Jessica Omoruyi
Oct 23, 2024
Safeguarding Mental Health and Privacy: How Confinity Offers a Secure Alternative to Social Media
According to Oberlo, as of 2024, there are 5.17 billion social media users worldwide, a 5.5% annual increase. Of course, social media consumption cries are one of the most popular activities that internet users perform, and the usage of the platform is increasing every day.
Global Social Media Statistics: Data Reportal
The majority of active social media individuals have problems with focusing on long-term goals like skills enhancement, relation establishing, earning money, maintaining healthy lifestyles, and, finally, creating a good reputation. A long-term goal in the present society holding rewards in today’s world comes with severe complications because of the Dopamine hit regime.
You'll get the impression from social media that you have something to prove, a tale to tell, victories and anxieties to discuss, and strength to impart. Our lives are now being shared with the world.
This article seeks to take readers through the shocking realities of how social media is tearing people’s lives apart and invading their privacy. Find out how Confinity provides a sound and safe solution.
Social Media and Mental Health
Based on the World Health Organization‘s definition, mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community.
This is with a view of controlling our thinking, feeling and acting processes. It also affects our stress management, people skills and decision making abilities. It is important at all ages – during the childhood, and adolescence, and the mature age to have a satisfactory state of mental health.
A study at the University of Pennsylvania found that high usage of Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram increases rather than decreases feelings of loneliness. Currently, famous social sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok were revealed to have an association with mental health problems like depression by some of the patients.
How does Social Media affect Mental Health?
Sometimes even people become self-loathing once they fail to get likes on their posts that they have developed. Everyone just posts good things on the internet but, naturally, people sometimes compare themselves and their achievements to other people or the so-called influencers.
A study conducted in 2022 shows a relationship between excessive use, pathological, and problematic social media use, and insomnia. Sleep deficits will likely undermine health and well-being and increase the odds of developing anxiety and despair affiliated with mental disease.
Comparing oneself too much to others due to presenting all the neat selfies and posting content to get as many likes and comments as possible leads to anxiety. However, there are many other types of anxiety disorders and their symptoms that stem from the usage of social media, one particular kind of anxiety disorder is social anxiety. Sufferers of social anxiety disorder feel anxious in social situations.
In a survey, 41% of internet users stated that they themselves have ever faced some kind of cyberbullying, 27% of the participants answered that severe kinds of cyberbullying such as stalking, sexual harassment, physical threats, and continued bullying were met.
Cyber bullying is the repeated and intentional use of an electronic communication device to threaten, tormented, or taunt another user. It can lead to poor mental health habits and bad self esteem.
The never-ending search for the ultimate compliment by ‘liking’ photos or comments enhances self-loathing anxiety and lower self-esteem. This is made worse by cyberbullying which affects 41% of internet users. It’s widely known that negativity associated with social media causes high stress and anxiety, gets rid of a good night’s sleep, leads to poor mental health, affects self-esteem, and sometimes results in social anxiety disorders.
Social Media and Privacy Concerns
Data privacy is important since people create digital traces every day, yet making use of social media could expose your personal information without you realizing it. Social networking sites typically gather identity attributes, geolocation information, friends, purchases, and a person’s web browsing habits.
Again, people often agree with terms and conditions after signing up for an account, and this includes allowing social media platforms to access user’s personal data. As we can see this opens up the possibility of identity fraud or identity theft whenever enough personally identifiable information (PII) is collected in a data breach. Most active user accounts on Facebook are allegedly fake and range from 50 million to 100 million in monthly active duplicate user accounts.
As will be illustrated in more detail below, the collection and storage of large amounts of personal user data by social media platforms can be effectively utilized for several purposes, such as the exertion of political pressure and commercial advertising appeal.
In early July 2022, a breach was recorded in the Twitter system, whereby the hackers shared 200 million user email addresses on a dark web forum.The data leaked were email addresses, names, social media profiles, and usernames. These compromised email accounts may provide criminals with the knowledge they need to launch destructive attacks.
Social platforms have become a safe place for fraudsters and scammers to defraud individuals through requests for both monetary and personal details. Through social media, governments may have control and monitor and regulate its people hence violating their right to expression and privacy.
LinkedIn experimented last year with 20 million users without their knowledge or consent. The business suspected that people are more likely to get hired through distant acquaintances than through intimate connections. LinkedIn is by no means the first internet corporation to analyze member data without the members' knowledge.
Facebook, along with researchers from Cornell University and the University of California, shocked some in 2014 when they revealed the findings of a study that showed how individuals's News Feeds had been subtly altered for a week in 2012.
That is why the shocking fact of threat is the variety of social networks that act as a hub for hacks, identity thefts, and manipulations. With millions of fake accounts, hackers accessing email accounts, and faking users, the dangers are out-right exponential. Self-regulation of personal information to be used politically and commercially erodes trust and infringes the liberty of a person.
Confinity: Promoting Mental Health and Privacy of Users
Where everyone is living a faceless life on social media and most interaction is carried out based on false representations, Confinity is real. This is a digital sanctuary that is a significant source of gladly shared support as well as verification of inherent worth, esteem, love, and a sense of belonging.
Still, at Confinity, people can record memories that are as they are and not altered to make them feel that he or she is worth being documented. This kind of concentration on identity makes us unique and helps us establish more profound relations with the users.
Confinity cares about privacy and that is why your memories are safeguarded. User data are well protected using encryption and 2FA means that even the management team cannot have access to that data unless they have permission.
Privacy features give you control over the audience of your memories and you decide who gets to see it and what you would like to keep to yourself. You are fully in charge of what is stored in the archive may it be photos, videos, or voice recordings hence the comfort.