Social media is an extremely unhealthy thing. I’m sure you’ve heard this, especially during Social Emotional learning lessons with your Cougar Connections. SEL only ever talks about the big mental block that you can get when cyberbullied through social media. The popular lessons don’t talk about the other ways social media can harm you both mentally and physically.

The blue lights emanating from the phone or computer screen while using social media causes disruptions in sleep patterns and affects our systems process of making natural melatonin. The blue light also causes a major eye strain, often leading to worse sight than you had before and the possibility of needing glasses in the near future. Another negative effect of spending long amounts of time looking at screens is that it’s one of the worst triggers of headaches in America. Those are just the effects going through the head though, there are many effects across the whole human body, like its mental risks. The lack of sleep often causes a raised level of anxiety, stress, and cognitive problems.

The blue lights often cause disruptions in hormone regulations, causing mood swings, depression, and even bursts of small depressive episodes. The lack of sleep is also one of the leading causes of obesity. Sleep helps your body regulate and recharge all of your vitals and hormones, this allows the body to recharge your metabolism. However, lack of sleep mixes that hormone up so it slows, often causing obesity and other health risks such as cancer, diabetes, and even heart disease. These are only a few of the many ways that blue light disrupts the human body.