Dr. Mehwish Kamran, Ph.D. Clinical Psychology
United States of America
In this modern technological world, we all use social media platforms for different purposes and to become the new currency of self-worth. We have so much dependency on these social media apps, and we live our lives through them. The usage of social media has a severe impact on our mental health positively and negatively. It provides connection and support, but excessive usage leads to anxiety and depression.
Social media can be fun, but research shows it’s also linked to anxiety, stress, and even body image issues. A global study found that excessive social media use is associated with lower well-being and higher psychological distress, especially in places where it’s widely used (Boer et al., 2020).
Through social media, we seek external validation when we share opinions, thoughts, photos, experiences, achievements, and many things. While excessive usage of social media platforms leads to psychological problems. Like constant exposure to curated and idealized versions of other people’s lives has been shown to lead to negative self-comparisons, causing feelings of inadequacy, envy, and low self-esteem. They need acceptance and validation from others about themselves, but is it ok to have external validation? Is it Normal to seek external validation from social media? Thats not the healthy pattern for your psychological wellbeing. We can stop that by finding the roots of that problem.
Why we need external validation from others through social media because we dont believe ourselves, we have some fears or doubts about our abilities or maybe we want some comparisons with others, or we want to show off our things or may be afraid of failure in accepting others. Many of us find ourselves refreshing feeds and watching notifications—not just for updates, but for affirmation. This desire for external validation stems from a mix of psychological, social, and cultural factors.
These are the questions that arise when you see people using social media without any purpose. These dilemmas lie in individual psychological wellbeing.
If you dig down this phenomenon of external validation from social media, you will find the roots of them, and we can address them through paying attention to how you speak to yourself. You find the roots of fear of excessive validation from others. We can also stop by reducing comparison with others because if you are not meeting the standards of current trends, your self-esteem, feeling of inadequacy, and envy develop. It looks like a competition of winning and losing as you feel accomplished when you are really good and successful on social media. The more likes, subscriptions, or followers, the more you considered to be a successful person because there is a mind setup that develops now, that if so, many people are following a person (influencer)then, that person seeking validation from others about his/her content. No matter the level/quality of content we are putting in, we need numbers in terms of like and followers that is big mark of external validation. People who are unable to do that feel depressed, unaccomplished, stressed, lack motivation, low self-esteem, having pressure from family and peers.
Therefore, it’s important to have practice of self-acceptance while developing belief and self-confidence in yourselves. There are many things which boost your sense of accomplishment, self-esteem, morale, and sense of happiness and satisfaction in your life.
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