I

n October 2019, I deleted my 
Instagram for a month. There was no 
dark downfall into obsession or an 

utter collapse of self-worth that prompted 
this decision, but I had been experiencing a 
plateau in my mental well-being at the time 
and had recognized social media wasn’t 
helping the problem. 

I loved Instagram from the moment I 

first downloaded it. I used to rely on it like 
a crutch, sharing content almost every day 
— posting pictures of myself smiling at a 
football game in the fall when I was lying 
in bed mid-winter, sad about a breakup or 
a falling out with a friend — and putting 
great pressure on getting likes. Now, I use 
it as a digital journal, a consistent stream of 
consciousness and look into my life: posting 
pictures of candid life moments, unfiltered 
and unplanned. 

Last fall, in a time when my peers were 

continuously posting ceremonious photos 
and announcements of accomplishments 
and future plans, I was drowning in self-
doubt and anxiety. My feed was constantly 
filled with the smiling faces of those who 
had their futures planned — drinking out of 
red cups at football tailgates, standing close 
with a significant other, happily accepting 
a return job offer and a signing bonus. 

I was genuinely overjoyed for the 

achievements of the people I followed, 
but 
I 
couldn’t 
stop 
comparing 
my 

own life to the images that filled their grid 
on my screen. Though I was aware that one 
day I’d be sharing similar achievements 
on my own profile, the time when their 
accomplishments were thrust in my face 
felt overwhelming and never-ending. I 
wanted everyone to be doing well, and I 
wanted the same for myself. 

Social media wasn’t the cause of the 

emotions I was experiencing, but my 
generalized anxiety, which I’ve struggled 
with my entire life, was greatly exacerbated 
by my glowing Instagram feed. I remember 
making the decision to post a story of a piece 
of greasy pizza that had no connection to my 
declaration of a social media detox with the 
caption “logging off for a month!” in a fat, 
pink font. The fact that I felt the need to share 
my decision to stop using Instagram with my 
followers is ironic. Maybe it’s for that reason 
I redownloaded the app three days later, 
modifying my hiatus to allow limited time for 
scrolling and no posting for a month.

After this Instagram cleanse, much like 

cutting carbs or sugar from a diet, I felt 
fresh and renewed. I didn’t need Instagram 
and even found that I now had time for 
more productive pastimes, like reading 
every night before bed. 

The deep attachment was apparent, 

though. Even after my Instagram detox, I 
essentially reverted back to my old habits, 
slipping into my posting routine like an old 

sweater. But the experiment had rendered 
me more mindful: I started to notice a 
correlation between my Instagram usage 
and the way I was feeling. Some days, 
Instagram was my therapist — others, the 
perpetrator of my anxiety. 

It isn’t a novel concept to suggest 

that social media causes mental health 
problems, or exacerbates them. But in 
struggling with these issues myself and 
growing up in a world that’s plugged in 
24/7, I hope to discover and illuminate the 
more nuanced, personalized aspect of the 
connection. 
U

nlike 
other 
generations, 

Generation Z has never known 
a time without the ease of cell 

phones, the internet and social media to stay 
connected, instantly gratified and plugged-
in. As the first generation to grow up with 
the flow of information and the immediate 
knowledge of anyone’s and everyone’s 
personal life, Gen Z has always known 
the temptation to compare their own lives 
to curated highlight reels of everyone on 
Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter 
and LinkedIn. 

Growing up with the presence of social 

media, the world becomes a vacuum as 
the details that people chose to share 
swirl together to create a hyperreality. 
Comparing someone else’s phony world of 
vacation photos, job offers, homeownership 
and new relationships to one’s real life 
is bound to leave an individual feeling 
insecure, unaccomplished and pressured to 
aspire to a level of perfection. Millennials 
have been constantly faced with an 
impossible, unspoken task: Look like you 
have it all together, exude happiness and 
appear as though everything is perfect, 
even if it isn’t. 

To maintain the masquerade is to 

convince everyone around you that you’re 
just as happy, if not happier, than they are. 
I can recall having a day-long panic attack 
— from the moment I woke up, to my desk 
at work, through the evening on the day 
following my 21st birthday — and still 
posting a filtered photo of myself smiling 
in a sparkly pink dress. 

It comes as no shock that there 

is recorded data which suggests that social 
media has an impact on the mental health 
of Gen Z. Anxiety has been linked to many 
different factors in college-aged students, 
like loneliness, stress and uncertainty as 
collateral of a transitional period, to name 
a few. Generally speaking, the rise in mental 

health issues among young adults is a trend 
which cannot be linked to one specific cause 
or tangible thing — it’s subjective. However, 
the trend of well-being in American young 
adults decreasing and the time spent on 
electronic 
devices 
increasing 
suggests 

there does exist a correlation between 
social media usage and the severity of 
mental health issues, namely anxiety and 
depression. Though correlation exists, one 
must recognize that researchers have failed 
to find casual data linking mental health 
problems and social media, thus obfuscating 
the question further.

