5 Ways to Use Social Media Apps to Promote Mental Health

Social media is a space that connects millions across the globe. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger seem to be the most popular social media apps as roughly 2.1 billion people log in every day. With the profusion of platforms comes the question of their impact on users' mental health. Research shows that these apps could be a cost-effective option to deliver mental health awareness.

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How to Enhance Mental Health Through Social Media

Although social media allows us to connect instantly with others, it can also provoke feelings of inadequacy, guilt, loneliness, envy, and so on. Social media-induced anxiety is quite common. Here are some easy ways to enhance your mental health through social media.

1. Joining Support Groups

Most of the apps allow communities or groups based on common interests. You can join such groups related to mental health awareness, either general or for specific conditions. They cannot substitute for trained professional help, but their discussion forums enable exchange of information about mental health resources and open talk about one's conditions.

Taking part in these communities would give you the strategies for yourself or for someone under your care.

2. Prioritizing Self-Care

Self-care is challenging with our busy lifestyles. Using a self-care app can make the process easier. Apps like Fabulous are targeted toward coaching and building sustainable habits to enjoy optimum mental health. Campaigns such as #LoveYourBody and #HereForYou on Instagram have been vital in opening frank conversations about mental health online across a wide range of communities. Choosing to follow these campaigns and support the groups organizing such movements will give you better insights into various mental health initiatives.

3. Limiting Usage

Set a timer on your phone to limit how long you would spend on the apps and log out when the timer goes off (it’s easy to ignore it and continue scrolling). You can do this by going to your phone settings and adding app limits. You can choose to add the limit and choose which apps you want to limit and how much time you want to spend on each. You can also change that for days of the week (for instance, you want more time scrolling during the weekend, etc.)

While connection is important, disconnecting is essential too. (Image via Unsplash/ Jacob Owens)

4. Selecting Your Content

Unfollow or mute the posts and stories of people who are not good for your mental health. Leave behind those who make you feel discouraged.

Add creators who are good for your mental health to your favorites. Adding someone to your favorites gives you control of what content you see, which brings some agency for your mental health. Content creators often become our models, and we end up doing things that they do or aspire to do. It's important to remember that things on social media may not exactly represent reality and by choosing our content we can protect our mental health.

As viewers, we have the power to choose what we should consume. (Image via Unsplash/ Merakist)

5. Choosing Positivity

You can use social media for good, by sharing positive and supportive content and messages with your friends, family, and others. For example, you could reach out to let someone know you’re thinking of them or share some positive feedback on a photo or post they shared. If you find yourself responding to a message or post with something negative, pause and consider whether you could frame it in another way or have an in-person conversation instead. If you see or receive messages or content you consider to be bullying or abusive, you should block and report it. Words matter, and it’s important to think carefully about what we share.

Hate comments are common, but we can tackle them with our likes and love. (Image via Pexels/ Pixabay)

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Takeaway

Social media is not inherently bad, we just need to learn certain ways to use these tools in healthy ways. Today we can access information on practically any subject with a swife of the phone. So, we must not restrict social media to just post pictures of what we are eating or where we are vacationing. We should leverage the immense power of social media through careful use to enjoy freedom from loneliness, boredom, and depression.