Ahmedabad hospital offers therapy for social media addiction

According to the psychiatrist, addictive use of social media has led to “marital discord, mental confusion, loss of sleep and depression”.

Ahmedabad: Addicted to social media? New city hospital offers therapy

A hospital in Ahmedabad offers therapies on mental health, including social media de-addiction. The Samvedana Happiness Hospital, which was inaugurated by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani here on Sunday, has been established by noted psychiatrist Dr Mrugesh Vaishnav and promises to offer treatment in three areas — psychiatry, de-addiction and sexology.

“The spread of social media via the internet and mobile phone applications like WhatsApp etc has assumed a large proportion and it has taken total control over people’s minds over the time,” Dr Vaishnav said, pointing to the reason on starting a therapy on social media addiction.

“It is because of social media addiction that even spouses talk and communicate with each other by texting messages even when both are at home, thereby losing personal contact,” said Dr Vaishnav, underlining the need for psychiatric treatment and special hearing sessions and emergency ICU care.

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According to the psychiatrist, addictive use of social media has led to “marital discord, mental confusion, loss of sleep and depression”.

The uncontrolled excessive use of social media beyond a point has resulted in spread of socially dangerous behaviour trends like depression, social disconnect and sexual offences like molestation and rape, he added.

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According to Dr Vaishnav, anybody who is hooked to social media for more than an hour without interruption is called a social media addict and who needs to be slowly de-addicted through treatment.

“It is natural that a person tends to prefer joy and avoid pain. For example, there is pain in studies and joy in social media, which attracts him or her more than studies. It has to be kept in view that social media addiction destroys one’s academic career.. If their Facebook posts don’t attract more ‘likes’ or ignored, this leads to depression,” he said.

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Stating that a psychiatric hospital is viewed as an asylum and there is a lot of stigma attached to it, he said that his hospital was unique where several group therapy sessions will be conducted. “Psychiatric illnesses are only because of chemical changes in the brain and nothing else. Secondly, people feel that one should help oneself if they are mentally strong, which is absolutely wrong. One cannot be mentally strong when one has some chemical disturbance in the brain,” he added.

After inaugurating the hospital, the Chief Minister commended the efforts of Dr Vaishnav in starting the facility. “At a time when people are facing stressful conditions in life, their problems will be addressed at this hospital with modern facilities.”

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