Social Media & Me

Social media & me

“Hello my name is Daniel Winter-Bates, I’m an operations manager at Southern Health and have worked within the NHS in various roles for the past ten years. I am also lucky enough to be a health and wellbeing champion, a quality improvement facilitator and, as if that wasn’t enough, I am also the front man for rock band Bury Tomorrow!

It’s safe to say that my ‘dual life’ keeps me busy and I love it! However, with the rise of social media along with my own profile on platforms such as Instagram, it’s got me thinking about the impact of social media on mental health.

I’ve noticed there’s a particular moment before every post, where I think – is this going to connect with my followers? Do they really want to hear or see this? And are they going to understand where I am coming from or what I mean?

Social media can almost feed insecurities that relate to body image. For a long time now social feeds have been a constant stream of reality TV posts, weight loss plans and the ‘ideal’ body image being thrusted in the face of some of the most impressionable age groups...

However, it’s not all bad, believe it or not! – social media can be used for good too!

One campaign I was part of this year was called #nofilterjustme. This was a week long series of selfies that were posted without filters or any editing to promote positive self-image.

I also used the posts to promote some positive messages to my followers and shared some tips about how I maintain my mental wellbeing.

The power of social media also became apparent when I took part in a project alongside Southern Health and an organisation called Unloc. Unloc is an organisation who’s mission is to empower young people to be innovative change makers – right up my street!

We saw the young people involved in the project take social media to the next level and create targeted, creative and carefully considered campaigns that were aimed to raise awareness of mental health support amongst their peers. I certainly learned a lot from them and so did my colleagues at Southern Health.

So social media and me? What are my thoughts? It’s obvious that social media is stereotyped with negative connotations when it comes to mental health and the majority of these labels are undeniably true. I can’t help but think if we all used our platforms to tap into the positive movements and show support to our friends, followers and subscribers who knows how we could change the world of social media for younger generations and maybe change what social media in the future means to you.”