Social Media’s Impact on Mental Health, Making Life Changes, and Achieving Work-Rest Balance with Terra Mattson Episode 299

Social Media’s Impact on Mental Health, Making Life Changes, and Achieving Work-Rest Balance

Hey friend! We are back with my dear friend, Terra Mattson, diving into why we do what we do, how to be even more emotionally healthy, and learning what we need to know to have a great year.

In this part two episode, we talk a lot about social media. How do we, as adults, self-regulate and use social media well? Then, we dive into how to guide our teenagers to set boundaries and use social media in a healthy way in this digital age. 

Terra Mattson is a licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed professional counselor who has practiced for nearly two decades and oversees a team of 20 clinicians. 

Terra is the co-host of The Living Wholehearted Podcast with her husband, Jeff. On the podcast, they candidly share relational wisdom from the home to the workplace.

Let’s dive in. 

Using Social Media Well 

As a therapist, Terra says she is seeing a shift of more people going off of social media or changing to flip phones unless they have a business or a brand they are trying to market. But the only way to manage it well is to learn to know and regulate your emotions and self-care. 

Terra provides advice on how to engage on social media. She says we need to explore our why. Ask ourselves why we are using it. 

• Am I curious about other people’s lives? 
• Am I trying to contribute something?
• Do I want to speak something to someone that I’ll never meet but provide encouragement to?
• Am I trying to sell something?

She also encourages us to ask our kids why they are on social media. Speaking of kids and social media, let’s discuss guiding our teenagers on healthy social media usage and boundaries. 

Guiding Our Teenagers in Healthy Social Media Usage 

As Terra was providing advice for asking our kids why they are on social media, she mentioned that her teenage girls are not on social media. This brings up the point of how social media affects teenage boys and girls differently. Terra says social media is one of the most dangerous drugs for teenage girls today. 

So I asked her what would be helpful for a mom to remind her teenage daughter. Terra says having the conversation with her and thinking critically about it is important. And as mentioned last week, the upstairs and downstairs brain – a healthy brain uses both. So, ask your daughter, when she’s engaging in social media, how does it make her feel? Or asking her, what do you think about this? Remember that your teenage daughter’s brain is still developing, but guide her into doing both if/and. 

FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is very real as teenagers, so you can ask, “How would you feel if you saw your friends doing something that you didn’t get invited to, or what are you going to do about that?” As parents, we can talk them through different scenarios, and if they feel that they can handle them, go for it. 

The other important aspect of healthy social media usage for teenagers is – how much time per day you think is healthy for your kids. You can ask your teenager what they believe is healthy and hold each other accountable. 

In this episode, we also talk about: 

• What work and rest look like and how it is different for different people
• Terra’s best advice for making changes in 2024

Listen or Watch now:

iTunes.

Google Play.

Stitcher.

Spotify.

YouTube

Favorite quotes:

“Research shows that the quality of our relationships is what determines our long-term peace and our long-term happiness in life so invest in them. Relationships are the key to our emotional health.”

“There is this wide variety of what God calls good and very good. Discovering who we are and living within each of our designs is part of the freedom.”

“I am starting to see a little bit of a shift with social media. The only way to do it well is you have got to learn and know how to regulate your own emotions and self-care.”

“At the end of the day, our greatest change and our greatest impact come from face-to-face, person-to-person relationships.”

“Pick one small shift and be consistent with it throughout the whole year.”

Coaching this week: 

1. 5 Questions to Ask About Your Relationships (27:46) 

Links to great things we discussed: 

• Terra Mattson Website
• Terra Mattson Instagram
• The Living Wholehearted Podcast
• Courageous: Being Daughters Rooted in Grace
• Alli on YouTube
• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
• All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir
• 12 Rules for Life
• Remaining You While Raising Them

Order your copy of Remaining You While Raising Them here.

Hope you loved this episode! Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and slap some stars on a review! 🙂

xo,

Alli