Should Social Media Carry a Trigger Warning?

Should social media carry trigger warnings?

Many TV shows now carry ‘trigger warnings’ at the beginning of an episode to warn viewers that they are potentially going to feel some sort of internal distress, or in fact, be triggered to reexperience a past trauma.  The trigger warning gives viewers a choice whether to watch or not.  

What does smart phone use really deprive us of?

Equally, the food we eat, here in the UK, also carries a ‘traffic light’ system that lets the consumer know the product they are going to eat is high in something that could have negative consequences on long term health.   

But what about social media?  What about the information we ‘consume’ on platforms such Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc.    Like food the we consume the digital content we are exposed to has an impact on us – even if we are unaware.   Like food, what we digitally consume affects us psychologically and physiologically.    Just as what you eat impacts your brain chemistry and therefore how you feel, so does what you view.   The content, driven by algorithms, affects our thinking, our belief systems and can, in regard to negative content, have a physiological impact such as stress.   I often encourage people to really pay attention to what goes on in their body when they are looking at their feed.

Social media, as most of us know, is not reality. But then neither are TV shows.  However, social medal consumption can lead to psychological distress, mainly in the form of comparison.  People often feel they are ‘not skinny enough’, ‘not rich enough’, ‘not successful enough’ or are ‘behind others my age’.    Comparing ourselves to others activates the part of us that believes we are not OK, and most of us have this belief.  When we are striving for the manufactured and manipulated perfect, we are setting ourselves up for a reinforcement of this belief about ourselves. Although clients don’t come to see me because of their social media use, often what they are viewing is adding to their distress, feeling worse about themselves because they cannot meet these ideals. 

Internal distress is something that we try to avoid.  Our emotional pain centre and our physical pain centres both activate the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex – it’s hard to tell one from the other and therefore we are likely to try and avoid either.  Interestingly, often when people begin to feel any sort of distress, they often pick up their phone rather than be curious about what might be going on for them.  

 We ‘consume’ digital media.  We take it in and digest it.  Food labels let us know that what we may be about to consume may not be good for us in the long term especially if we ‘over consume’.  All food, good and bad, has an impact on our body and our brains - (think of the soothing power of chocolate and the stimulating effect of caffeine).  We know the increase and excessive use of smart phones is associated with the increase in mental health problems (Depression, Anxiety, Stress, and Sleep Quality).     It’s not all social media’s fault, granted, but much time is spent consuming it in the way of ‘mindless scrolling’ instead of interacting with other humans or sleeping (lack of sleep plays a huge part in mental health issues).   We scroll when we are tired, when we feel uncomfortable, when we are bored. Our boredom threshold has decreased and our tolerance to our own feelings too.   We use our phones, and the content we consume to soothe, entertain and problem solve.  The problem with our feed is the echo-chamber it creates – there is no new or contradictory information getting in – fuelling fears which may then present as anger, indignation, intolerance.  People are separated by others opinions – polarized and deaf and we see this played out in riots and hate crimes.

Our mental health is underpinned by what we believe about ourselves, other people and the world.  When our social media feeds are set to ‘be better’ (richer, skinner, happier) or when we are exposed to constant negativity (politics, war, environment), then our negative feelings about ourselves, the world and others increases and can leave us feeling powerless and helpless which is big part of depression and anxiety. 

There is nothing really new in our world; anger, intolerance, hate, crime (as well as love, friendship, peace, humanity, care, compassion) have always existed but now we can communicate that message to a much wider group of people very quickly, and because we are so plugged in, there’s little room for much else.  Each video, tweet, picture, is a stimulus to which you will respond, potentially confirming how you feel about you and the world.   Next time you pick up your phone to scroll – check how you respond to that stimulus and ask yourself if this is really good for you, or should social media carry it’s own trigger warning?