Social media can have its benefits. “If you use it appropriately, it can be helpful to connect with your friends, it can be helpful to for entertainment, to listen to music, to learn certain things, so it’s not like it’s all bad or all good.” However, Lee Health Clinical Psychologist Jacqueline Hidalgo said everyone, especially teens need to be careful with their social media use. “You may be missing some of the human contact, developing social skills that you may not be using if you’re only interacting through the Internet or social media.”
Too much screen time can affect your ability to concentrate. “The hours spent in it looking at screens for a prolonged period of time can be detrimental. Difficulties with attention or concentration if we’re constantly switching clips that go really fast, you really don’t need to sustain attention for a long period of time,” said Hidalgo.
Hidalgo said its critical that people don’t compare themselves to what they see when scrolling. “There are a lot of dangers comparing yourself to others, like there are models, there are people that have all those amazing things, and obviously they choose to portray overly positive images on social media.”
In short, it’s all about the proper balance. “Make sure the content has a good balance between maybe stressful like news and things like that, and things that are positive, like follow people who are going to post a positive quote, or something that kind of makes your day, or something that’s funny.” You can use parental controls or set time limits for how much social media time your kids are allowed each day. Hidalgo recommended 2 hours or less.
View More Health Matters video segments at LeeHealth.org/Healthmatters/
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4 авг 2024
