Social medias effect on athlete’s mental resilience within performance.

There has been a sharp and much-needed rise in mental health awareness, especially within the under '30s, and a meteoric rise in social media usage. With google scholar returning a hit of 2,820,000 when searching for ‘Social media and mental health,’ it is apparent that there is a subject matter to be discussed. Social media in itself is a modern phenomenon having only really started in the early 2000s, with myspace being the first platform to gain >1 million monthly users in around 2004 (Ortiz-Ospina, 2019), and Facebook now at 2.5 billion monthly users, the rate at which these media are consumed has skyrocketed at an exponential rate (Hutchinson, 2020; Ortiz-Ospina, 2019). With the reported effects of social media usage on mental health, there is plausible consideration that this medium is having a meaningful impact upon an athlete’s mental state and acuity, and therefore, on performance. The possibility of methods for reducing the negative impacts of social media influence, while increasing the positive factors, should be considered when trying to get the most of ones athletic performance. The purpose of this article is to investigate what social media means to the athlete and how performance can be affected.

Over the past decade there has been a remarkable increase in the access to, and mediums that comprise the realm known as social media, with the increase in mobile access. The amount of time spent consuming this medium has also seen a particularly sharp trend in an upwards trajectory. Figure 1 (Ortiz-Ospina, 2019) presents a startling infographic that in 10 years the amount of time spent engaging with digital media has more than doubled.

Figure 1. Daily Hours spent with digital media. Adapted from " The rise of social media," by Ortiz-Ospina, E, 2019, Our world in data. Retrieved March 7, 2020, from https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-social-media. Copyright 2020 by Our World in Data Limited.

The research into social media and its impact upon mental health is both emerging and vast, with quickly evolving platforms and modalities for the exchange, storage and viewing of data. There are elements of research pertaining to the premise that social media and its usage has links with increases in negative health indicators, including but not limited to, sleep disturbance, higher anxiety levels and lower levels of self-esteem (Barry et al., 2017; Ehrenreich & Underwood, 2016; Woods & Scott, 2016). There has been a steep rise in the number of mental health cases reported within young adults over the past decade, which falls inline with the timeline of increased consumption of digital and social media (Twenge et al., 2019); although this in no way proves causation as there are far too many corroborating factors within society and as a populous in general.

A large factor in social media’s impact upon self-esteem is that of upward social comparison (USC). USC is the idiom that describes what takes place when one compares themselves with someone who they believe is better, this can be inability, circumstance or any other factor that is found desirable (Wang et al., 2017). It has been noted that the exposure to USC is increased with the use of social media, the more frequent and prolonged the use the greater this exposure may be. The result can be a cumulative unfavourable effect upon wellbeing and levels of self-esteem (Vogel et al., 2014). However, if used effectively the use of social media can improve self-esteem, this requires the user to focus on their profiles and have a purposefully smaller network, rather than engaging with those unknown to them or including vast numbers of acquaintances. (Gonzales & Hancock, 2010; Wilcox & Stephen, 2013)

Figure 2 (‘How Heavy Use of Social Media Is Linked to Mental Illness’, 2018) does intermate that social media has both positive and negative effects, however, in the dominion of athletic prowess and improvement, an extremely important factor is recovery, and henceforth sleep. The graphical representation depicts that all major social media platforms can harm sleep quality and duration. Therefore, starting a cascading effect from the lack of critical metabolic, immunologic and restorative physiologic processes that occur in normal and well rested sleep cycles, these processes will thus, be sub optimal with the disturbance of the regular circadian sleep/wake phase (Samuels, 2008).

Figure 2. Social Media and mental health factors. Adapted from "How Heavy Use of Social Media Is Linked to Mental Illness," by The Economist, 2018, The Economist. Retrieved March 7, 2020, from https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/05/18/how-heavy-use-of-social-media-is-linked-to-mental-illness. Copyright 2020 by The Economist Newspaper Limited.

