The impact of social media on your mental health
I first got introduced to social media in secondary school and didn’t really use it properly. It was Schüler VZ and I don’t know if it still exists but back then it was necessary in order to stay connected with the cool kids at school. The next one I was on was also a German platform, called wer kennt wen. It popped up and it was even worse than Schüler VZ because everyone tried to have the best and dopest looking profile. This was in 2008. Before Instagram was launched and I hadn’t crossed paths with Facebook yet.
About a year later, I moved to the capital of Rhineland-Palatinate, where I suddenly saw cooler people everywhere, people I never saw in the small village where I grew up nor in the village I went to school in. So, I found a fancy hairdresser to make sure I fit in, because back then I had kinda crazy haircuts, I had a mohawk for many many years and they were the only ones who could style it properly. One day I was at the hairdresser with my sister and the hairdressers working there were talking about Facebook, which I hadn’t really heard of before. They told me that I should create a profile there as well, I was 12 and it was 2009 (meaning it was still not legal!). I created a profile and suddenly got obsessed with this new, ‘cool’ social media. I connected with friends from my former school, followed artists, skate brands, and so on. Back then it was a big hype and everyone was obsessed with this thing. The older I got the more I used it I realised that I had definitely overused it when I was younger, it had taken up way too much of my time.
A few years later I saw the ‘cooler’ people on my timeline posting vintage photos on a 3rd party app called Instagram and I was super impressed how great the photos looked, you know, with a crazy filter, called ‘Kelvin’.
I was hesitating because I was interested in photos already and had a friend who I would go out with to watch him taking photos on a DSLR Camera. So sometime in 2012 I did it, I broke my Instagram virginity.
I downloaded Instagram and uploaded a few photos, but after a few months I stopped using it. In 2013, I managed to buy my first camera and started editing with some shitty online editing website. One day, on the 12th of May in 2013, I decided to create a new account dedicated to my photography. I started following many photographers and it got me hooked even more than Facebook ever did.
I saw a lot of like minded, insanely creative people on this app posting great images from all over the world and especially from my dream city — Berlin. One day I discovered the profile of Michael Schulz, aka Berlinstagram, and I was just impressed by his name so I adapted it and changed it with my hometown’s name. That was the birth of @mainztagram. I started to use Instagram everyday, commenting and liking — trying to get response from the bigger fishes, which was never really happening back then. I posted continuously everyday and later started to meet people through this app.
When I told my mum for the first time she went crazy because she saw and maybe still sees the Internet as something unknown and bad, which I can also understand. My following increased daily and I hit 1,000 followers after some months of daily usage. Back then we did something called free for all editing so you would download a photo from one you were following who had a bigger account and then edit it in your own style and then posting it with giving the the original person’s credit. Your following would grow through that as well. It was also quite popular to do what bots are doing nowadays — liking through a certain hashtag. And it worked. A friend of mine back then grew his Instagram so fast and gave me several shoutouts from his account, which I profited from. It was a crazy time with not too many restrictions just a simple photo sharing app.
Fast forward to 2015. I saw someone posting on Instagram that there will be an Instameet happening in Mannheim, which is roughly 100 km away from Mainz. My sister and I went to that Instameet in order to meet new people, other creatives and active instagram users. By Christmas 2015 I hit 10,000 followers, which was one big achievement back then. Those were thin things you cared about.
As I started to meet more and more people through this incredible app and started to grow the account, I also started to be highly addicted to it and would spend hours browsing and scrolling through it envying people that had more followers, took better photos, and had a better life.
In 2016, I finally moved to Berlin and was finally able to explore the city on a daily basis and also would meet loads of new people through “the gram”. I met lovely people that year, some of them are now my closest friends, which is kinda crazy when you think about the fact that it was just strangers on the Internet to me back then.
At some point this high from Instagram pivoted into something very bad. My following didn’t grow anymore, my likes just decreased from once 2,000 likes to nowadays not even a hundred, which is super weird because I always kept on posting great photos (I think!). There were several fights going on in the Berlin Instagram community and I just felt sad about it and tried everything, except for bots, to fill this void in me, by growing my following but it wouldn’t happen ever again.
The app that once meant the world to me and I loved so much started to hurt me daily. I tried so hard to find something that could make me happy again. As I got older and got to know other perspectives from conversations with friends I realised how stupid it was to let an account with a following of 12,7k (back then) define who you are, but I still wasn’t really happy with the thought that my time on Instagram is kind of over and that I wouldn’t grow anymore.
I met more people outside of Instagram that helped realise that other things matter in life. And it helped me to not get caught up in this stupid game anymore. When Instagram became a huge app, of course there came the money aspect as well and where there is money there is always hate and envy.
I experienced several beefs about for example rooftops, which was a thing (urban exploring in general) and people not granting you anything. I worked with several brands on Instagram also posted stuff for money but always tried to keep up my authenticity by, for example, not posting anything related to hard alcohol, because I don’t drink alcohol. Some of you might raise their eyebrow now because you know that I worked with a beer brand. But I always say that it is and was for the merch because they had super cool merch and my friend offered me to post about it, so in my opinion I still kept my authenticity.
