He was able to self-diagnose himself with OCD at the age of seventeen, with the help of the internet.

We were able to find great health-care providers (after some not so great ones)and treatment programs with the help of mental health sites.

He and I were both able to connect with people in similar situations. It is invaluable to know you are not alone.

I have become an advocate for OCD awareness, have my own blog, and have been published on several mental health sites. I hopefully have helped others in the process. I know contributing in this way has certainly helped me.

In my opinion, the positives of social media in relation to mental health issues far outweigh the negatives.

Technopomorphism is a play on anthropomorphism – we should try to craft language so that we do not imbue technology with human qualities. Technology can be viewed as a kind of prop in a larger performance – this is my perspective on it anyway. In this sense, even pen and paper (i.e. – the technology of handwriting) has the potential to be used as a tool/prop to entrench isolation if we embrace it through obsessive or addictive behavioral patterns.

Your ideas are very important. The problems and challenges you describe are very serious and unfortunately seem to be affecting more and more people. I think many people take on the mindset, perhaps unconsciously, that they are victims of technology. Perhaps this is one of those unchallenged assumptions that might encourage behavioral problems.

how social media can impair mental health

How does social media itself create the action of impairment?

Social media is detrimental only insofar as it specifically prevents meaningful and/or face-to-face connections.

Can social media itself “prevent meaning connections” or is it the person using it that does the preventing?

This article seems to externalize technology and imbue it with human attributes and qualities it does not in itself possess.