It was recently stated that reducing 30 minutes on social media per day could help improve mental health, commitment and job satisfaction. The study states that social media have been an integral part of many people across the world.
FoMO caused due to social media
Engaging content is also impacting the mental health of many users and it is causing fear of missing out on something important which is happening in their network when they are not online - a phenomenon which is being referred to as FoMO (Fear of Missing Out).
Julia Brailovskaia, Associate Professor from the Mental Health Research and Treatment Center at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany explains: “We suspect that people tend to use social networks to generate positive emotions that they’re missing in their everyday working lives, especially when they are feeling overworked.”
She further added, “In addition, some platforms such as LinkedIn also offer the opportunity to look for new jobs if you’re unhappy with your current role.”
In the short-term, escaping from reality into the world of social networks may improve your mood, but in the long term, it could lead to addictive behaviour which may impact the mental health of a person negatively.
Social media Experiment
A study which was published in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology, states that the team has launched an experiment to explore these connections.
Around 166 people took part in the study, and everyone was working either part-time or full-time in different sectors and used to spend at least 35 minutes a day on non-work-related social media use.
The study appointed random participants who were assigned to one of two groups, out of which one group did not change their social media habits.
The other group, on the other hand, has reduced the time which was spent on social networks by 30 minutes per day for seven days.
The result of the study on both groups
The participants completed various questionnaires online before the start of the experiment, the day after it began and one week later, information was provided about their workload, commitment, mental health, job satisfaction, FoMO, stress levels and behaviours indicating addictive social media use.
Brailovskaia said, “Even after this short period, we found that the group that spent 30 minutes less a day on social media significantly improved their job satisfaction and mental health. The participants in this group felt less overworked and were more committed on the job than the control group.”
Their sense of FoMO decreased with reduced social media usage. The effects lasted for a minimum week after the end of the experiment and in some cases, it even increased during this time.
The participants who reduced their daily social media usage voluntarily continued to do so even after a week.
Benefits of reducing social media usage?
The researchers have further assumed that, by reducing their social media usage, the participants will have more time to do their jobs, which means they will feel less overworked and will suffer less due to the divided attention.
Furthermore, time spent on social media may prevent people from interacting with their colleagues in real life, reducing the personal connection and human touch- leading to alienation between people.
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Inputs from IANS
