I think this picture shows something good that can be immensely hard to do, especially when one is used to spending a lot of time with and in social media,
I read this article, titled "Depression in girls linked to higher use of social media". I read it and got really sad and heavied! This shit is not easy, and it affects all of us.
Internet didn't really exist when I grew up, but I did connect electronically to other people via bulletin board systems, which made for a very geeky but simple way of communication; commercial interests didn't decide what I read in which order, depending on what they wanted to sell me. Also, there were no images, only text. (Just like reading off/posting on a bulletin board, hence the name.)
I can only guess what the world looks like for a kid growing up today. Pretty pictures from the lives of others, all the time, everywhere, making our own lives look small and petty. Conceivably even meaningless, after too much of all the fun that others are obviously having (while you're not, which is actually not reality).
Reading the report that I linked to made me wish for a world where big social media companies don't tend to generate feelings of anxiety, inadequacy, sadness, emptiness, and frustration in "their users", where the companies don't choose to display "the good bits" from other people's lives, where the companies don't manipulate what their users think and feel. A place where people feel free to communicate anything; I think I'm not alone in believing that a lot of people stereotype what they post and where, for example, only happy posts on Facebook, and visually like-inducing pictures on Instagram.
This image makes me anxious, to tell you the truth. I almost feel shouted at. "Don't!"
I believe we're heading in a good direction with the so-called decentralised web, which I've written about here. Basically, the decentralised web doesn't try to turn you into a consumer, and you own your own data, which by default isn't sold and used against your human self.
I'd like Internet to be like the library: you shouldn't have to buy or believe in something to get in. And to me, that's a soothing thought.
On the other hand, just because you're no longer on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et cetera, you don't automatically turn into a better person. Patterns are hard to shake off, as we all know.
Social media is fuelling sharply higher rates of depression among girls than boys, a study that interviewed almost 11,000 14-year-olds has found. As many as three-quarters of 14-year-old girls who suffer from depression also have low self-esteem and are unhappy with how they look. Greater daily hours of social media use corresponds to an increase in depressive symptoms, explained Professor Yvonne Kelly from University College London, as well as poor sleep.
Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner for England, warned that even some children as young as nine “are becoming almost addicted to ‘likes’ as a form of social validation that makes them happy”. Shannon McLaughlin, 18, from Blackburn, who was diagnosed with anxiety and depression in her early teens, said: “People mostly share the positive things about life on social media, without showing the negatives … Seeing that everyone was happy and enjoying life made me feel so much worse.” Barbara Keeley, the shadow minister for mental health, said social media firms should be forced to adopt a duty of care to protect young users.
We can't be perfect. What the fuck is perfection? It doesn't exist. It's a fucking fob. We're all self-hating, miserable, happy, sad, lukewarm, OK, fine, all of that, altogether, sometimes. We're not a Mickey Mouse-like fucking entity that dances all shiny, donning a steadfast, painted-on smile that never fades. We're people. And people are fucking sad sometimes. Some of us are sad a lot of fucking times, and some of us are fucking depressed, too. That's it. And it can take a little time to get through, and it can last for the rest of our lives. But it's a matter of dealing with it—but I won't fucking judge you for who you are. I'll judge you if you are some kind of personification of Instagram/Facebook, because that fucking image doesn't exist.
I'll tell you what exists: big company greed. And those companies live and thrice because of your anxieties and fears that stem from your so-called inadequacies. Will Facebook ever tell you that what you may think an inadequacy is actually something that is merely different than the regular tripe that their fucking abuse-riddled platform spews? No.
Because they want to spawn consumers.
Facebook is not a non-entity forum. It's not software that somebody has set up and merely serves your own purposes for seeing what your friends post and you want to see; it's a marketing tool designed to know you better than you know yourself so that it—and the people they sell your highly personal data to—can tell you what to buy, and how to feel inadequate enough to buy more, to buy your way out of feeling badly.
Fucking Facebook. And it's not only them. It's every fucking piece of technology that wants to track and—after enough time—control you. Think that I'm Black Mirror-paranoid? Think again.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/12/i-accept-myself-just-as-i-am-the-rise-of-realistic-self-help?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
So, what's a solution?
If I'd tell you that a solution exists, I'd be just as bad as those corporation. Because a solution does not exist. There are only ways to not do things. So, for example, if Facebook lets you down—don't use it. I'm serious. You won't miss out on stuff if you're in contact with your friends; as with trying to lose any addictive thing, it will feel bad to begin with when you're without it. Fear Of Missing Out, and all that. It's abstinence. The best thing ever is probably happening right as—
It's not. And you know this.
After a while, you will feel better. Just stay away for long enough, and you'll start experiencing the feeling of calmness, however slight it will be. It's a matter of realising that feeling better throughout life isn't from getting immediate and slight payoffs, those that you may have felt when people like your stuff.
How does happiness feel? Immediate payoffs, like a like? Is it like feeling true love? No, it does not. A like here and there is not memorable, nor lasting. It's something that you might put in your diary, but most likely, what you remember is interactions with other people, and with yourself.
So, get down to realising what's good for you and not. And that fucking thing takes time. Everybody wants to be happy now, not in 20 years, but as everything truly rewarding shows, we need to know that these things can take time. So get in. And leave behind what you don't need.