The Worst Social Media For Mental Health (Ranked 2021)

When I was 17-years-old, social media meant jumping on Myspace.com to fiddle with your animated profile background and music that would play when someone landed on your page (yeah, anyone else remember that?) Occasionally you’d upload a photo and chat to a friend by posting a bulky-looking comment under a profile image. Basically, it was a time where online interaction was at a primitive stage and the term ‘social media’ hadn’t even been invented yet. Looking back, it was an innocent time where developers were just trying to link people with each other online through limited methods. It was genuinely fun because it was all so new.

There were no ‘influencers’, and even if you did have a lot of friends or followers on websites like Myspace, no one was trying to abuse their position by shilling products to unsuspecting teenagers. Even brands weren’t savvy to the idea of advertising through people with a lot of online friends during that time.

How times have changed.

As well as Myspace, we also had MSN which was essentially a direct messaging website, almost like a forum. You’d get home from school and chat to your friends. You could even use emojis, it was very ahead of its time!

However, these two ancient social media sites were nothing compared to what we have now. Do a quick Google search now and you’ll be inundated with a huge variety of social media sites. There are many that have come and gone since Myspace but there’s been a handful which have so far stood the test of time and have held their ground to this day as the internet’s favourite social media sites.

Take a look at Facebook for example. Facebook was the answer to the failing Myspace. It made everything much easier. You could finally see your friends list and search within it, see what your friends were saying on a timeline and search for friends to add with just a couple of clicks.

Facebook started it all off. Everything must change as time moves on and Facebook was no different. What was once a ugly interface that only showed you what your friends were saying is now a shiny place where your timeline is riddled with adverts.

When social media changed

Put anything in the hands of a human and they have the ability to turn it into the best thing in the world and yet the worst thing you can imagine. Maybe I was lucky when I was a teenager but I didn’t experience online abuse on social media. Maybe it was because everyone was just too happy to have something new that they could use to chat to friends easily.

I forget who said this quote but it is relevant today;

Put man in utopia and he will ultimately find a way to destroy it.

unkown

I’m paraphrasing this quote but it holds a lot of truth. In the case of social media, people will always find a way of turning it into a weapon for hate or their own selfish needs.

Social media is a tool to be manipulated for our own benefit whether good or bad. I’ve seen the changes first-hand from those primitive days on Myspace and whilst some of it has been good, a lot of it has been ugly.

Many people argue that the correlation between mental health issues and the rise of social media is no coincidence and I have to agree.

In fact, a 2018 study found that an increase in social media use also increased the participants anxiety and depression. This was especially evident in the girls because girls are more likely to compare themselves with others. The below image by Nature.com shows this uptick perfectly for teenagers in the US.

You could argue this could be for a number of reasons but you’d have to try rather hard to convince me the increase in depression has nothing to do with an increase in social media use and the wider increase in the availability of social media sites.

After all, it’s well documented that social media can increase;

• anxiety
• depression
• FOMO
• self-image issues
• unhelpful or unrealistic comparisons
• sleep problems

What all these platforms share

• vanity metrics
• trolls
• anonymous users
• addictive natures
• privacy issues

So, with this in mind I have ranked the worst social media for your mental health from best to worst and I’ve done this as someone who has used all of them (drawing from personal experience and observations) and as someone who has read the research.

The worst social media for mental health (in my opinion)

5. YouTube

Good for	Bad for
long-form content	Annoying bots
learning new skills	clickbait

I’m putting YouTube as the least worst social media for your mental health for several reasons. Although some people still view YouTube as just a video sharing site, it’s in fact one of the largest social networks out there today. Video is only one aspect. On YouTube you can create posts for your followers and of course, comment on videos and reply to others.

YouTube is a social media site that has changed dramatically over the years (anyone else remember being able to make direct response videos?) and it has become more and more ‘child-friendly’. In fact, it’s become so child-friendly that you now have to be very careful about what you upload. It’s nothing like the wild west of 2007. However, this is probably a good thing because it means there’s less room for abuse and triggering content.

