying fresh air, enjoying the ocean, enjoying, enjoying, the smells, the sights, the beauty of nature and of your surroundings. With the social comparison thing, I will say one more thing on that. Everyone who you are comparing yourself to is also comparing themselves to somebody else. It is this whole continuous cycle and loop of comparison.

I don't think anybody is safe from it. There is not a single person out there who, I would say, is active on social media and feels great about themselves all the time. They just like to give the impression that they are. But there are so many sources for us to feel dissatisfied and nobody is immune to that. So you are only human, you are fallible, we are all insecure, we are all battling something behind the guys of our feed and what we post. Make sure that that, you don't lose sight of that. Make sure that you are aware of the ways in which, you know, everything is not as it seems, especially on platforms where there is an incentive to make things look better,

when there is an incentive to post content that is aesthetic because it will be high performing, because it will attract people, because it will get their attention because that is what they want, because that is a life that someone is trying to sell them. All right, I think that that is enough ranting for me today, and I acknowledge that it was a rant. Obviously, I think that this has been something on my,

my mind for some time and if you follow me on Instagram you'll see that I've just put some things in place to make my online environment safer, some online boundaries, some online rules. It's important to talk about. You know, it is a really big factor in influence. And if you can relate to this, to any aspect of this, I believe in you. I'm proud of you for at least getting this far where you're having like conscious thoughts around something in your life that might be unhealthy, that being social media and I get that it's really hard. I get that it's really addictive and that you can really want to, you know that one thing is the right thing, right? You know that there is something that you need to do for your health but you just can't bring yourself to do it. It's not all your fault.

The keys are deliberately made to be addictive. All so many aspects of our lives are embedded in social media right now. Our careers, our social lives, our work. So I'm rooting for you. We're in it together, I promise. And just a reminder to be kind to people. Be kind. If you see negativity, leave positivity. If you want to say something, don't. You're going to feel better anyways if you don't say it. If you don't ruin somebody's day, you never know the sting that words leave. And I think that's where I'm going to leave it. I think that is a great final message. Be kind to others and be really kind to yourself as well because you deserve to be happy and to be gentle with yourself and to create an environment whether that is online or in your real life that doesn't leave you feeling

shit about the world and shit about yourself. So thank you so much for listening. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening, IA Radio app, I don't know what the other ones are, wherever you are in the world. Please feel free to also send me some episode suggestions. I love hearing from you. We can't always do them all, but it is great to hear what other people in their 20s are going through and to then have the opportunity to look into the psychology of those things. It is so much fun. And I also just love hearing from you. I love hearing from people all over the world who are, you know, listening to this content and relating to it makes a lot of our experiences feel quite universal,

or makes me feel less alone. You can also follow me on Instagram at That Psychology Podcast. I get the irony of me saying that after a social media episode, but I actually no longer am like actively running that account. So feel free to go and see what's going on there. I don't really know. Just kidding, I do. But it would be great to, you know, build out nice, like actual positive corner of the community,

of the social media community. And as always, we will be back next week with another episode. until then, stay safe and be kind to yourself. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%.

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