For #MentalHealthAwareness Day on October 10th, we want bring awareness to a topic often overlooked by people today, and often plagued by social stigma.

The rise of social media has meant that we, as a global population, are more connected than we have ever been before. Although social media has countless benefits, studies are showing that our reliance on social media may be having detrimental effects on our mental health.

To put that in perspective, let’s look at some stats. According to eMarketer stats, average US adults spend an average of 3 hours and 35 minutes per day on their mobile devices with an expected annual increase of 11 minutes per day. A 2018 survey also shows that an average American opens a social media app on their phone at least 10 times per day, and a typical user spends 10 to 20 minutes on an app after opening it.

How is social media affecting our mental health? This really depends on how you spend your time on it.

In a recent study carried out by at the University of Pennsylvania and published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 140 undergraduates are asked to either continue their normal social media usage on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, or to limit each platform usage to 10 minutes a day (30 minutes total). Before and after the intervention, the participants also filled out questionnaires for researchers to understand how they were doing psychologically with an emphasis on common issues today such as depression, loneliness, and anxiety.

After the 3-week testing period, the results show that those who limited their social media use to 30 minutes a day felt significantly better, reporting a deduction in depression. The result is especially apparent in test subjects that reported a higher level of depression in the beginning.

So why is that? Researchers are able to come up with the conclusion that due to the nature of social media, there is an enormous amount of social comparison that can happen, both consciously and subconsciously in your mind. When you look at other people’s lives, particularly on Instagram, it is easy to conclude that everyone else’s life is better than yours.

What are Social Media giants doing to help?

Earlier this year, Instagram started testing on hiding the total number of post likes and video views. Today, this has been officialized in many countries, despite opposition from influencers, brands, and advertisers. Although the reason they gave for this change is a vague “We are looking forward to learning more about how this change might benefit everyone’s experience on Instagram”, we believe this change may actually be beneficial to the mental health of platform users.

Why? A past study from Harvard shows that receiving smart phone notifications, such as likes, sends a rush of the chemical dopamine to the brain. This phenomenon is what makes social media addictive, similar to the effects gambling has on the brain. Therefore, taking out these features allow followers to focus on the photos and videos itself, rather than how many like they get. Interested in the full study from Harvard? See it here: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/

What are some things you can do to help?

Aside from just limiting your daily time on social media each day (which works too), we have a list of simple habits you can implement into your daily lives to prevent social media addiction and its detrimental effects on mental health.

1. Be aware of your mobile phone usage. For most of us today, our brain is likely primed to automatically pull out our phones every time we are bored. The next time you’re bored? Distract yourselves with the things happening around you and focus on that instead.

2. Disconnect yourself for a full day each week. Today, we are seeing more and more people, including large online influencers, implementing a “Disconnect day” each week where they shut themselves out of the social media world completely. This exercise allow them to detach from work completely, and reconnect with themselves instead.

3. Turn off your notifications. Anything non-work related? Turn it off. Your friends will understand if you don’t reply for the next 10 minutes.

So, how are you planning to invest in your mental health?