The Equilibrium Decodes the Impact of Social Media Addiction in 2022 and Its Coping Mechanism

The Equilibrium is for people from different age groups who are addicted to smartphones, unable to think beyond it. Business Wire India

Has screen time become your life?

Checking notifications, scrolling through social media, following the trend, carrying your smartphone everywhere you go, all this has become a norm from the past decade. An increase in smartphone usage and internet accessibility has been useful for many of us in varied ways, while a small percentage of users have become addicted to social media, engaging in excessive and compulsive usage of smartphones.

The Equilibrium is for people from different age groups who are addicted to smartphones, unable to think beyond it. We at The Equilibrium understand that, social media addiction is a behavioural addiction, driven by an uncontrollable urge to check social media updates, snipping out our precious time not leaving any time for self-improvement
 
Social media is addictive because it activates the reward system of the brain by increasing the concentration of dopamine in the process. Being in social media could lead to excess release of this hormone, which regulates the pleasure and desire in a person. While trying to heal people with such addictions, we at The Equilibrium work closely upon their personal life to make sure their reward system is activated in other ways, like pursuing their favourite hobby or goals of some sort.
 
People reach out to The Equilibrium with various issues like low self esteem, Agoraphobia, Social anxiety, Sleep disturbances, FOMO, etc. When properly assessed, social media addiction was also a major cause.
 
Low self-esteem often occurs while scrolling through happy posts of our acquaintances. It makes us feel that we are missing out on something important. This crashes our confidence and shoves us into a victim mentality.
 
Agoraphobia is a type of anxiety disorder where the person tends to avoid social gatherings. Just like anxiety a person may get panic attacks and irrational fear of leaving home or being in a crowd.
 
Social anxiety is also a type of anxiety just like Agoraphobia. While agoraphobia is fear of being in the crowd, social anxiety is fear that they may get embarrassed or negatively judged by others.
 
Sleep issues is the one major thing that The Equilibrium has seen in the people who come in for counselling. Mostly, the reason for it is being engaged in social media. This could lead to sleep deprivation. Scrolling through the phone during nights reduces the time of sleep and also the quality of sleep, leading to issues like depression, reduced cognitive functions, etc.
 
While some of them fear going out, for a few of them, it could lead to fear of missing out (FOMO) something important if they are not online even for a few minutes. The Equilibrium has counsellors who are trained to use Emotional Freedom Techniques and other counselling techniques to get people out of FOMO.
 
Social media addiction could also be associated with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as scrolling could lead to being flooded with intrusive thoughts. Though we know that neither the pictures nor the posts reflect reality, we could get obsessed with them leading to compulsive scrolling leading to procrastination of other important things to be done.
 
Not only this, but social media addiction could also lead to ignoring real relationships, and lead to poor performance in life. If we catch our thoughts while scrolling, it would mostly be jealousy, angst, and feelings of unworthiness. It could lead us to think that we are not matching the standards of other's lifestyles, forcing us to believe that we are inadequate and unworthy.
 
The Equilibrium suggests some simple steps to get over social media addictions like:
Trying to stay away from the social media apps, by muting the notifications or deleting the apps, turn off their phones while doing important things like spending time with kids or being engaged in official work. We can avoid taking the phone to the bedroom while sleeping. Trying not to stay at home and planning impromptu meetings with friends and family whenever possible is also another way to get over social media addiction. Another way could be to set aside some time for social media every day, by using the timer.
 
But even after taking a few actions to avoid addiction, still, if you are not able to control it, maybe we have some underlying issue, for which social media addiction has become an escape mechanism. In Equilibrium, we not only work upon the symptoms but try to go deep to heal the “why” and “how” of the problem with help of counselling, meditation, and the Emotional Freedom Technique. We have to proudly confess that when the root cause was dealt with, the addictions were far easier to get over.
 
The Equilibrium, with a team of counsellors have been diligently working towards improving a person’s mental health, which inturn will help them improve their state of life. It is not the achievements, relationships and financial status that determine our happiness. But it is a person’s ability to live through those experiences in a better way. Our happiness depends on how we perceive a certain event. Our vision, most of the time is affected by past experiences, deep held beliefs etc. The counsellors of The Equilibrium ensure that we not only deal with issues like depression, addiction or anxiety, but also make sure that the root cause is found and healed.
 
We have had customers from various age groups starting from 18 and above. We have always seen that people think a lot of issues to be normal because we have been living in a society where mental health was not given much importance. Today, we take this space to convey that, just like physical ailments, every problem in your mind has a solution and can be worked upon and with enough consistency and effort, we will be able to deal with it in a better way.

Links:
https://www.theequilibrium.in/
https://www.theequilibrium.in/my-safe-space/
https://www.theequilibrium.in/mental-health/
https://www.instagram.com/theequilibrium2020/
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