Last year in May I launched my own photography related website and this was the final pivoting point for my professional photography, because I always thought: “What will happen if one day Instagram dies out and you don’t have your followers anymore?”
I can now publish and curate whatever I want on my website, because it is MY portfolio and it does have to, in the first place, look good to me and not to anyone else, which was always the problem, because you’re biased by your followers. When I was caught up in the gram I also thought about what my followers would like to see, which “banger” to drop next in order to keep the rate of thousands of likes up.
Instagram is mainly not about you as a person anymore it is about what your followers want to see from you. I can’t answer what it is nowadays, I assume seeing a photo from a place for the 1000th time on your timeline and still commenting flames under it. Because what I realised, most people on Instagram don’t develop themselves, they just post what they know works best and not what they actually feel is their personal favourite photo.
As a conclusion: social media helped me in certain ways to find friends, because I needed more like minded people in my life, helped me find a job, because I told them about the business side of social media at my job interview, it got me a room in a shared flat because I met my flatmate through instagram.
Many many positive things happened because of social media but I also realised people are taking themselves way too serious on there and should again start to live outside this fake world. Live more in real life because if not it’ll makes you envious and it makes you feel bad about your own life.
Nevertheless I’m still using social media and also Instagram but I know that I use it wisely and with care. And live in the moment and not use my phone when I’m with precious people, maybe only to take a photo to have this moment captured, the perks of being a photographer for six years. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But it’s not just me that is impacted by social media. I spoke to some friends to find out more about how it makes them feel.
“Unfortunately, I am addicted to my phone and scroll through social media before my real day has even begun. Everything seems perfect, no one wants to project a bad or true depiction of themselves. I have seen it more apparent recently when a friend of mine was crying to me about real life issues and still asking which shade looked better for a post!”
“I use social media for inspiration, to keep in touch with friends and family and to watch puppy videos. I’d say it has had a positive impact on my well-being so far. But with social media also comes constant connectivity — and that stresses me out! ”
“For me social media is a great way to connect with my friends and family, which are spread all over the world. I’ve travel a lot and it’s a great way to stay in touch. Sometimes I meet friends after 4 or 5 years and it feels like yesterday, since we saw what happened in the other person’s life on social media. When I was younger, I consumed much social media much more than today. I’ve become rather a contributor and don’t have so much time to read anymore. But I’m using social media also for recruiting people for my team and launch my podcast episodes and make sure to reach the right target groups.
I can totally see that the consumption of social media gives you the feeling your own life is usually not as great as other people’s life. The glass starts getting half empty instead of half full. The satisfaction level of our own life’s is decreasing while new opportunities are coming up. This can affect our mental health by giving us the feeling our lives are “not enough”, we’re not getting “all we could” out of our lives, well, it’s FOMO, the fear of missing out constantly. This can lead to sleepless nights or the constant feeling of “not enough”.
This is one of the reasons I reduced my social media time to an absolute minimum, because I want to rather keep my mind clean and calm instead of constantly use it to digest unuseful information. One interesting fact I observed myself that often I’m unconsciously browsing without even paying attention to the actual content. I can see that my brain is actively rejecting to consume the information, which I guess is a good thing.”
“I’ve worked in marketing my whole career, so social has always been a part of my work life. Right now, I’m using LinkedIn for employer brand marketing. Which means I’m on there daily to see what’s happening around the world. I’ve noticed that there’s been a shift on LinkedIn, where people are talking about themselves and their lives outside of work. I’m into it, and think it speaks to the world we live in now where life and work are not completely separate. I find myself liking the posts with a point of view, rather than those promoting a company or a person.
I use Instagram for personal. I rarely post about work there. I’m on it frequently, and it’s the app I’m most addicted to. I’d say it definitely plays a big role in my social life, and I’m somehow embarrassed to say that. I find a lot of inspiration there, for better or worse.
I think it’s the 24 hour news and social cycle that has an impact on my life. I get the false sense that things are always happening, that people are going places. Even though I travel frequently, I often feel like great food and travel experiences are out of my reach while I’m Instagram. If you remember being inside sick when you were a kid, it’s that very feeling. Shrieks of joy outside in the sun, while you’re confined to your bed until you get better.
You know it’s never as good as it looks, but I don’t think most people really believe that, myself included.”
“It does play a key role in my daily life. I use it to stay in touch with friends, family and most important for business and working. It is an essential tool to stay up to date with everything and everyone within my bubble. Also, it is a huge burden because the possibilities are endless and every notification could be something big, another step or another dream come true.
In every way possible — from feeling extremely overwhelmed and excited, to a feeling of desperation and lostness when things don’t work out. It’s a rollercoaster ride for sure and no doubt has an enormous impact on my mental being in the short and long run.”
“Social media to me plays an essential role in connecting with new and like minded people and to showcase my work to a broader and interested online audience. You feel under pressure to catch up on the competition or more specific to be one step ahead. This can be exhausting and can also distract your own expectation of art. In former times it was harder for me, nowadays I don’t pay that much attention to it. The fact that I now know that people just show their “best side of their lives” and not their daily, maybe as well boring side, gives me the opportunity to see it as irrelevant.”
