Mindless Scrolling: Balancing wellbeing, mental health and social media use for creatives.

Social media can be a really good tool working in the creative industries including Film, TV, Radio, Broadcast, Marketing, Architecture, Writing, Photography, Arts, Performing Arts and Music. There are many positives to social media. Social media can enhance your profile, lead to new connections, and maintain networks which are great for business. Social media can be good for finding your community and for reducing isolation. Social media can also be a great way to express your own creativity.

Have you ever found yourself scrolling endlessly on social media, noticing your wellbeing decrease but unable to stop scrolling? Have you come off social media thinking everyone is doing better than you? This has been found to be a common experience. We know on one hand that we curate what we share on social media and what we don’t share but sometimes its hard to think of this when we are on social media. Most of us have experienced at some point how social media can negatively impact wellbeing and mental health.

What causes this decrease in wellbeing?

Research on the relationship between social media and mental health demonstrates that heavy social media use is associated with anxiety and depression. (Andreassen et al. 2016; Kross et al. 2013; Woods and Scott 2016 and Vannucci et al. 2017). This study suggests that the amount of social media use may be a factor in how social media impacts mental health.

How can we manage this?

Take a moment to think about your social media use and how much time you spend on it? Do you spend your time on social media in a way you want to? Is your social media use intentional or do you end up spending time looking at things you didn't want to? If sometimes you don’t do this how can you notice this and change it?. Regularly check how much time you spend on social media and how it impacts your wellbeing as this can change on a daily basis!

Comparison Trap

It can be easy to get into the comparison trap on social media. Research establishes that comparing yourself to others contributes to rumination and depression symptoms (Feinstein et al. 2013).

How to manage comparisons:

Ask what you say to someone else in the same situation? This helps you to see whether the comparison is fair. If you wouldn’t compare others in that way it suggests its an unfair comparison. We often compare the difficult parts of our own life ignoring the good parts so focus on the successes in your life.

Another tip is to compare with yourself. Compare how you are working toward a goal with yourself rather than others. An example is focus on beating your own personal best for running rather than someone else's this will ensure you are moving towards your goals.

I cant believe they are doing X job already? They seem to have it all, when you start to notice these thoughts pause, take a breathe and think about what people post on social media and what people leave out to question whether you are making a fair comparison.

Bullying and harassment

Social media platforms can be a place where cyberbullying and harassment take place. This can have a bad on mental health.

Think about what platforms you use. Do you feel comfortable using those platforms? Think about if you would like separate business and personal account and if you want your work and personal life separate and how to do this.

Report difficult content and block the bully if you can

Talk to others about your experiences

Utilise helplines and gain support including the National Bullying Helpline.

Are you addicted?

Social Media is designed to spike our dopamine so we want to use it more. People can be addicted to social media in a variety of ways. It can be seeking validation though likes. It can be needing to check social media and have our phone near us.

Do you find yourself frequently checking social media? Do you experience anxiety when you cannot access social media? Do you experience fear of missing out if you cant check social media?

Research into this are is just getting started but it is suggested that starting to reduce social media use can help break addiction.

Social media is a great tool for business, especially as a freelancer or small business but if you find it impacting your mental health talk to those around you, your GP or 111 in the UK. You might also want to talk to mental health professional. If you want to talk to to therapists who understand the creative industry do not hesitate to contact us.