Social media websites such as Tumblr and Instagram are very beneficial to users as one of their primary functions is to allow users to curate, collect, and share creative work. Whether through sketches, comics, music, or writing, users benefit from websites like these, when used as intended, as they are a great outlet for creative expression, connectivity, and communication.
Another advantage of participating in social media communities is by finding and building a supportive society if/when they are going through a tough time in their lives or in the case of an ongoing mental illness. Finding a supportive community online allows individuals to share their stories and find comfort in each other. However, these communities shift from being helpful to harmful when people begin to participate in ways that encourage unhealthy behavior such as self-harm, self-diagnosis of mental disorders, and negative thinking.
The misrepresentation of mental illnesses in the entertainment media, news media, and social media has led to the romanticism of mental health in general. The entertainment and news media plays a large role in the misrepresentation of psychotherapists, psychologists, clients and patients.
In the media, such professions and clientele are portrayed as crazy, abnormal and attention-seekers, dismissing the legitimacy of real mental illnesses. On social media, while the presence of mental illnesses-related content or discussion does not dismiss the legitimacy of illnesses, it does minimize the severity of serious conditions. Social media platforms, particularly Tumblr and Instagram, are increasingly popular hubs for quotes, clothes, images, blogs, quizzes, ‘facts’, signage etc. all perpetuating and promoting inaccurate information about mental illnesses – especially anxiety, eating disorders, depression, and bipolar disorder.
Social media is essentially redefining what it means to have a mental illness. By creating false images, visual and metaphorical, and creating a false sense of ‘beauty’ and ‘positivity’ in mental illnesses, the content on Tumblr and Instagram communities is suggesting that individuals can become popular, successful, wealthy, and happy using their mental illness not in spite of it or battling it. Additionally, eating disorders have been reduced down to lack of self-control, “phases” of binging and purging, or occasional emotional eating. Online communities on Tumblr and Instagram are overflowing with unhealthy weight loss tricks, images that serve as “thinspiration”, and unhealthy body goals. These communities are actually promoting eating disorders and unhealthy bodies, similar to the way communities are promoting depression and anxiety as “beautiful sadness”.
What this does is deny the fact that individuals with a mental illness have difficulty in their lives, struggle, and at times have to work harder than those without such conditions, to achieve the same level of success. It also denies the necessity of seeking professional help for serious problems. Romanticism of mental illnesses on social media can also lead to a number of other problems such as drug dependency, self-harm, and body dysmorphia. If individuals begin to receive medical treatment for a mental illness that they don’t have, they may become dependent or addicted on those drugs. Some individuals begin to believe that having a mental illness will make them unique or stand out. However in reality, living with a mental illness is extremely difficult.
In next week’s post, we’ll look more closely at how romanticism of depression and anxiety operates in the social media sphere, why teenagers are gravitating towards self-diagnosis of depression, and what the consequences of this behavior are.
