Instagram Is Ruining Your Life

Summary

This video examines the impact of social media on mental health, focusing on a study that found platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter negatively affect users' well-being. Instagram, in particular, causes the most harm by creating unrealistic comparisons, making users feel inferior in terms of wealth, appearance, and success. Social media tricks the brain into believing most people are living perfect lives, leading to anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. The video encourages viewers to limit social media use and focus on activities like problem-solving to improve their future.

Takeaways

• 📊 A Royal Society for Public Health study found that using social media affects mental health, with Instagram being the most damaging and YouTube having a positive effect.
• 📱 Out of five major social media platforms, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram negatively impact mental health, with Instagram being the worst.
• 🧠 The human brain constantly compares individuals to others based on their environment, which in today's world includes social media.
• 💻 Social media platforms distort users' perception of social hierarchies, making people feel like they're competing with highly successful individuals.
• 📉 Spending excessive time on social media, especially Instagram, tricks the brain into believing the user is at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
• 😔 This distorted view can lead to anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues as people feel they are falling behind in life compared to others.
• 📊 A typical teenager spends 6 to 9 hours a day on social media, increasing their exposure to this distorted view of reality.
• 📸 Social media often presents an unrealistic view of life, with people appearing wealthier, happier, and more successful than they really are due to filters, Photoshop, and selective posting.
• ⛔ The constant comparison to idealized images on social media can leave users feeling inadequate, as though they are in the bottom 5% of society.
• 💡 The script recommends using time more productively by learning new skills, such as through platforms like Brilliant.org, instead of wasting hours on social media.

Q & A

What social media platforms were studied in the research mentioned?

The research studied Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube.

Which social media platform had a somewhat positive effect on mental health according to the study?

YouTube was the only platform that had a somewhat positive effect on mental health.

Which social media platform was identified as the most damaging to mental health?

Instagram was identified as the most damaging platform to mental health.

What does the script suggest is a key reason why Instagram causes mental health issues?

The script suggests that Instagram causes mental health issues because it tricks the brain into believing that everyone around you is more successful, wealthier, and happier, which lowers your perceived social status.

How does the brain assess where someone stands in the social hierarchy?

The brain assesses social hierarchy by looking at visual cues such as physical appearance, wealth, and the people someone associates with.

How has social media changed the way the brain perceives social comparison?

Social media has changed this by expanding the number of people we compare ourselves to, making it seem like we are competing against highly successful people, even though we are not physically surrounded by them.

Why do people feel like they are lower on the social hierarchy when using platforms like Instagram?

People feel lower on the social hierarchy because they are constantly exposed to images of highly successful individuals, which makes them feel as if they are in the bottom 5% instead of being average.

What mental health problems can arise from feeling low on the social hierarchy?

Feeling low on the social hierarchy can lead to increased anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks, depression, and addiction.

Why does the brain react negatively to being at the bottom of the social hierarchy?

The brain reacts negatively because being at the bottom of the social hierarchy signals low value and expendability, which increases stress and anxiety.

How does the script suggest people can avoid the negative effects of social media use?

The script suggests spending time on more productive activities like learning and problem-solving, using platforms like Brilliant.org instead of spending hours on social media.

Outlines

00:00

📊 Social Media's Impact on Mental Health

A study by the Royal Society for Public Health examined the mental health effects of social media on 1,500 people. The study found that four of the five major platforms—Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram—negatively impacted mental health, while YouTube had a somewhat positive effect. Among the damaging platforms, Instagram was found to be the worst. This raises the question of why Instagram causes the most harm and how social media affects our lives, which the video aims to explore.

05:00

🧠 How Our Brain Tracks Social Hierarchies

Our brain constantly gathers data from our environment to assess our place in the social hierarchy, relying heavily on visual cues. It evaluates physical appearance, possessions, and social circles to rank people on a 'social pyramid.' Historically, our brain made comparisons based on those immediately around us—peers at school or colleagues at work. In a small, contained environment, this process was manageable, as the comparison pool was relatively limited.

