‘Social media addicts susceptible to mental health challenges’

Mr Adedotun Ajiboye, a Clinical Psychologist, has warned that addiction to social media can cause both mental and physical health challenges.

Social media

Ajiboye, who works at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti, gave the warning in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday.

He, however, said that social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, google, WhatsApp, Facebook could either make or mar an individual.

“Basically, `addiction’ to social media makes it a bad phenomenon.

“People who are addicted to social media may experience both physical and mental health problem.

“Social media addiction is a real phenomenon that may be difficult to overcome because smartphones as one of the objects of addiction are being carried about wherever people go.

“It becomes harder to escape the Internet because people often have access to their phones.

“Any addiction is potentially harmful because it robs you of the opportunity to be devoted to other activities, such as offline relationships, daily work, ad physical activity,” he said.

Ajiboye identified social anxiety as one of the mental health consequences of social media addiction.

According to him, social anxiety is the inability to relate with other people considering that it has displaced offline relationships.

The psychologist stated that another consequence of social media addiction is emotional suppression or denial, a situation, which makes people to disguising that all is well on social media.

He listed other mental consequences to include stress, lack of sleep, cyber bullying (such as critical comments), and peer pressure (the fear of missing out).

Ajiboye said that one of the physical health challenges of social media addiction was Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which is the wrist or hands or fingers being strained.

Others he said include: eye problems, lack of exercise or sedentary lifestyle; loss of valuable sleep due to social media leading to fatigue and distraction explaining that a person could get hurt when they text and walk.

He added that one of the ways to overcome social media addiction was to first identify there was a problem with social media adding that discovery brought about recovery.

According to him, plan your time and data usage, when you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.

“Live a purpose-driven life. Do not live by chance, live for a course or vision. Also, seek professional advice to overcome social media addiction .

“If you are helpless, seek God to help you,” Ajiboye said.