What happens to mental health when social media sets the standard for how real life should feel?
If I’d scrolled past the video, I’d have sent it to all my friends. Absolutely A+ comedy.
The clip would have shown a toddler strapped into a car seat. Head lolled to the side, eyes shut, doughy cheeks smooshed into his shoulder. You’d hear a voice. His mom, probably, saying, “Oh buddy no! It’s not nap time.”
The toddler wouldn’t stir. “Wake up!” You could hear the growing desperation in her voice as the toddler didn’t move.
“Sorry guys, I have to do this,” the mom says seriously. Here’s where things take a comical turn.
You’d hear the audio switch from the drone of a kids’ podcast to the rapid drums and crushing guitar of heavy metal as the song Chocolate by BABYMETAL comes on. Instantly, the toddler’s eyes burst open. His head begins banging. Wisps of blond hair whoosh around his face. Just before the video cuts out, you’d hear the mom’s peels of laughter, plus accompanying giggles in kid registers.
But it wasn’t a video. It was my real life. When it happened, I did LOL. Still, my laughter wasn’t as unbridled as it is when I watch standup or other funny videos online. Because, actually, I was driving. I was merging and approaching a traffic signal, and there was a slick layer of ice on the road. Also, I had to pee. I couldn’t lose myself in the moment. I couldn’t forget anything. And, truly, my toddler not napping is a big problem these days. When he’s overtired, the rest of the day is just worse. And forget about whatever I’d planned to get done in those 90 minutes.
On the other hand, social media is friction-free. Bladders are irrelevant – or, hey, you can just take the phone with you. You’re not responsible for a two-ton vehicle. Plus, it’s artificially intense. Posts aren’t just normal funny, they’re funny turned up to 11.
By contrast, real-life can feel lacking. Something must be wrong if a share-worthy hilarious moment like that includes irritation, anxiety, and discomfort. I think that’s why, even though the moment was funny, it got added to my mental reel (which I helpfully replay at night when I can’t sleep) of the ways I fail as a mom. I’d failed to lose myself to joy in a silly moment with my children.
Read On The Stairs for a reflection on how pressure on mothers to “be present” or “enjoy the moment” with their kids can induce shame. I think a bigger, more compassionate view offers an antidote.
Except nothing is wrong. That’s simply what it’s like. Buddhists refer to the “unsatisfactoriness” of life, which I think captures what I mean. (Insight Timer has a nice primer on the concept, also called dukkha, here.) In real life, you don’t get to see your toddler rock out in the car without actually being in the car. You’re not reclining in a puff of pillows and a fuzzy blanket, relaxed and ready to laugh, you’re occupying a body coursing with adrenaline, navigating traffic, and desperate to grab back your time so you can work.
Why It Matters
When you establish friction-free moments like you find online – or on TV or in the movies – as your baseline, it can work against emotional well-being in at least two ways.
1. It increases negative feelings.
2. It decreases positive feelings.
Friction-Free Fantasies Can Increase Negative Feelings
On the milder end, you may merely feel uneasy or ashamed that your life’s version of everything is lackluster, like I did after my toddler’s metal moment.
The ombré sunset photo at the top of this post offers another example that points to a larger problem for mental health. Here it is again.
But, you should know, the scene as I experienced it actually looked more like the photo below — a mishmash of houses and old snow and street signs and cars.
When I saw that sunset, driving home on a Sunday afternoon early in the new year, tears came to my eyes. So gorgeous. So fleeting. So precious. Such a bright spot after weeks of skies too cloudy for proper sunsets. I pulled over and got out of my car to take a photo, peeling off my mittens even though the windchill was -18 F. But when I looked at the results on my screen, they didn’t strike me as good enough for this post. There was too much grunginess. So I reframed the shot to capture a more elevated view, free of anything suggestive of humanity or dirt.
What happens when we, collectively, crop out all the dirt from our lives? Licensed psychotherapist Esther Perel, LMFT articulated one possibility in a recent episode of Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris.
Perel observes that “Life is filled with uncertainty, discomfort, friction, and obstacles.” But, she continues, when you remove friction and discomfort, making life smooth and polished – the way modern life makes possible through apps and social media – it has an incredible effect on anxiety. Because if you develop a sense that life should be comfortable at all times, when things inevitably happen, you don’t know how to handle it, she says. In other words, an inability to tolerate discomfort can heighten anxiety.
Read Facebook Is Not Your Friend for a reflection on how subbing out IRL relationships for those on social media may impact mental health. Hint: A 60+ year old psychology experiment offers clues.
Friction-Free Fantasies Can Decrease Positive Feelings
As for positive feelings, those too may be harder to access if the media you consume establishes your expectations for real life. If your filter is set for fireworks, you’ll screen out smaller sparks, missing out on a whole lot of brightness that’s there waiting for you.
When you are desensitized to the nuances that are part and parcel of real experience, you may fail to attend to the subtlety of real life, missing joy and pleasure. Real life is not as extreme as social media. When you consume too much content, there is a real danger of dulling your palate, the way too many KitKats can make it harder to properly perceive a pear.
Reset for Reality
On the other hand, recalibrating to reality can be immediately regulating. When I reflected on my non-video moment in the car with my kids, I realized that shame didn’t really belong there.
There’s nothing wrong with feeling more than one feeling at once.
In fact, I felt how I felt because that’s exactly what it’s like when something funny happens and you have a body and a mind and a context. It feels like laughter and irritation and divided attention and connection.
This too is normal.
Want to understand more about the impact of social media on emotional wellbeing? Read my coverage of the U.S. Surgeon General’s and American Psychological Association’s (APA) health advisories regarding social media and youth mental health for Everyday Health here.
My Latest Writing
One of my driving purposes – professionally and personally – is to support children’s emotional well-being. That’s why it was deeply meaningful to work on this story for Everyday Health about how to raise emotionally healthy kids. To find out, I poured over the research and spoke to two brilliant experts, Rebecca Hershberg, PhD, and Stacey Doan, PhD. The resulting piece, which I hope you’ll read, is one of my favorites I’ve ever been asked to write.
Book Recommendations
Here’s a hot tip: Preorder Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story by Leslie Jamison. It’s coming out on February 20, 2024. I have loved Jamison’s previous books (The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath is one of the best books I’ve ever read) so jumped on the chance to read an advanced copy of her latest, her first true memoir. This intimate, honest book covers Jamison’s experience at a major threshold, the years when she became a parent and ended her marriage. Her writing is like lightning — sharp, surprising, and raw — and I find myself amazed at how she does it.
Thank you to Hachette Book Group for the advance copy. See my disclosure statement for my policy on accepting books for review.
If you’re passionate about raising emotionally healthy, resilient kids, I recommend Nature Meets Nurture: Science-Based Strategies for Raising Resilient Kids by Stacey N. Doan and Jessica L. Borelli. I interviewed Doan for my new Everyday Health article about raising emotionally healthy kids. Her insights were wise and actionable, and this book offers more where that came from. The section on savoring introduced me to a new practice. I’ve since incorporated it everyday with my kids, and I can honestly say, it has increased the warmth and closeness in our home.
Whenever I travel, I try to visit a local bookstore to see what jumps out at me. At Apostle Island Booksellers, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates was there on the shelf with a little handwritten notecard sticking out that extolled its virtues. Written in 1962, the novel provides a devastating look at life in 1950s suburbia. It covers mental health, gender, class, work, America, parenting, and more with a contemporary resonance I found surprising. It’s the kind of book I need you to read so we can talk about it together.
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