Although people can reply to your comments on YouTube, it’s not as known for its online abuse as places like Twitter. YouTube has to be the best social media website for your mental health because it’s a place where communities are created so you can find like-minded people very easily. You can watch other people talking about the things you also care about and you can obviously share your own ideas which has some therapeutic value to it. I myself have run a YouTube channel for years now and the feedback I’ve had has been 99% positive.

Because the people who make videos on YouTube are doing so in video format, it’s easy to see them for who they are, even with the perfect lighting most YouTubers use these days. It’s not like a photo which can be carefully manipulated. The longer-form content on YouTube means it’s easier to get an idea for who someone really is and that only leads to a sense of real connection with that person.

If you can look past the many adverts and the waves of annoying bots in the comments of videos on YouTube you can find some relatable content on there that can help you. You might just learn something new too.

All in all, YouTube isn’t perfect but it has to be lowest on the list for me.

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4. Facebook

Good for	Bad for
Friendly groups	Arguments
Shopping	General drama

Although I have had my gripes with Facebook, I have to put it low down on the list. I’ve written about Facebook’s problems before and I still stand by them. The reason I am putting Facebook lower on the list of the worst social media for your mental health is because it does actually do a pretty decent job of blocking harmful content. Of course, this is not the case with private messaging. If you were to receive abuse on Facebook publicly, you’d likely have enough people reporting that person and having them be suspended pretty quick.

Facebook is another social media site that is great for meeting like-minded people and connecting with your friends. Unlike YouTube, the communication is all through text (pretty much) and this can be in the form of lengthy posts. This can indeed also lead to negative experiences because you’ll see a lot of rants on Facebook. A lot of the content I see on Facebook these days is a lot of angry rants or carefully constructed photos by friends putting themselves in the best light possible. Much like Instagram, Facebook is a place where you can create a totally false image of yourself. You can almost make yourself seem like different person.

After all, you can choose what you want other people to see and the different lights you want people to perceive you in. This can obviously lead to FOMO (fear of missing out) if you see your friends constantly looking like they’re having more fun than you are, not to mention feelings of low self-worth and comparing yourself to others if you’re own life doesn’t appear as interesting to those who post those kinds of ‘painfully happy’ photos.

Facebook is therefore a place of two extremes, as far as I can tell. There’s no boring in between. In fact, most of the people I am friends with don’t ever or rarely post anything. It tends to be those with the most ‘extreme’ personalities publishing post after post.

I’d also argue that Facebook could be bad for your mental health because it’s easy to spend a lot of time on it. Although I’m rarely active on it (have to keep up with the football news somehow!) I still have a habit of checking it throughout the day, as if I’m addicted to it. Now that videos are much more popular on Facebook than they used to be, there’s potential to sit there for hours upon end as the next video automatically starts in your news feed.

From what I have seen, the best types of video on Facebook tends to be the most negative. I don’t ever search for this type of content and yet it finds me for seemingly no reason. Fights, arguments and confrontations seem to get the biggest response. The fact that these types of video are pushed in your timeline is also concerning. Of course, having these types of images played in your feed for no reason only reinforces negative feelings over time.

Facebook isn’t a place you can mindlessly post comments unless you’re not bothered about people jumping down your throat right away. I mean, what ever happened to having an opinion? Having a total stranger lash out at you online is stressful. To me, this is one of the worst things for your mental health online. Some people are over the top and will quickly try and put you in your place if something you say offends them, even indirectly or if what you comment is very mild.

Anxiety is rife on Facebook because of this. Facebook is like Twitter in the sense that there seems to be an accepted culture of giving strangers abuse, just because you can. It takes away everything the website was made to be – a place to connect and share. And let’s not forget the open racism on Facebook. Ever since the BLM movement rightly ramped up their campaigns last year I’ve seen an increase in racism on the platform. This was highlighted during the Euro’s this year with footballers being abused online because of the colour of their skin.

