It wasn't until my daughter was born that I even started looking at parenting pages and mummy blogs. I think it was just because I didn't resonate with them or possibly even because my fertility journey impacted me more than I realised that I decided to block out that noise. But lately I have been more conscious of the social media I consume. More so from a time-consuming perspective doom scrolling has on my life and how much it impacts on my mood at times.

So I wondered what the current research was saying about parents and motherhood and their consumption with social media. Because the truth is we are glued to our phones to offer some escape from our day-to-day.

Social comparison theory provides a good framework as to what happens when we are on social media platforms. Essentially from the moment we are scrolling and seeing a snippet of someone's 'perfect' life we start to compare ourselves. When we see something that resembles our life or something that we desire, then these comparisons become more intense and consuming and of course impact on how we feel about ourselves and our self- worth.  When you become a mother, this is amplified. You are adjusting to your new identity and trying to work out the needs of another human being. You are overwhelmed. Exhausted, both mentally and physically. So when you see another mother demonstrating 'how easy' it is this can make you feel low in mood and anxious about your abilities. We don't hold much rationality in this moment, unless you have done the work and are aware of what activates you.

We also want the quick fix. We want the answers to why our baby is unsettled. Why they aren't sleeping through the night. Are they constipated? Do they have silent reflux? Is it because I am feeding them formula? So it is easy to just jump on to social media and start looking for an answer.

For those people who use a social media platform extensively or who consume but do not post, like or comment on content are more likely to experience negative mental health outcomes, while interactive users are the least likely to experience negative outcomes (Escobar-Viera et al., 2018; Yang & Bradford Brown, 2016). I think this makes sense because the whole point of social media is to stay connected and build relationships so when we aren't doing that it makes sense that we are stuck in our bubble, feeling isolated and making comparisons to others who we don't know.

 So I feel like the message in all of this is that when you are on social media and you are continuously scrolling through, it is important for your mental health that you engage with your followers. Self-comparison is pointless when you only see a small snippet of someone else's life because you never truly know what they are going through on the other side of the phone. Therefore, like posts, leave comments or even send a direct message to those whose content you enjoy. I can tell you from being on the receiving end of this is more than welcome as it feels like my content is reaching people and connecting with people.  But more importantly it is helpful for your own mental health as well.