Social Media, Mental Health, and Keeping up with the Digital Joneses.
“I was never taught about money.”
Most people, when I tell them that I’m working in the space where financial health and mental health connect, they address the concrete, money aspect. “I didn’t learn how to budget,” “I wasn’t taught how to manage money,” “I don’t know much about saving or investments,” are typical responses I hear.
It’s easy to address those things that are concrete, black and white, or numerically based. Money and numbers are straightforward. We either have a dollar, or we don’t. We either know, or we don’t. And this is where we have multiple experts writing books and creating podcasts and Youtube channels to impart knowledge.
And, largely speaking, addressing and altering our financial behavior can result in less anxiety.
But, all mental health issues are born from a number of factors. If we look for one magic bullet (such as financial education), we’re very rarely going to resolve the issue.
My supervisor used to say, “Behavior is multi-factorial.” He meant a person’s psychopathology generally doesn’t arise from one problem or one experience. Rather, behavior and mental health is a confluence of factors that combine into one challenge. Think of many streams and tributaries flowing into one river – such as the Mississippi or the Nile. (A confluence is the opposite of a delta.) There are multiple reasons why a person might be experiencing anxiety.
I began pondering this post when I was listening to Jonathan Heidt discuss the increased challenges that Gen Z are facing, especially anxiety, but other mental health issues, that have both correlation and causation from early exposure to social media. (I’ll point you to the full podcast here to understand the ideas and arguments he lays out.)
One question I thought about was, “How does social media use impact financial health?” A recent survey showed that 33% (1 in 3 Americans) spent more money because they were felt pressure to keep up with the digital Jones. 75% of Americans say their friends portray themselves as wealthier than they really are; 1 in 4 feel less satisfied with their financial standing because of what they see on social media; and 40% feel jealous when they see their friends vacation photos online.
I can relate: recently, family members – both immediate and extended family – have taken amazing, far flung vacations and posted pictures on social media. I’m generally a person who takes a minute to think, “I don’t know their full financial picture – this is only showing the highlights,” but I had to take a minute to check that impulse to gather up all the money we’ve put aside for emergencies and splurge on a warm and “relaxing” vacation.
But, as an acquaintance recently learned, heading out to an exotic vacation doesn’t necessarily make stress better. She started having stress reactions when presenting in front of her colleagues, despite having just returned from a week-long vacation to “get away” to the Caribbean with just her husband and herself. As she explored the reasons for her reactions, doctors said that it wasn’t necessarily physical. It was likely a psychological response to stress.
Stress is a peculiar thing. We need it to grow (I often think of lifting weights for muscle growth). But chronic stress causes all kinds of problems, both psychological and physiological. Coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, migraines and decreased immune function are all connected to stress.
Also: Anxiety.
Remember back to the image of a river confluence? We can also think of a tree’s roots as an example. Anxiety’s roots are multiple, but one big root – maybe it’s the tap root – is the stress we feel because of the many responsibilities we have weighing on us.
Responsibilities both consciously understood and those lying beneath the surface of our consciousness or hovering over our shoulders.
Let’s take that example of my desire to scrape all our emergency sinking funds together and splurge on a luxurious beach-side vacation because friends and family were posting on social media. When we get the opportunity (and feel that we deserve) to escape the pressures we’re under and ‘treat’ ourselves, we often go overboard. I can see myself sitting next to a pool, getting one more cocktail before ordering the appetizer platter for everyone, getting exactly the entree I want (tenderloin, please), and having a rich, dark chocolate dessert with a decaf coffee on the side. “How are you going to pay for this? You already spent all the emergency money on the airline tickets and the resort,” sneaks in that pressuring thought. “I don’t know,” responds my conscious (or subconscious) self. “I’ll figure it out later,” as I shove the chocolate volcano cake into my mouth and hand the attendant my credit card.
This is not a hard example for me to come up with, because I had to learn the hard way that pushing away warning thoughts like these resulted in stress and anxiety.
Now, in this example, I’ve returned home and not enjoyed a free and easy time with no strings attached, but rather have the financial hangover of spending more than I had and having to scramble to work harder (pressure) to pay off the debt I accrued before the card charges me 20% compounding interest (pressure), and my emergency fund is depleted (more pressure -- especially when we come back to the house and find water on the basement floor from an unknown leak [the water on the basement floor is an actual example from my life this past week]).
And suddenly, we can understand why my colleague was having stress reactions, despite the lovely vacation she had just enjoyed.
So, what is the answer? Never take a vacation?
No, of course not. I think the answer to this example is to recognize and realize when the appearance of those around us stirs in us the feeling of discontent, which can highjack our decision-making skills. Especially during those times when we have been working hard and are tired.
And especially when we’re exposed to the appearance of luxury and leisure from those around us – on social media or in real life.
And in future posts, I’ll discuss how meeting those little financial goals (for instance creating and funding a sinking fund for fixing a washing machine – the reason there was water on the basement floor) brings a sense of security – which is the antidote to stress, and thus one of the antidotes for anxiety.