🏫 The Old Social Hierarchy: Limited Comparisons

Before social media, people compared themselves only to those in their immediate surroundings, such as classmates or colleagues. For example, an average high school student would compare themselves to a small group, with only a few standing out as more successful or popular. This meant most people felt on equal footing with their peers, reducing feelings of inferiority or inadequacy. The limited pool of comparisons helped maintain a healthy sense of self-worth.

📱 Social Media Expands Comparisons Beyond Reality

In modern times, social media warps our perception of reality. Teenagers now spend 6 to 9 hours a day on platforms like Instagram, where they are bombarded with images of perfection. This leads their brains to mistakenly believe these highly curated images represent the people around them, making them feel inferior by comparison. Lighting, filters, and Photoshop trick users into thinking others are wealthier, more attractive, and happier, causing significant mental distress.

⬇️ Social Media Pushes You to the Bottom of the Pyramid

Social media platforms make users feel like they're at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Instagram, in particular, fuels feelings of inadequacy, as it constantly exposes users to idealized lifestyles. Believing that everyone else is more successful or happier causes anxiety, depression, and even panic attacks. The brain cannot distinguish between reality and the curated world of social media, causing it to react as if you're constantly competing with people far more successful than you.

💡 Conclusion: Social Media Creates Unbeatable Competitions

In reality, most people live average lives, but social media creates an illusion that everyone is living a near-perfect life. This impossible standard leads to feelings of failure and inadequacy, even though it’s based on fantasy. Platforms like Instagram are particularly harmful because they lead users to believe they must compete with an unattainable ideal. Ultimately, the problem stems from users spending hours in a fake world that distorts their perception of reality.

🚀 A Healthier Alternative: Learning Platforms like Brilliant

Instead of spending hours on social media, it’s better to invest time in learning and personal development. The video suggests using Brilliant.org, a platform that offers courses in problem-solving, math, logic, and more. It encourages users to spend time learning skills that will benefit them in the long run. The first 200 people to sign up through the provided link will get a discount, offering a constructive alternative to the mental health pitfalls of social media.

Keywords

💡Social Media

Social media refers to online platforms where users create and share content, interact with others, and build digital communities. In the video, social media is discussed as having both negative and positive effects on mental health. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat are mentioned, with Instagram being highlighted as the most detrimental to mental health due to the constant comparison it encourages.

💡Mental Health

Mental health refers to a person's emotional, psychological, and social well-being. The video focuses on the negative impact of certain social media platforms on users' mental health, citing issues such as anxiety, depression, and insomnia. The constant comparison to others' curated lives on platforms like Instagram can lead to feelings of inferiority and inadequacy.

💡Social Hierarchy

Social hierarchy refers to the ranking of individuals within a social structure based on factors like power, wealth, or influence. The video explains how the brain instinctively assesses where individuals, including oneself, stand within this hierarchy. Social media distorts this natural process by making it seem like users are surrounded by more successful, wealthier, and more attractive people, which can lead to anxiety and depression.

💡Comparison

Comparison in the context of the video refers to the process of evaluating oneself against others, particularly through visual cues seen on social media. The video argues that Instagram and other platforms promote unhealthy comparisons, where users constantly compare their lives to the seemingly perfect lives of others, often leading to negative feelings about their own status and worth.

💡Instagram

Instagram is a social media platform where users share photos and videos. In the video, Instagram is portrayed as the most damaging platform for mental health due to the heavy focus on appearance, wealth, and lifestyle. The curated and filtered content leads users to believe that everyone else is more successful and happy, creating feelings of inadequacy.

💡Average Life

An average life refers to a typical, ordinary life that lacks extreme wealth, fame, or influence. The video highlights how most people live average lives, but social media warps this perception by making it seem like everyone else is living extraordinary lives. This misperception can lead users to feel that their own lives are inferior.

💡Curated Content

Curated content refers to the selective sharing of images and moments that present an idealized version of life. On platforms like Instagram, users only post the best parts of their lives, using filters, angles, and Photoshop to enhance their appearance. The video emphasizes how this curated content contributes to mental health issues by making users feel like they are falling short compared to others.