On the other hand, one study did find 

causal evidence of an increase in well-being 
due to reduced use of social media. The study, 
done at the University of Pennsylvania in 
2018, sought to test the positive correlation 
between mental health and social media. The 
group practicing limited social media use 
saw a decrease in depression and loneliness, 
suggesting that limiting social media use can 
improve well-being. 

In my personal experience utilizing 

social media, there have been both highs 
and lows. There are days when I feel as 
though my mood is improved by viewing 
the lives of my peers, family members and 
celebrities — watching people I admire 
succeed or be entertained by interesting 
content. Conversely, there are days when I 
face a struggle with my presence on social 
media applications—comparing myself to 
images of others and monitoring my own 
social profiles can be taxing. 

But even with so many pitfalls, there 

are tremendous amounts of research 
and opinion on the basis of social media 
influencing 
mental 
health 
positively. 

A study done at the Harvard T.H. Chan 
School of Public Health found that when 
used mindfully, social media has been 
found to positively improve preexisting 
mental health issues. Research Scientist 
Mesfin Awoke Bekalu found that strong 
social networks are associated with 
positive mental health as the networks 
act as gateways for connection to others. 
He concludes that it is the way in which 
individuals use social media that is an 
important distinction when analyzing its 
effects on mental well-being. 

The question, then, is twofold: Does 

social media create or exacerbate mental 
health problems? Does it help? If it is a 
damaging force on Gen Z, how do we stop 
a train that seems to be running full steam 
ahead? 

I

n an effort to better understand 
how college-aged individuals feel in 
regard to the intersection of mental 

health and social media, I decided to reach 
out to some of my peers. Throughout my 
investigation, only a few male-identifying 
individuals were interested in being 
interviewed, which may be indicative that 
these issues affect them less intensely 
or linked to the fact that men are less likely 
to speak openly about mental health issues. 

However, there were numerous college-

aged women who expressed they’ve 
experienced both negative and positive 
effects on their mental health from social 
media usage while in college. 

“If I think about when my mental 

health issues began, it’s around the same 
time we started really using Instagram 
and Snapchat,” said Sophia Maita, a 
senior at Fordham University studying 
communications and culture. 

Maita, who experienced the onset of 

mental health issues around age 12, claims 
social media has had both a negative and a 
positive influence on her emotional well-
being. “I’ve tried to set up my social media 
to be positive … I follow a lot of inspirational 
accounts,” she said. 

The posts that often make people jealous 

or insecure can sometimes play in as a 
positive: “It makes me happy to see people 
on Instagram and Facebook doing well and 
being successful,” she said.

But it’s a careful balancing act.
“Just seeing people out partying with 

someone who I’m not friends with or don’t 
get along with can be difficult.” 

The fear of missing out, often referred 

to as FOMO, can be defined as anxiety 
caused when you find out about an event 
that you are not attending or weren’t 
invited to. Usually, people are exposed to 
such information via social media posts. It 
is the feeling that everyone is having more 
fun than you, or experiencing something 
novel or exciting, and that you’re missing 
it. It can have negative effects on both 
happiness and self-esteem and has been 
found to provoke great distress.

That being said, FOMO can turn into 

something more sinister than a feeling of 
unease at a Snapchat story of your friends 
at a bar without you. 

“When I see on spring break or in the 

summer people looking so hot in bikini 
photos, and that was what I was struggling 
with my freshman and sophomore year of 
college ... feeling envy or shame really took 

a toll on my eating habits and how I felt 
about my body.” Maita said. 

Social media — especially Instagram 

— has been found to be damaging in 
regards to eating disorders: While it does 
not necessarily cause them, it normalizes 
disordered eating behaviors and fosters 
body 
dysmorphia. 
Most 
recently, 

TikTok has been filled with pro-eating 
disorder content. Many teenage girls 
have normalized posting videos of their 
“FDOE”, or full day of eating, in which they 
list the calories of their every meal — most 
often between 600-800 a day. The app has 
been known to glorify skipping meals and 
to promote weight loss supplements, thigh 
gaps and the constant weighing of oneself. 
TikTok has even been dubbed “Pro-Ana,” 
a term to describe the promotion of eating 
disorders like anorexia. 

Instagram has also been criticized 

for emphasizing a pro-eating disorder 
narrative, 
like 
through 
accounts 

that 
promote 
diet 
culture. 
These 

accounts 
advertise 
over-exercise, 

compulsive dieting and calorie counting, 
which can be extremely destructive 
to someone already engaging in eating 
disorder habits or tendencies. There are 
also “fitspiration” and “health” Instagram 
accounts that promote healthy habits like 
exercise, nourishing oneself and evading 
diet culture. 

“With any platform that has pages and 

accounts that aren’t tied to a singular 
person — like fitness or foodie accounts — 
we have the option to view diet and fitness 
accounts all day if we want, which can be 
dangerous to people with pre-existing 
mental health problems,” said LSA senior 
Hallie Fox.

