After more than two decades of clicking, sharing, retweeting, posting and doom scrolling, we all now know there are good and bad aspects of social media.

The pros include increased connectivity with family and friends that may not live close by and wider options for political dialogue and interactive entertainment.

Kids and young adults dance and meme on Instagram and Tik Tok, while older generations follow news and post family photos on Facebook.

Stress can have a big impact on the kids, but young adults and even older Americans struggle to keep up with adding content and making sure it’s something that other people will like.

Young adults can also struggle with seeing other people’s social media pages.

They may compare themselves to someone else’s page and may feel that their life is not good enough.

In October of 2023, California Attorney General Rob Bonta along with 33 other attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Meta.

The lawsuit claimed that their platform designs features that are addicting to kids and also lowers their self-esteem.

We spoke to Angela Williams, LCSW, manager of Mental Health Services at Cerritos College, about how to navigate social media pitfalls.

Q: Do you like social media? Do you think it’s addicting?

A: So again I think it’s really all in how it’s used.

As to whether or not it can be helpful. I mean it’s clearly designed to keep us engaging right.

The designers of social media have figured out how to use the way that our brains work to the advantage of keeping people engaged with social media.

And if we sort of unknowingly fall into utilizing social media in this way of overly using it checking you know relying on it for all things then it can be problematic.

It can also be a wonderful way to connect with others.

It can be a wonderful way to find out about events and you know express oneself and do all of these things.

But again it’s all about how one is interacting with it and utilizing it and so that is very individualized as to whether or not it can be useful.

There is plenty of content on social media that can be really helpful.

I, as a mental health provider, have to tell you there are a lot of folks out there using social media to promote mental health.

Ideas that are not grounded in research and/or standards of practice as well and so that can be problematic right because it’s coming across as something very official and it is not.

An official, stance on or informed by you know the standards of practice and understanding mental health concerns and so that is very concerning to me.

That it comes across that way and people might be consuming like well this is what you have or you know this your diagnosis or if you do these behaviours it must mean this about you.

Or all the ways that certain mental health conditions quote unquote can be cured and things like that are not shared by actual practitioners and that stuff is very concerning.

Q: Like misinformation getting out there?

A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

On the other hand, I do think social media has had somewhat of a hand in destigmatizing mental health and getting mental health help.

And so that’s what i’m saying with this like push and pull a little bit.

With social media, yeah it’s complicated.

Q: Do you think age makes a difference on how they handle social media?

A; Well I do think that we know from recent revelations even from some social media giants that they knew it was harmful to kids under 12.

We have evidence at this point that it can really impact.

I think that when you look at and I won’t get into all the details, but if you look at child development side by side with how social media is designed to work it makes sense that it can be really harmful for younger folks to use.

And so yeah I think that could be a factor for sure.

Q: You said mental health, they talk about it, but it’s not always good information.

A: Well it’s normalized talking about mental health for sure.

So people are more open about the whole idea of mental health is something we should talk about.

There’s, gosh, I mean I of course because I work with this population I care about how social media impacts folks mental health and how we can utilize, also promote mental wellness.

And I’m just going to tell you that research is super mixed out there on how it’s maybe caused problems and then how it helped in some cases and so it’s very nuanced.

Q: There’s good things about it and bad things about it. Not even getting into the safety of kids on social media?

A: Yeah. So of course that’s a factor.

At the same time it can be a connector tool.

It can also be the only way that someone is trying to connect with others is through social media.

There is some research that says that those folks are having more problems with their mental health.

Is it because they are lonely that they use social media and then that causes mental health problems?

Is it really that they have underlying mental health issues and they’re lonely and disconnected from others and this is their attempt to reach out.

I think we have to look at it from an individual level.

That’s the kind of conversations with our clients.

If they’re staying up too late and on social media.

If they’re changing their eating habits and having bad body image issues because of what they’re seeing online.

Then we have individual conversations with them about how you are going to manage or use in a way that helps you feel more in control and doesn’t negatively impact you.

Q: I think that is all of my questions. Did you have anything?

A: Hopefully this is helpful. I think the tagline is It’s complicated and it has pluses and minuses. You know, we do our own work to have a good relationship with social media.