Data Privacy is often looked over when talking about mental health, especially in teenagers. Often, this topic is lumped in with all of social media; no one views Data Privacy as it’s own category. While social media can have extreme impacts on people of all age’s mental health, combining both social media and data privacy together as one single entity continues to develop problems the more it happens. This creates a problem with education, leaving many in the dark about how the lack of control over their personal information can compound negative impacts on their mental health.
As a kid, I felt the pressures to join social media. Without it, you feel like you are losing access to social experiences that make you feel less alone in the world. Feeling alone is the main reason people join social media, to connect with friends they didn’t even know they had. Maybe in your town, maybe in a different country, social media builds communities that can When I was a kid, however, I wasn’t aware of what creating an account really meant: handing over your identity to some big corporation, in exchange for access to their little app.
Big tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon’s collection of their user’s personal, private data, has proven negative impacts on the mental health of the people impacted. Through the collection of user data, people have felt an extreme lack of privacy while they navigate their online lives. Compromising on privacy means that our psychological needs are not met: our needs for contemplation, autonomy, and rejuvenation require solitude and isolation, while catharsis (the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions), and recovery require anonymity.
Isolation and anonymity are two things we take away from our lives when we allow companies to take and sell our personal data that we freely and involuntarily hand over in a malicious trade to use their services for “free.”
I believe that privacy is a fundamental human right, and this extends to the digital environment. Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy.” As we move further into a digital world, this right is constantly challenged by the large companies that run the internet. The user, you and I, is becoming the product, not to be sold to but to be sold. In Meta’s new and ‘improved’ privacy policy published on July 26, 2022, they state that Meta will “keep information as long as we need it” so they can “protect our or other’s interests.” They can use this information, which includes your activity, friends, and usage data, to show you ads both on their platform, and through Meta Audience Network when visiting third party apps. “We want everything you see to be interesting and useful to you.”
Not only can this company-sponsored cyber stalking manipulate the users of social media for good profits, research has shown that a lack of data privacy can have affects on our mental health. Elias Aboujaoude, a Stanford professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, published a perspective article for the Journal of Medical Ethics, where he called on the United States Medical Community to embrace a ‘Privacy Bill of Rights,” similar to that of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) bill. “For years I have approached this issue as a human right and am now putting out this article as a call to action,” he said. “In the medical profession we should be advocating for this right. We have a history, since Hippocrates, of protecting privacy in the doctor-patient relationship. It’s time we insist on broader protections for patients and citizens.”
With the constant psychological stress of being under a digital microscope, we must begin to question how this loss of control over your personal information can affect the mental health of the individuals effected. My experience on social media was brief, but I definitely felt that pressure while I actively used the services. But why do we feel this psychological stress when we participate in social media? In the same article, Aboujaoude shares a study conducted by the that created a Privacy Function Rating Scale composed of the 20 psychological needs, and how various privacy components interacted with them. The study found that the contemplation, autonomy, and rejuvenation needs required solitude and isolation, while catharsis, recovery, and autonomy required anonymity. Compromising on privacy means that our psychological needs are not met, causing potential serious consequences.