💡Perception

Perception is how we interpret and understand the world around us. In the video, social media is said to distort perception, making users believe they are surrounded by people who are more attractive, successful, and wealthy than they really are. This distorted perception contributes to feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth.

💡Anxiety

Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease. The video connects anxiety to the bottom of the social hierarchy, explaining that being in a low social position makes individuals feel unsafe and expendable. Social media amplifies these feelings by making users believe they are at the bottom of a much larger social pyramid, surrounded by people who are doing better in life.

💡Self-Worth

Self-worth is the sense of one’s own value or worth as a person. The video discusses how social media, particularly Instagram, erodes self-worth by making users feel like they are not as successful, attractive, or happy as the people they see online. This leads to mental health issues, as users internalize these feelings and believe they are not good enough.

Highlights

A study by the Royal Society for Public Health explored social media's effect on mental health, surveying 1,500 individuals.

Of the five most used social media platforms, four—Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram—were found to cause mental health issues.

YouTube was the only platform among the five that had a positive effect on mental health.

Among the four platforms causing harm, Twitter was the least damaging, followed by Facebook, Snapchat, with Instagram being the most harmful.

Instagram's negative impact stems from its ability to manipulate social comparison through visual cues like physique, wealth, and influence.

Social media alters our perception of the social hierarchy, making us feel like we're constantly competing with more successful people.

In the past, before the internet, social comparisons were limited to people in our immediate surroundings.

Modern social media usage, especially Instagram, exposes users to a global comparison, skewing perceptions of where they stand in society.

Spending excessive time on platforms like Instagram tricks the brain into believing that others are living more successful, happier lives.

The illusion created by Instagram can make people feel like they are in the bottom of the social hierarchy, increasing anxiety and depression.

The brain interprets being at the bottom of the social hierarchy as dangerous, leading to mental health issues such as insomnia, panic attacks, and addiction.

Despite the unrealistic representations on social media, the brain processes the images and interactions as if they were part of real life.

Even highly successful individuals cannot compete with the idealized versions of life portrayed on social media, making it an unattainable standard.

The artificial competition created by social media platforms like Instagram exacerbates feelings of inadequacy and inferiority.

By reducing time spent on social media and focusing on personal development, such as learning new skills, mental health outcomes can improve.

Transcripts

A study conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health last year took a look