 “I definitely think it’s a double-sided 

coin. You can see weight loss accounts 
saying ‘this is what people should look 
like’ but there are also accounts that 
are for recovery and struggles and body 
positivity,” Fox said.

Instagram has a huge community of 

eating disorder recovery accounts, run by 
women predominantly, who share their 
struggles with recovering from an eating 
disorder and use the platform as a food 
journal to hold themselves accountable. 
While this creates a sense of community and 
solidarity for eating disorder sufferers and 
survivors, doctors urge that such accounts 
cannot replace professional treatment.

Many social media are dedicated to 

creating a sense of unity 
and 

a space for those who feel alone in their 
struggle. Millennials and members of Gen 
Z have been both criticized and lauded for 
general openness about struggles with 
mental health and the de-stigmatization 
of therapy and dialogue around emotional 
well-being. 

SMTD sophomore Harper Klotz found their 

community online, on the website Tumblr. 

“After being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder 

and PTSD I didn’t know anyone around me 
experiencing these things, so I looked for 
resources and people online that I could relate 
to. Tumblr made me realize I wasn’t alone in 
what I was experiencing,” they said.

Online platforms are seldom regulated, 

which is part of why they work so well in 
connecting people and allowing them to be 
vulnerable. But there is a dark side to this 
openness. 

“Tumblr and Twitter can be really toxic, 

especially Tumblr … there was a lot of 
glorification of suicide and eating disorders 
… there’s mixed messages because anyone 
can post anything,” Klotz added. 
W

ith millennials and members 
of Gen Z connected to our 
mobile devices at all times, 

perhaps it’s in our best interest to seek 
out profiles and accounts that make us 
feel good, as opposed to relentlessly 
comparing our lives to others, which can 
lead to destructive consequences. It’s 
almost impossible to know — in a place 
as vast and open ended as the internet, 
where anyone can post anything — what 
provokes distress and what introduces 
positive emotions. Many people don’t want 
to waste time on social media, but feel 
trapped. If we decide to stop utilizing 
social media altogether, we forgo a major 
means of interaction, communication and 
socialization between peers, friends and 
family members. Without social media, 
one could lose the ability to network, 
keep in touch with connections and even 
get hired for jobs. There’s almost no way 
to unplug — and even unplugging could 
bring on other negative feelings, like 
FOMO. 

Social media can be a haven of support 

and love, spreading affection in the form 
of a thumbs up and digital hearts, but it 
can also be a destructive path of pressure 
and comparison. The future is unclear 
for teenagers and young adults, with 
TikTok popular among young people and 
even LinkedIn causing exacerbations in 
stress and anxiety. Perhaps the balance 

— and solution — is for us to figure out on 
an individual basis. On the other hand, 
perhaps it is a societal-level issue worth 
concern and attention. 
D

uring my Instagram hiatus, I 
noticed I took fewer photographs 
than I normally would have. It 

seemed to suggest that I only feel inclined 
to take pictures with the prospect of posting 
them, not necessarily just to have them to 
look back on as a memory. On vacation over 
fall break, I didn’t post once — not a picture 
of an aesthetically pleasing palm tree, a 
Caribbean sunset, a fruity cocktail or my 
silhouette fake-looking out at the ocean in 
a purple bikini — which is surprising given 
my inclination to shareable social media 
platforms like Instagram. 

I couldn’t decide if I was worse or better off 

without fulfilling the itch to feel fleetingly 
satisfied promoting happy, jubilant photos. 
I didn’t give in to a phony desire to share 
my life with the world, and eventually even 
forgot about posting altogether. I was no 
longer caught up in what everyone else was 
doing and how they looked over fall break. I 
had come down from the drug, and I was at 
a strange homeostasis. 

Social media is inevitable. It exists and 

we live among it. We can choose to embrace 
it for its wonderful qualities or hate it for 
its negative ones — or we can recognize 
that it can be imperfect and wonderful 
simultaneously. 

I’ve often thought about taking time 

off from social media again. Now, though, 
I feel more inclined to use platforms 
like Instagram and Twitter — which 
have benefited me by way of news, 
comedy, connection and entertainment 
— productively, rather than as a filter of 
my life. I have accepted the ebb and flow 
of social media platforms on my mental 
health, and recognized the negative 
exacerbation Instagram can have when I 
am coping with anxiety and stress. I am 
the only one who can bar social media from 
making me feel worse. 

For those of us who have lived in the 

yo-yo effect of deleting, redownloading 
and feeling incredibly aware of and 
attached to our profiles, I urge you to find 
ways to limit your use. Observe your own 
social media practices and focus on how 
they make you feel. Unplug for a few days. 
Practice Instagram and Snapchat use in 
moderation. Only in fostering a healthy 
balance for oneself can emotional well-
being truly improve.

Wednesday, March 18, 2020 // The Statement
4B
5B
Wednesday, March 18, 2020 // The Statement

BY ELI RALLO, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE FAN

Instagram was my therapy … until it wasn’t