I do like the fact that all the groups I have joined on Facebook have been very friendly and helpful. The good thing about closed groups is that the admin is in charge and can moderate things pretty quickly. This leaves little room for rudeness, abuse or arguments. The marketplace is also handy for finding second-hand items in your local area, I’ll admit.

In summary though, Facebook is a place of drama and that’s never good for your mental wellbeing.

3. Snapchat

Good for	Bad for
Fun filters	Grooming
	Vanity metrics

Snapchat isn’t the worst social media for mental health but it earns itself a position on my list quite high up. Snapchat is a weird one. I first started using Snapchat when it was originally released but quickly got bored of it. The idea is simple – take a picture, send it to a friend and said picture will disappear forever after a few seconds. I always thought it was a strange idea for a social media platform. The very nature of the platform is addictive because you want to see what images you’re being sent before they disappear.

In fact, a study was published which showed that Snapchat and Instagram were the worse social media for mental health problems because of their visual nature. Whilst Instagram focuses on ‘likes’, Snapchat focuses on ‘snap streaks’ where you can build up your snap streak metre by sending people snaps every day. This creates an environment where you want to keep your streak going so you use the app more and more. If your followers stop opening your snaps, you lose your streak. This in itself can obviously lead to feelings of rejection when you base your self-worth on social media attention.

Snapchat was one of the first social medias that let you add augmented reality filters to your videos and images. This was very fun admittedly and this idea has been moved over to Tik Tok too where augmented filters are taken even further.

Whilst I thought that Snapchat was irrelevant in 2021, the number of users has actually increased dramatically since I stopped using it in 2013. It’s hard to believe that Snapchat is now 10 years old. Unlike Facebook, Snapchat is very casual about its users sending nude photos to each other. In fact, some people have even made a living out of doing this. There’s also a lot of room for abuse and bullying on Snapchat due to this. Whilst Snapchat will report any snaps to authorities that break their community guidelines it’s easy to imagine that many slip through the cracks.

When your whole platform is built around the idea that the content the users post will be automatically deleted, It’s an easy place to abuse.

As reported by Forbes, Snapchat is a haven for child-abuse because of the self-destructing photos function. This makes it a tempting place for predators to connect with minors, probably because they think that whatever they send will be automatically deleted. In fact, the UK child charity, NSPCC rates Snapchat as one of the most dangerous social medias for grooming.

Snapchat is a place where users can be incredibly covert. There’s no extensive feed like on Facebook where you can investigate if someone you’re talking to is real or not and because of its focus on vanity metrics, I’m convinced that Snapchat won’t improve your mental health and also has the ability to make it worse.

Sure, it can be a bit of fun, as long as you know who you’re talking to.

2. Twitter

Good for	Bad for
Getting breaking news	Racism/discrimination
	Trolls/harassment

Twitter is an interesting one. For me, Twitter is the pinnacle of online forums where you can “say whatever you like to someone and get away with it.” Twitter is a social media site where you can post text, images and videos however it’s mostly focused on written text. Twitter was the first social media platform that allowed you to connect and talk to celebrities. In a sense, it put everyone on the same level. Twitter also has a very covert element to it. Users don’t have to post images to make their feed appealing. Because it’s all written text it’s easy to be anonymous.

Twitter has a very big culture of anonymous abuse.

However, before we get into the many reasons why Twitter is bad for your mental health, let’s look at a few positives.

I’ve always found it odd that Twitter has become a place to hear breaking news but it has. It’s become so good at this that you can hear about events taking place before the news themselves have a chance to write up their own official reports. This can obviously be helpful to hear about things as they happen. That’s it. I can’t think of any more positives of Twitter if I’m honest. I personally think that Twitter is garbage and has become a place rife with abuse and racism.

Abuse and harassment are so prevalent on Twitter because Twitter has always been the most laid back social media platform. Twitter has attempted to step up their efforts in cleaning up the platform but it still feels like an open forum where anyone can say what they like, inclusing hateful speech and abuse.

