World Psychiatric Association president Dinesh Bhugra said social media had attracted the attention of psychiatrists and psychologists across the world for its possible impact on mental well being.

Speaking to
The Hindu
after delivering a talk on ‘Psychiatry in the 21st Century’, Dr. Bhugra said there was an increasing interest in both psychiatry and psychology to look at social media, particularly from the social psychology perspective.

Though research on internet addiction had been going on for a while now, Dr. Bhugra, who is also a Professor of Mental Health and Cultural Diversity Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, said the studies on social media had not reached far as the consequences of its long-term use were still not known.

He cited an example of how a child with just 14 friends on the Facebook compared herself or himself with a classmate with more than 400 friends and broods over the poor relative popularity. The present generation interacts with distant friends on social media rather than physical interaction, he pointed out. He narrated the incident of a man, who was divorced by his wife for being on the website Second Life, which allows users to interact with others under a pseudo identity. The youth is also victim to cyber bullying on social media, but research is yet to be carried out to find out its impact.

The long-term consequence of social media use is yet to be known as its use and accessibility was of fairly recent origin, he said.

Urbanisation was also taking a toll on mental health of individuals, Dr. Bhugra said. Poor and overcrowded physical environment and insecure income and tenure are among the causes leading to mental disorders due to the fast-paced urbanisation, he said.

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