Mental illness or mental health disorder is a broad term that denotes a large number of pathological processes in humans and that basically compromise and affect mood, thinking and behavior and can affect children, adolescents, adults and older adults.
Likewise, mental illness affects basic psychological processes such as emotion, motivation, behavior, perception, learning and language; Examples of this are: cognitive deficits, learning difficulties, mood disorders, psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia, and memory disorders such as dementia.
Doctor César González, a psychiatrist at the Grupo Quirónsalud Clinic, affirms that “any mental illness affects the development of the individual in all its aspects (work, professional, personal and family life) and generally depends on the age of onset of the disease. The earlier the disorders appear, the worse their prognosis in general, even some diseases such as schizophrenia are highly deteriorating, increasing the personal suffering and that of the family of those who suffer from it”.
Regarding social networks and their association with mental illnesses, the psychiatrist González says “there is a very recent example in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic; It was warned at the beginning that those people who spent a long time spreading news about it could be prone to developing symptoms of mental illness. And indeed, this situation has become evident as the days go by, these people developed more anxiety disorders, depression and sleep disorders than the rest of the population. Addictive behaviors can also be generated in people who remain connected to these networks for a long time that become true obsessive pictures. However, the doctor believes that this type of communication media can be used as “a useful vehicle to inform, educate, detect, diagnose and treat patients. Educational programs disseminated through the networks become screening and illustration tools and generate a direction for those affected by obtaining information about symptoms, treatments and available resources”