Support on social networks?
Social networks can increase connectedness, for example, the feeling of being connected to something meaningful outside oneself. Connectedness promotes psychological well-being and quality of life.
The very characteristics of social networks can enhance elements of connectedness, both objectively by increasing users’ social sphere, and subjectively by reinforcing the feeling of social belonging and subjective well-being.
Taking Facebook and its “anniversary” feature as an example, it has been shown that the greater the number of Facebook friends, the more individuals saw themselves as being connected to a community.
“Millennials, or people born between the beginning of the 1980s and the end of the 1990s, are thus more likely to take advantage of the digital social environment to establish a new relationship with psychological suffering and its attempts to ease it,” said Dr. Morgiève.
They are also more likely to naturally turn to the digital space to look for help. More and more of them are searching the Internet for information on mental health and sharing experiences to get support.”
An example is the It Gets Better Project, which is a good illustration of the structure of online peer communities, with stories from LGBTQ+ individuals who describe how they succeeded in coping with adversity during their adolescence. In this way, social media seems to help identify peers and positive resources that are usually unavailable outside of the digital space. As a result, thanks to normative models on extremely strong social networks that are easy to conform to, these online peer-support communities have the potential to facilitate social interactions and reinforce a feeling both of hope and of belonging to a group.”
Promoting access to care
In Dr. Morgiève’s opinion, “access to care, particularly in the area of adolescent mental health, is extremely critical, given the lack of support precisely when they need it the most, as [evidenced] by the number of suicide attempts.
“There are two types of barriers to seeking help which can explain this. The first is structural barriers: help is too expensive or too far away or the wait is too long. The second refers to personal barriers, including denying the need for help, which may involve a self-sufficiency bias, the feeling that one cannot be helped, refusal to bother close friends and family, fear of being stigmatized, and a feeling of shame.”
These types of barriers are particularly difficult to overcome because the beliefs regarding care and caregivers are limiting (doubts about caregiver confidentiality, reliability, and competence). This is observed especially in adolescents because of the desire for emancipation and development of identity. So [the help relationship] may be experienced as subordination or alienation.
On a positive note, it is the very properties of social networks that will enable these obstacles to seeking help to be overcome. The fact that they are available everywhere makes up for young people’s lack of mobility and regional disparities. In addition, it ensures discretion and freedom of use, while reducing inhibitions.
The fact that social networks are free of charge overcomes structural obstacles, such as financial and organizational costs, as well as personal obstacles, thereby facilitating engagement and lessening the motivational cost. The dissociative pseudonymity or anonymity reduces the feeling of vulnerability associated with revealing oneself, as well as fears of a breach of confidentiality.
Dr. Morgiève summed it up by saying: “While offline life is silent because young people don’t talk about their suicidal ideations, online life truly removes inhibitions about speaking, relationships, and sharing experiences. Thus, the internet offers adolescents new opportunities to express themselves, which they’re not doing in real life.”