When you visit independent forums online you first have to sign up to them and set up a profile, then you have to go searching for a topic. If you look at Reddit for example, they have a very robust bot system that is brilliant at recognising abuse and banning people very quickly. Twitter has a promitive system that lets annonymous people slip through the cracks.

The abuse on Twitter and harmful content is very easy to access. Anyone can make a bare bones profile and then come across hate speech, pornography and disturbing images. There’s a culture of fake news, rumours and mis-leading information which has shaped Twitter into what it is today.

Like all social media sites, Twitter can cause a great deal of anxiety as expressed by this user. It’s very easy to have an argument on Twitter with a complete stranger which fuels anxiety as you anxiously anticipate a reply. There’s also the additive nature of Twitter. It’s easy to spend all day on it (so I hear) because it’s essentially a direct messaging app at its core. Many high-profile users have quit Twitter due to the ‘free for all’ of abuse on Twitter.

For example, the singer Lizzo quit Twitter because of the many trolls that lurk on the platform. With hateful messages bombarding her inbox she decided to chuck the app away.

There are many bitter people out there who spend all their time online abusing other people and they’re more common than you think. Twitter is the go-to place for these people because it offers such easy access to their targets.

Of course, it’s likely easier for older users to step away from platforms like Twitter to clear their head but for younger users who base a lot of their self-worth on their online image, it’s arguably much harder.

In summary, Twitter, and in my opinion, is a tool that has been abused by users with bad intentions to the point where it can have significant affects on your mental health if used for prolonged amounts of time.

1. Instagram

Good for:	Bad for:
	Vanity metrics
	Fake accounts/influencer lies
	Unrealistic standards / photoshop culture

Instagram is the big daddy of social medias that are bad for your mental health. Why? because everything you see on Instagram is fake. Okay, not everything but 99% of what you see is artificial. It’s like stepping into a magic wonderland where the perfect people with perfect lives live. Perfect lighting, make-up, photoshop and fame-chasing make Instagram the most artificial platform right now.

If you’ve seen the Black Mirror episode where people can up or down vote each other in real life, you’ll get a sense for how Instagram operates virtually. Instagram is all visual. No one bothers to read the comments. You can turn yourself into a completely different person on Instagram which affects a users sense of self-worth when they see girls and boys with perfect bodies. This is incredibly bad for your sense of reality too because a lot of these people use apps to make themselves look slimmer than they really are, for example.

These apps are sparking a lot of controversy and are putting these influencers egos in front of millions of teenagers mental health and self-esteem. Thankfully, users are now wising up to how these Insta-famous people seem to always be in tip top shape. However, it’s still a problem for newer and younger users who are none the wiser.

Take a look at the below image which shows just how drastically these apps can change your body. Khloe Kardashian is one of the worst offenders of morphing her face and body.

Now, the next image we have is even more shocking. This ‘body positivity’ influencer was caught photoshopping her thighs to look tighter. This individual has over 1m+ followers on Instagram that celebrate her being open about body image and here she is, using apps to change her body to ‘look better’.

Again, everything you see on Instagram is fake. This next story highlights this perfectly. This French influencer was caught after taking a photo of herself in business class (essentially making it seem like she is wealthy enough to fly in the upper classes) before being snapped in economy on the actual flight.

The lies and attention seeking are off the scale.

Instagram is about vanity metrics and nothing else. Your popularity is directly linked to the amount of likes your images get. It’s also the birth place of influencers (*vomits*), the people who try and influence their audiences into buying products they promote so that they can ‘look like them’, Most of the time these people advertise products that they don’t even use themselves, just to make a quick buck. There have been plenty of instances like this.

The Instagram influencer scam method

Here’s how this type of scam works;

Photoshop images of yourself to look perfect> repeat until you have thousands of followers> contact weight loss companies> shill these products for these companies and get paid over $1k+ per post> rinse and repeat.

