Social media is the ultimate double-edged sword that while essential for communication and community building, also poses complex mental health challenges, with youths most vulnerable.
Regular social media users are exposed to cyberbullying and body image shaming on an all too frequent basis, the result being depression, anxiety and, in extreme cases, thoughts around self-harm.
Social media’s adverse impacts on mental health isn’t lost on the Canadian Mental Health Association, which has developed programs and support aimed at equipping people with a better understanding of social media’s mental health impacts while providing strategies that promote healthier online practices and habits.
Local CMHA community engagement and education manager Jack Veitch says bullying and intimidation used to be restricted to a venue – the schoolyard or the park – but now, with social media, exposure to those mental health harms is no longer restricted to a location that one can leave easily.
Veitch says it’s important for parents and guardians to regularly engage in open and honest dialogue with their kids around their social media use and habits.
Veitch says good online habits practiced regularly help reduce the onset of negative mental health impacts.
For more information about programs and supports offered by the Canadian Mental Health Association, visit www.cmhahkpr.ca.
(Written by: Paul Rellinger
