when i think of social media and anxiety i mean holy moly that's like a loaded question [Music] so [Music] personally what's affected my anxiety the most is the the amount of negativity that i see there's just literally too much like i find that the more i'm looking at a screen the more detached i feel with my own body or to like what's happening right in front of me my relationship with social media is you know a bit addictive right now which i don't like and i'm not proud to say that but i also feel like that's something that probably most of us can relate to like i don't like that i feel the need to have social media in the first place there really is like no escaping it there's plenty of research out there that really demonstrates that social media acts very much like an addiction it stimulates the same part of the brain as substance use so when you think about it you are always looking for that positive reinforcement right the idea of what could happen whether you're going to get a like or whether you know somebody's going to repost you really keeps you coming back very much like an addiction right i don't know is that something just as society we're conditioned from like a very young age to like feel like we need that validation that sense of not getting that enough positive reinforcement from our home environment not feeling rooted allows us to really look outside of ourselves for our reward and i think that social media really pulls for that it's so interesting that you say that because a lot of the feedback if if it is negative that i've ever gotten is like oh you're setting a bad example or this is horrible that i wouldn't want my kid to see this or what do you think when parents say for example to you when they say you know you're setting a bad example for my kids i don't know how much you know about my family or us but there's there's an assumption of the kind of people that we are or who we are that i could say pretty confidently is pretty inaccurate i mean i i we have a reality tv show so a lot of people know a lot of our lives but i think that there's still such a lack of actually knowing our character who we are when you think about even even a reality show is going to show the highlights of your life right and when somebody really thinks about like keeping up how do you keep up with the kardashians right it it is obviously either can be used as a motivation to be your very best or it can be used as an impossibility if somebody's really struggling with identity issues right and with confidence issues the idea of keeping up with this image of somebody that you admire may really seem impossible and perhaps that's part of the sort of rationale as to why for some folks you can check me by the way you can totally sit here and be like this is what this is what people think can you give me an example of a time where you kind of have like would highlight a peak moment of anxiety that is related to social media for you something that like boils my blood that like really frustrates me and like i think upsets me the most is when it's someone claiming a false narrative for me the internet i guess bases things off of such small moments yes with no context right they don't know the before or the after and they'll take that and run with it and then completely judge you based off of this one little thing well that's the thing i think there's a certain loss of control of your own sense of self and i think that people can kind of edit it to their own to fit their own purpose and to fit their own sense of reality or lack of reality and then you just become like a canvas upon which people project their own stuff onto and it's got to be really difficult i think that that's probably very similar to what children feel when they're bullied online you know you post something and then somebody can take something that you might give them and really distort it in such a way that comes back is very aggressive you know i pride myself on being a pretty decent human being like i don't think i'm a bad person or anything so i wouldn't i'm not saying it's you know something actually bad that i would have posted or whatever it's just it's something as simple as they didn't like what i looked like in that photo and i'm sure that getting that type of feedback does something to you yeah that's something to your confidence like even even kendall jenner i'm sure getting that type of feedback does something to you how do you feel when you get sort of that type of critical feedback i have moments of feeling like i'm breaking or feeling like i can't take it anymore because sometimes it does feel it like it just i can never do anything that right sometimes it replaces everybody right so so this this period of intense anxiety for you um it seems to me it's a perfect example of this sort of separation of yourself here's the candle at home little young girl who is now being pushed on the world stage having to sort of play this role out knowing that your image is going to be out there for everyone to consume there's got to be sort of this judge so how do you think that has uh that that projection of you in social media how has that affected your ability to really kind of feel anchored and connected to your say authentic self for lack of a better word right well it's just interesting because there are first of all so many images of me on the internet ones that i'm fine with and ones that i don't necessarily like you know what i mean and a lot of the times the ones that i don't like are the ones that get more attention because they're the ones that everyone wants to kind of take and rip apart so i think that i've become numb to all of that in a way that took time though and that took a lot of like talking to myself and and you know hyping myself up and because of social media everything is highlighted everything is heightened whether good or bad i feel like most of my social media anxiety is actually more the overwhelmingness of it all over stimulation right you realize that our brains are really not designed to be bombarded by all the stimulus that's coming our way all of the time what is actually like psychology like what is happening what's happening in certain brains right yes i think you know that the sense of overwhelm is very real and that there's a point in which the brain can no longer process all the information that's coming our way and so there's an actual shutdown very similar to what happens in a trauma response it stimulates that sort of animal impulse of fight flight or freeze response and if we can't process everything that's happening then we start to freeze and we start to feel like we're no longer in the world so there is a sense of derealization that happens and you know i think with with covet uh really keeping young people out of relationships and social interaction we don't have that human connection anymore which i feel like we as human beings need it well that's the ultimate irony isn't it that the internet can the social media can really allow us to feel like we have millions and millions of friends in the world when in reality we could be very lonely right at home and it's the sense that you start to trade your real life for the imagine life we're constantly being bombarded by a new role model or by a new standard of beauty or by a new a desire that we just can't quite be adequate enough to meet and i think this is the dangerous part where a lot of young people really fall into a hurtful clinical depression yeah that oftentimes leads into either self-harm addiction we've seen that addiction has really increased during this time or you know worst suicide i feel like it's something that we're now like stuck in do you know what i mean like how do we know there's no reversing i hope that one of the things that we learned from this is exactly what you've said is that there is a need for us to be connected in real time that kind of content is critical for our well-being yeah it's it's part of it has to be part of our i think that's one of our tips of the day is go give someone a hug so something that i'm asking all the professionals on this series is just some i don't know tips tricks tools that you can kind of that the viewers can take home with them or they'll probably already help but take away with them and really apply to their life or their lifestyle so i would say probably four tips one is being aware of your intention when you engage in social media why are you doing it why are you connecting recognizing that once you put an image out there you may not always have control over how that image is going to be consumed i think a third recognizing that addiction is very real in social media and that it operates very much like any other addiction and so setting some limits appropriate limits and boundaries is really critical and and i would say lastly is set some time for yourself to really socialize with people stay connected to those that love you and really recognize that no human being is an island we are all you know human beings who socialize and need to socialize in order to stay protected yeah well thank you so much thank you this has been nice thoroughly amazing i really have enjoyed being here with you i think it's interesting because a lot of our conversation about social media was how like overwhelming everything can be and i think even just talking about it was really overwhelming like it's almost a sense of validation hearing it from a professional or hearing it from a doctor of like okay i'm not the only one that's you know dealing with these thoughts or emotions and and how invasive it feels like in my life but it's good to be aware of it all and it's good to talk about it and kind of let it out and then now you can be aware process and hopefully move forward [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] you
