Social Media and Its Impact on Women’s Mental Health — A Double-Edged Sword?
It started with a simple post — an innocent photo shared on a quiet Sunday afternoon — but I never would have anticipated the whirlwind that followed.
I’ve been a big social media fan since the early days and sometimes feel like I spend half my life on there. But the comments I recieved that day — the battleground that was created — had even me reconsidering with this desire to connect and share was indeed in fact healthy for me.
The comments started off relatively benign but quickly devolved into a series of hurtful, venomous attacks, that saw me called names, my appearance mocked, and soon (at least so it felt) strangers feeling entitled to judge every aspect of my life.
At first, I tried to shrug it off, telling myself that these were just words from faceless people who didn’t know anything about me. But the comments kept coming, and with their frequency and intensity growing, the situation really began to distress me. Every time I got that notification sound from my phone, a fresh wave of anxiety would arrive. I actually felt incredibly exposed, vulnerable, and alone in a sea of this digital aggression.
Over the longer term, and with other similar instances arising down the track as well, the impact on my mental health was profound — I began questioning my worth, my appearance, and whether I should even be using my voice for anything of the nature that I was. It galled me, because I knew what I was saying was accurate and important, but nonetheless, my self-esteem still plummeted, and I found myself withdrawing from online spaces.
In my darker moments, I wondered why people felt the need to be so cruel. Online anonymity is of course the reason here — people are emboldened to say things they would never dare to say in person. This strips away empathy and kindness, and we see a much more callous side of human nature as a consequence. People, I think forget that their words do in fact have real impacts on real people, with this disconnect between the virtual and the personal allowing for a level of cruelty that would be unacceptable face-to-face.
I did eventually end up talking to others about my experiences, and discovered that many of my friends had in fact experiences similar themselves. One friend, for example, told me about the relentlessly bullying she’d had after she’d sharing her thoughts on a political issue. Another to had faced a barrage of hateful messages after posting a picture in a bikini — one assumes because she isn’t the skinny perfect looking woman that many are used to seeing online. What became clear to me though, is that this wasn’t just an issue I was facing: there is in effect a widespread issue affecting many women.
We need to be talking about this much more than we currently are, including the often devastating effects on mental health. Too many women suffer in silence, feeling ashamed or isolated when they just shouldn’t be. Anyway, by sharing my story, I hope to bring further light to these issues — to encourage others to seek support and stand up against online harassment too.
Social media has the potential to be a force for good, but we must be vigilant in addressing its darker aspects, and that means fighting for platforms to implement stronger measures against cyberbullying and for users to cultivate empathy and respect.
