Steemit Engagement Challenge / S13W2 - "Protect your Mental Health from Social media Dangers"

Steem greetings from the motherland-Cameroon to friends of the Healthy steem community. It is week 2 of the engagement challenge I am happy to share ideas based on the topic of the week contest.

This week, our discussion focuses on the topic: "Protect your Mental Health from Social media Dangers". I will focus my analysis based on the questions below. I hope we all find pleasure in reading through this article.

What is “social media” in your life, and how many hours a day do you spend on it?

We are in the contemporary world where social media gives birth to new means of connecting with friends, family and the world at large. Gone are the days we used to take months and even years just to deliver a single message.

Social media has played a significant role in my life in the sense that I can easily communicate with family and friends living far and near. I do not need to travel to see my family members who are far away from me. Just with a video call, we can chat, laugh and share our problems.

Also, social media is significant for me as I use it to get information about the happenings around the world. I do not need to watch the TV to get news of happenings. Using social media platforms gives you news updates daily.

Moreover, I used it for entertainment purposes. Each time I feel bored or have a headache, I log in to social media like Facebook and watch comedies. It helps me relieve stress.

Lastly, social media is significant for me as I use it to hold office meetings online.

With regard to the number of hours I spend on social media a day, I can not estimate the number of hours spend on social media per day. Most often I use it during my leisure time when I'm less busy with either office work or house chores.

Notwithstanding, there are some days like Mondays which are (ghost towns) in my area, I most often spend about 2 to 3 hours on social media. On this particular day, I'm less busy given the fact that we had a long weekend.

Name five ways social media can have a negative impact on your life and that of your loved ones.

• Bullying: There is a lot of bullying on social media and this can affect your mental health negatively. Lots of people come online with negative energy just to bully anybody no matter your class, age, race, etc.
• No Privacy: A lot of personal information is shared on social media and just through your contact list, one can easily get information about you without necessarily getting in contact with you.
• Fuel Anxiety: Spending a lot of time on social media can fuel anxiety in the sense that you turn to compare yourself with others which will eventually lead to depression.
• Misinformation: Not every news or information seen on social media is true. There are lot of fake news on social media that can mislead you into trouble.
• Inadequate Sleep Patterns: When you spend more time on social media, the light from the screen affects your eyes and disrupts your sleep. You tend to have little rest and not good for your mental health.

If you had to implement 5 rules to make sure that social media became HEALTHIER in your environment, what would they be?

The following are some rules I can implement to make social media healthier in my area;

• Censor the type of information circulating on social media. This will save a lot of youths from copying bad habits from social media.
• Restrict the type of videos to be posted on social media. There is a lot of pornographic content on social media which is not good for the kids. The type of videos uploaded on TikTok is a good example.
• Unhealthy content should be automatically blocked muted or deleted.
• Social media can only be accessible to those from the age of 18 and above.
• Security and privacy laws will be implemented to punish those practising cyberbullying and protect users' information.

I have come to the end of my presentation and would like the following to share ideas regarding the topic for this challenge; @hotspotitaly, @eliany, @josepha, @graceleon and @sisol.