“I think any form of communication can have a negative impact on users,” said Amy Hollar, a full time professor at the University of Mary and adjunct professor at Bismarck State College where she teaches Social Media, Writing & Design. “Social media is just such a new technology, and it’s growing so quickly and it has come to the forefront so quickly that it really has met a lot of resistance and has faced some serious heat when it comes to the ways in which society views this medium in particular.”

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Though Hollar recognized that social media has its negatives, she was excited to highlight the positives of it as well.

“I actually feel like the positives of social media can outweigh the negatives of social media if done well, and if done ethically,” Hollar said. “Overall, I think it does the best job connecting.”

Social media can both create and foster communities that otherwise wouldn’t have come together.

“One of the greatest benefits is a greater access to community and information,” continued Hollar. “Second, it ensures that we have free flow of information—I mean, that can be a positive and a negative, but in the world of communication, that’s our goal … to have that free flow of information, and social media does allow for that, so I think we have to embrace the fact that that free flow of information is what we aim to have—what we aim to achieve—and so that gives us one great avenue to do that.”

But this constant connection could be creating a divide in real-life connections off-screen. According to the article “Social Media and Mental Health” by Lawrence Robinson and Melinda Smith, M.A. on HelpGuide.org, “It requires in-person contact with others to trigger the hormones that alleviate stress and make you feel happier, healthier, and more positive.”

The article also states that, “Ironically for a technology that’s designed to bring people closer together, spending too much time engaging with social media can actually make you feel more lonely and isolated—and exacerbate mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.”

“I’ve worked with a lot of students who are socially isolated in the past,” said Camille Gebur, on-campus mental health counselor at Bismarck State College, “and it’s a lot easier to connect online. They feel, you know, more brave in that way. But it minimizes that … confidence and connecting in real life, in the 3D, and having a real sense of presence in a real relationship.”

Gebur acknowledged that social media can have a big role to play when it comes to connecting users to others, but she also expressed concern over the types of people users may encounter.

“We don’t always have intimate relationships with people we’re meeting, you know, in chat rooms or via Facebook, so they’re kind of those acquaintance types, so … they’re not anyone super close and that could be dangerous, as well as, you know, who are we giving our attention to? What are we—who are we talking to? Who are the people in our lives? What are their motivations? So, just looking at that societal component where it can be great, but it also can be, you know, influential in a lot of different ways depending on what those voices are saying and who we’re connecting to,” Gebur said.

Additionally, Gebur suggested apps that limit users to a certain amount of time they can spend on social media to prevent “doom scrolling”—a stress symptom where users spend time scrolling, but are not connecting with the screen.

“There are apps that you can set … like, 2 hours on social media to limit, which is great because those likes and stuff do exhibit dopamine and serotonin, so that can be really addicting,” Gebur said. “It’s almost like gambling … as soon as you get that “like” it’s like winning, so it can be very addicting to want that attention—it’s positive.” 

It’s important to manage the way we interact with and think of social media individually to make sure we’re not becoming dependent on it for happiness and that it’s not becoming a source of stress. Meaningful connections can both be made and lost through social media, just as they can be made and lost in person. Social media is not inherently good nor bad—it’s simply a tool. And, in the end, it seems it’s all in the way we choose to use it.