Facebook: Source Of Stress And Depression For New Mums

I realised it soon after my daughter was born: Facebook can be a mum’s worst enemy. Before she came along I’d decided I wouldn’t be posting pictures of her on social media. We thought it would only really be family who’d be interested anyway and we preferred sharing via encrypted messaging apps instead. But I was still on Facebook, often involuntarily seeing the seemingly perfect lives of other new mums. In these sleep-deprived, insecure first weeks and months the constant comparisons certainly didn’t make me feel better. While I did also find some handy and more supportive local mum-groups on the platform, the overall balance for me was one of "more hassle than it's worth".

In the end I quit Facebook for many other reasons (mostly because I just found it was taking way too much of my precious time!), but the question of just how Facebook can affect new mums stayed with me.

I was interested to see this piece in The Conversation. It highlights some conclusions from research that are worth being explored further. For example:

“We found that mothers who were more prone to seek external validation for their mothering identity and were perfectionistic about parenting experienced increases in depressive symptoms indirectly through higher levels of Facebook activity. Moreover, greater Facebook activity was also linked to elevated parenting stress for new mothers.”

For those who realise that time spent on Facebook leaves them feeling blue, the author suggests taking a break from social networking for a period of weeks or months and instead “focus on making phone calls to long-distance friends and meeting local ones face-to-face for coffee”. I think that could be good advice not just for new mums, but everyone else too.