The athletic population are distinct in desire to compete, win and sacrifice normal social conventions for the ability to achieve goals or have the chance to compete. Consequently athletic populations score significantly higher in the conscientiousness rating than non-athletic counterparts (Malinauskas et al., 2014). Pressure is already high for athletes, and the strain felt from internal pressures of conscientiousness alongside external factors of friends, family, prize money, and sponsorship, is exacerbated by the contorted image and ideals represented within social media and the previously mentioned USC. Furthermore, athletes are often judged and scrutinized in minutia throughout the athletic career, with the tiniest mistake causing loss or victory, triumph or exile. Compiling all these intricate factors requires for the quite careful management of an athlete’s psychology to enhance performance (Roberts et al., 2016). Some collegiate franchises within the US present athletic departments with rules and guidelines for the students to abide by and behave within, the flaunting of these constraints puts the completion of both athletic and academic endeavours in jeopardy (Snyder et al., 2015). The rules are predominantly to protect the image of the franchise and the futures of those it is educating and leading.

The remarkable nature of this mediums impact on society is rampant, within athletes it enables the capability to positively allow athletes to connect with teammates, training partners, coaches, fans, family, and therefore in times of high demand training, stay connected and part of their world. Furthermore, access to getting quick answers to questions, sharing of videos and its consequential feedback, and feeling supported by those around them. Short term negative impacts of social media are the resultant and apparent lack of ability to focus on the task at hand, the need to be ‘connected’ all the time (Firth et al., 2019), thus reducing the athlete’s engagement and absorption into training and the techniques required from a strength and conditioning point of view.

Within athletic endeavours, the role of mental wellbeing, and performance have a symbiotic relationship, whereby the mental state of an athlete can have both positive and negative impacts upon performance (Souter et al., 2018). The subject of sport psychology already looks into the advancement of performance, by optimising arousal levels aiming to achieve a state of heightened mental anxiety without the presence of somatic anxiety, is desired for optimal performance (Balague, 2005). The addition of the presence of social media platforms and the extra pressure, information and connections they provide, can both serve to heighten anxiety as well as the possibility to reduce it (Seabrook et al., 2016). This must, therefore, be a very carefully managed medium to get the most out of athletes. The acuity of social media presence will more likely impact those athletes who are classified as ego-driven, where the intention is to demonstrate superiority over others using an impressive set of statistics, versus the mastery seeker who gains a sense of achievement through relative improvement and the acquisition of skill and knowledge (Eliot, 2005). The presence of USC is of concern, especially to those athletes with an ego-driven competitive nature, as the level of comparison with one’s peers is the goal, and therefore carries more weight and meaning than that of a gratifying self-performance. As part of USC within athletes, there is the aspect of competitor analysis, where atheletes can observe and asses rivals and vice versa, thus posing a psychological situation that may need addressing, due to either a feeling of eroded self-confidence, anxiety of competition, or becoming overly concerned with competition, which could distract from the focus of training.

While there are many positives to social media and the prevailing feelings of connectedness, the sharing of achievements and the building of community to aid in motivation, there is an ugly side to the medium, as expressed earlier, increased incidences of anxiety, reduced focus and lower levels of self-esteem. As it is a new and emerging proliferating industry, the research is few and unreliable with regards to the particular links between social media and athletic performance. Henceforth, the strategies to be relied upon to combat the negative aspects are relatively untried and have no long-term data to stand up to. The most comprehensive way to assume a stance on the usage, regulation and management of social media for athletes for optimal mental health and performance, is to ascertain data from other areas of psychology where the symptomology and manifestations are similar.

The management of social media guidelines would appear to rely on limiting usage, attempting to schedule usage, and with most professional teams and establishments, having particular guidelines to advocate sensible usage of the platforms (Snyder et al., 2015). From a coaching perspective, the most impactful idea is to encourage the following of inspirational people and brands who instil a feeling of value. Also, the inclusion of regular mental health and readiness assessments should be part of the robust practice of coaching and possibly the inclusion of monitoring levels of social media usage, just as the prescription and manipulation of training intensity and volume is dependent on readiness, recovery and current performance levels, if an associated trend of increased social media use increases or decreases performance, usage time could be prescribed. This is possible as most portable devices now have the functionality to limit usage or at least advise when a time limit has been reached for the day. The profiling of athletes to ascertain susceptibility to USC and overuse of social media is likely, as personality traits could be a possible means to combatting the negative effects of social media before they arise and enhance the positive aspects. However, this area would require a study and development before implementation.

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