Welcome back to this week’s blog post of Breaking the Stigma: College Life, Disability, and Mental Health. In this post, I will explore a topic that impacts almost every college student, social media, and how it particularly affects students with disabilities and mental health struggles. 

Role of Social Media in College

It is essential to recognize that social media, whether Instagram, TikTok, or Snapchat, plays a significant role in the college experience. Social media affects how college students navigate their lives, connect with others, and express themselves. On the surface level, social media has minimal effects on its users. Still, it raises the question of how consistent interaction with social media shapes people’s mental health and what implications it has on people with disabilities. 

Positive Effects of Social Media

While I know our minds immediately go to the negative aspects of social media, there are some benefits as long as you do not overuse the digital environment. 

• Connections: Social media allows people to stay connected with their family and friends back home. Staying connected with loved ones can comfort college students while adjusting to the new lifestyle, reducing feelings of isolation and loneliness (reference). 
• Creative Expression: Social media also allows the expression of creativity, where users can share music, writing, videos, and art to the public eye, which encourages positive self-esteem and well-being (reference). 
• Community & Awareness: Social media creates access to online communities that can make college students feel a sense of belonging. Social media also plays a massive role in awareness, where college students can stay up to date on current issues, including mental health topics, and be informed of helpful resources. 

Negative Effects of Social Media

While there are positive benefits to social media, constant engagement can result in adverse effects, including addiction or poor time management, that play a role in a person’s mental health. In the article, The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health, a psychotherapist at Capital University, Douglas T. Buzenski, LPCC-S, shares some negative effects. 

• Sleep Disruption: College students who excessively use social media, particularly right before bed, disrupt their sleeping patterns. The sleep disruption can result in increased anxiety that can impact a college student’s academic performance and ultimately a decline in their mental health. 
• Unhealthy Comparisons: College students compare themselves to other users’ best shots and highlight moments, drastically affecting their self-image and mental health, and creating feelings of insufficiency. 
• Escapism: Social media can create an escape from reality and eventually blur the lines between idealized moments and reality. This can create a sense of inadequacy that contributes to depression. 

Solutions: Managing Usage

Many solutions to the excessive usage of social media involve mindful use. One specific tool is One Sec, which intervenes in social media apps by requiring users to take a second to reflect, pause, and breathe before continuing to use the app. One sec has reported that this action has reduced doom-scrolling, which the app has saved over 155,596 years of screentime (reference).

Other tips and strategies to prevent excessive usage are setting time limits on the apps within the Screen Time settings on the iPhone, scheduling phone-free periods, and setting a timer to avoid persistent scrolling before bed. 

Disability Representation on Social Media

Social media has the ability to magnify the voices of people with disabilities, where they can share their personal experiences regarding their disability. However, representation remains limited and can be ambiguous.   

Some people’s experiences spark media attention and create awareness regarding their disability, but viewers stereotype or generalize the experiences of individuals with disabilities. An example of this can be a viral TikTok video featuring a young adult woman receiving cochlear implants for the first time and reacting emotionally to hearing for the first time. Although it can be viewed as heartwarming, it can also mislead the audience to believe that cochlear implants “fix” hearing loss, where in reality, cochlear implants affect each person differently, and part of the Deaf community does not view deafness as a disability. Thus, it is imperative to know that each person has their own unique experience and needs.

With that said, social media users need to approach social media content with openness and modesty, such that one story does not represent the entire community. Instead, they can begin a chapter on deeper learning of the experience. 

Conclusion

Social media is a double-sided face, offering creativity and community, and creating mental risks. Using social media with reflection and helpful tools allows college students to take these benefits, avoid these unnecessary risks, and learn new experiences. 

Thank you so much for reading this blog post, and stay tuned for next week’s blog posts, where I will be discussing The Stress of Job-Hunting and Internships While in College.