These types of accounts abuse the trust of their followers from the get-go. Not only do they post unrealistic photos of themselves (which are fake anyway or carefully constructed) but they then shill products they don’t even use or worse, they claim that they got in the (photoshopped) shape they are in because they used said product.

Want to get scammed and lose money at the same time?

This next story perfectly highlights this scam. Whilst A-list celebrities do it, you’re the most likely to get get scammed by Z-list celebrities who turn to Instagram to abuse their new followers for more money usually because they have short-lived fame on a TV show and then need to keep making money once it’s over. This type of scam is quick money because these companies will pay these people over $1k per post. It’s ethically disgusting that these people lean into their greed to deceive people that look up to them.

The truth is, these people are just ordinary people with the same issues as you. They don’t have a magic formula, just a company behind them that wants to take advantage of their followers and the influencers are more than happy to take the pay check.

Since the dawn of time, scammers have shilled terrible weight loss products that clearly don’t work. Unfortunately, people are always after short cuts when it comes to losing weight so the demand for these products has stayed high to this day. Take a look at Geordie Shore Z-lister, Sophie Kasaei who thought it would be a good idea to abuse her followers trust by shilling a ‘detox weight loss tea’. She claimed that it helped her to lose a load of weight…in the same day.

This is probably the laziest influencer scam I’ve ever seen. Sophie has taken the photos on the same day, in the same outfit and has sucked her stomach in on the after picture to make it seem like the magic tea flushed out her fat cells. wow. Notice how she changes the position of her legs to push her bum out which helps to suck in her stomach.

These scams are rife on Instagram and that’s why the platform is so bad for your mental health. You’re being lied to constantly. You’re also going to lose a lot of money buy trusting these people.

This influencer quit Instagram in 2015 and described the platform as ‘contrived perfection designed for attention.’

Instagram is a bizarre social media because if you start a new account you’ll be instantly promoted fitness influencers in your feed. Where YouTube uses its algorithm to suggest clickbait videos, Instagram does this in the form of perfect looking people to follow.

If you’re a teenage boy or girl, you’ll begin to think that this is the way that human beings are supposed to look. This can obviously have a huge impact on your sense of self-worth and mental health in general. This culture of perfection in every way also leads to users feeling anxious and depressed when they see all the other users living their ‘best’ lives possible.

Instagram was found to be the worst social media for mental health when reviewed in the study carried out by The Royal Society For Public Health. Some of the negative effects of Instagram included loneliness, fear of missing out (FOMO) and depression.

Instagram and protecting your mental health

The obvious thing you could do is stop using Instagram. However, this isn’t always possible for teenagers because you might use apps like this to communicate with friends. There’s also a lot of the social pressure that comes from not having an online presence. The best thing you can do is to first acknowledge the images you’re viewing aren’t real. You can’t take the content seriously or bind your own sense of self-worth on the content your see because it’s artificial.

If you were to spend half a day with the people you follow on Instagram, you’d realise that they are just like you with insecurities and their own worries. Their bodies aren’t perfect and their lives are dull.

Another thing to look at is how much time you’re spending on Instagram. Studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between how much time you use it and the state of your mental health. Giving yourself regular breaks will only help you come back to reality. Spend more time outdoors and speak to friends on the phone or in person instead of through chat.

Worst social media for your mental health conclusion

These are the worst social media for your mental health, in my opinion. I had to leave Tik Tok off my list because I don’t know a lot about it but from what I’ve read it’s very similar to the others I’ve mentioned with a focus on vanity metrics and a user base that is very impressionable.

These platforms all share the same idea – create a false impression of one’s self in a virtual setting. Attention seeking to the highest degree. Every now and again we get a glimpse of how fake the social media culture is which reminds us that we cannot trust or believe everything we see and hear online. Social media is a tool that can be used for great things like community building and friendship but it can also be abused and used for hate.

It’s up to you how you use the tools available to you.