Social media anxiety.

Mental health
1

Does anyone else experience this? Over the past year I've gradually found it harder and harder to feel easy about engaging on social media. It causes great anxiety from low self-confidence if it's a picture of me,  to the number of likes , to being unfriended/unfollowed.

 I've tried hard to come off it or pull back from it but then I feel very socially excluded. I struggle to take it at face value, always finding something to be anxious at. It's making me paranoid and causing anxiety/panic attacks daily. I often find that I obsessively check for likes (on the rare occasions I post) to checking friends/follower numbers which leads me to wonder (on the occasions it happens), as to why I've been unfollowed. 

I know it sounds really stupid and I'm actually really embarrassed to be typing this out. I'm hoping by writing it down I can start to rationalise, see if others feel this way OR get tips on how to handle it. 

Thanks for reading. 

2

I think the internet especially social media sites are a massive cause for most mental health issues. Or a least they really don’t help & can make things ten times worse. 

Mental illnesses are definitely on the rise & I wonder why. 

Most things you see on the news, tv, internet is bad news. 

But also on the plus side forums like this can really help people. I hardly ever go on a certain social media sight anymore, due to my anxiety. Can’t be doing with seeing bad news all the time xx

3

You are so right. Mental health seems to be on the decline and my thoughts are that the internet and social media play a huge factor. The main issue is that it's pretty much everywhere and dominates lots of social interactions. I just wish I could use it and react to it without it causing me such distress sad  xx