at the effects of using social media on the mental health of 1,500 individuals

they discovered that out of the five most commonly used social media

platforms frequent usage in four of them Twitter Facebook snapchat and Instagram

caused mental health issues while only one YouTube had a somewhat positive

effect on mental health the four platforms that cause mental health

issues with then ranked from least damaging to most damaging and here are

the results Twitter being the least followed by

Facebook followed by snapchat and at the very bottom the social media platform

that messes with your head the most Instagram now this brings up the

question of well why why is Instagram the platform that causes the most mental

health problems and why is it that using social media platforms is ruining your

life and that's what we're gonna talk about in today's video see the thing is

our brain is constantly collecting data about our environment without us really

noticing it it does this for a variety of reasons such as making sure that

we're not in danger or to see if there aren't any resources nearby but one of

the most important reasons it does this is to check and see where we currently

stand in what's called the social hierarchy see within every social

situation within every environment that you find yourself in whether it be at

school at work or even at a nightclub there is a hierarchy a pyramid the

people at the top of this pyramid are the ones who have the most power the

ones who are the strongest the wealthiest the ones with the most

influence now our brain determines where people stand on this pyramid by

primarily looking at visual cues we look at someone's physique how muscular and

fit they are to determine physical strength we look at things that someone

owns like clothing cars and their lifestyle to determine someone's wealth

and we look at the types of people they surround themselves with to determine

their level of influence we look at all of these things to determine where the

people around us are on the pyramid but we also use this information to

determine where we are on the exact same pyramid now back in a day before the

invention of the internet before everyone started using social media

there weren't that many people to compare ourselves to where your brain

would simply look at the people that you spent the most time around and

make an estimation off of that for example when you were still in school

your brain mainly focused on the kids that attended your school now let's say

for the purposes of this video that you were a perfectly average kid back in

high school you had an average amount of friends you came from an average family

with an average income you were average looking as average as can be when your

brain compared you to the people in your surrounding it would probably look

something like this there were probably only a couple of kids were above you on

the pyramid the popular kids captains of sports teams members of student council

etc but to be honest there really weren't that many maybe only five to ten

percent of the school population at the same time they were probably also a

couple of kids who are below you on the pyramid kids who didn't have any friends

who had a hard time socializing these kids probably made up about another five

to ten percent of the school population the remaining 80% of the school

population were people who were pretty much average just like you just really

average kids from average families with really normal lives you know some might

have been slightly above and some slightly below you but most people were

pretty close to each other on the pyramid now back in the day when you

were in an environment like this you didn't feel like you were inferior to

the people around you sure there were a couple people who are better than you at

things who are above you on the pyramid but the vast majority of people were

essentially your equals at least that's how your brain saw it but fast forward

to modern times even if you're a seventeen year old kid in high school

surrounded by mostly average kids who are just like you your brain thinks that

you are competing against extremely successful people it believes that there

are extremely wealthy fit and popular people who are around your age all

around you and it believes this because of the amount of time you spend on

social media see the average American now spends on average two hours every

single day on social media however that's including adults and the elderly

a recent study actually found that the average teenager is spending around six

to nine hours on social media every single day and the thing is when you're

spending that many hours on social media your brain no longer sees your current

environment as it is it starts to believe that all of these people you see

on Instagram are people who are actually around you in real life and then it

starts to look at their lives and it compares it to your own it notices that

these people are so much better look then you mainly because of things like

lighting angles filters and Photoshop then your brain starts to believe that

there are all these people who are much more successful than you wealthier than

you it sees people your age driving fancy cars going on exotic vacations

wearing expensive clothes and then your brain starts to believe that there are

all of these people living happier lives than you hundreds and hundreds of

pictures smiling as if every single second of their lives were filled with

bliss by spending this much time on social media you trick your brain into

believing that you are no longer average that you are no longer somewhere in the

middle of the pyramid it starts to believe that you are actually in the

bottom 5% instead of having just a handful of people who are above you your

brain starts to believe that most people in the world are above you the bar is

raised almost impossibly high it seems like everyone is living close to perfect

lives and you're just here living an average one the more time you spend on

social media platforms like Instagram the lower and lower on the pyramid you

start to believe you are and that's where all of the mental health problems

stem from see the bottom of any social hierarchy is not a good place to be

this applies to humans and most other mammals if you're at the bottom of the

pyramid it means you are one of the least valuable people in the group it

means that nobody cares about you it means that you're expendable this

increases your levels of anxiety drastically it causes things like

insomnia panic attacks depression and addiction because you can't relax when

you're at the bottom it's like coming up second to last place on one of those

reality TV shows one more mistake and you're dead how can you relax and enjoy

life when you believe you're hanging off the cliff with just a couple of fingers

now of course this isn't real the truth is you're probably not at the bottom of

the social hierarchy most people around you live very average lives you're most

likely somewhere around the middle of the social hierarchy in your environment

where your brain doesn't know that because you're spending six hours every

single day in a fantasy world a world filled with models Lambos vacations and

endless smiles a world that literally no one can compete with even the most

successful people in the world can't compete no one is happy every single

second of their day as their pictures will like to have you believe and that's

why social media platforms like Instagram are ruining your life because

they force you into thinking you have to compete against a huge group of

imaginary people that you can never beat this episode was brought to you if the

help the guys app brilliant Tory instead of spending hours every single day

making your life worse by using social media it's much smarter to spend your

time learning about things that will eventually help you down the line

brilliant out org is a perfect place to do just that you can learn about

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help you accomplish more in life what's great about them is that they don't just

make you regurgitate facts and memorize them they employ a much more hands-on

approach my favorite course right now is the joy of problem solving I'm a huge

advocate of the fact that in order to succeed in life you need to be good at

solving the problems that come your way if you want to do something now that

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plan so act fast guys besides that guys stay tuned