Depression and our unmet Basic Human needs

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory that describes, in five stages, what the basic needs are necessary for human subsistence and satisfaction. Throughout your life, you'll reach different stages at different times than others, and at some points you may experience a deficit in a certain stage. When a deficit occurs, you stop pursuing higher stages because your fundamental needs are not satisfied. These five stages (in ascending order) are: physiological needs, safety needs, community and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

Stage 1) Physiological Needs: These are the basic needs necessary to live; oxygen, food, and water. These basic needs are required by all animals and are the primary focus of infant children.

Stage 2) Safety Needs: These needs may include health, freedom from war, and financial security.

Stage 3) Community and Belonging: If the previous two stages are met, a person will focus on the need for a community, love, and connections. These things are typically met by friends, family, and romantic partners.

Stage 4) Esteem: A person may work to achieve esteem once the previous stages have all been satisfied. Self-confidence and acceptance from others are important components of meeting this need and pursuing the final stage.

Stage 5) Self-Actualization: This is the ability to meet one's true potential, and the necessary components for this stage may vary from person to person. A scientist for example may be satisfied when they are able to complete research in a field they desire. A mother or father may be self-actualized when they are able to competently care for their children.

According to Maslow and his theory of basic human needs, failure to have needs met at various stages of the hierarchy could lead to psychiatric illness or mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety. But what is depression exactly?

Depression and social media can be tricky to study. As Alexey Makarin, an assistant professor at MIT Sloan said, "There may be hundreds of papers that present correlations between social media and well-being, and many of them are great and highly informative, but we still know little about which way the effect runs." Do people who use social media more become depressed, or, instead, are people who are depressed more active on social media?

Recently, a paper which aims to determine the cause behind this link has found that as Facebook expanded its rollout to include more college campuses, this college-wide Facebook access led to a 7% increase in severe depression among students. The preceding year of each college-wide Facebook rollout continually showed a sizeable increase of students who reported mental distress. Today, most people have a smartphone to easily access social media and unlimited amounts of information, all at the tap of a few buttons.

The constant stream of real-time information and ease of use has created a vulnerability of addiction. Phone addiction is the obsessive use of a smart phone or fear of being without a mobile device, also called "nomophobia." Chronic phone use is a recently developed form of addiction and may lead to: sleep deficit, lower concentration, anxiety, stress, loneliness, reduced cognition, psychological disorders, etc.

Experts worry that teens are more anxious and have lower self-esteem because of social media and texting. Online communication means that teens miss out on things like body language and facial expressions. This can lead to misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and can make talking in person intimidating. It is also common for teens to feel bad by comparing themselves to everyone they see online. Often, they try to compensate by sharing pictures where they look similar to those online. This can result in them feeling worse when their social media identity doesn’t match how they actually feel.

Moving forward, it's important to protect your own mental health. This can be done in multiple ways, such as taking note of how you feel when you're done scrolling on your phone. It's easy to forget the small changes of how you feel when we're living in a world in which we constantly move from one thing to another.

Another thing is to take the time to understand what is happening in your brain. It's difficult to see how you're being affected by social media, unless you learn about dopamine, the happy chemical in your brain which is used as a reward for certain behaviors. This is how people can develop an addiction, through the deprivation and eventual reward of dopamine when released by something specific.

Put boundaries in place, if you find yourself logging into social media as a habit or you instinctively tap into social media apps without thinking about it, then consider implementing gaps between here and there. Make the decision of using social media a conscious one. This can be done by either leaving your phone out of sight, making it so you have to do 3 or 4 taps/swipes before you can select it, or restricting your use to a limited amount of time each day.

Lastly, if the reason you're using an app isn't for yourself, but it's for others, then don't be afraid to log off completely and delete the app. If you feel you need to access your account, you can log in on the computer. If time goes by and you realize you don't need it, then consider deleting it completely.