Social Media Has Created an Intellectual Vacuum.
Social media was meant for something else but has achieved something else.
What I mean by something is to heal our loneliness and connect us has become a source of harm, folly, and despair. Everyone is in a race for the likes, views, comments, shares, and acknowledgment of strangers.
No one can peek into Mark Zuckerburg’s intentions for Facebook, God alone knows, but as far as its marketing was concerned, it promised a digital platform to allow people to befriend and know each other.
What Facebook began as—a novel product that outsources socializing — and what it is with the espionage accusations, incessant scams, countless marriage-breaking affairs, kidnappings, child predators, get-rich-quick schemes, advertising hounds, fake quotes, false facts, a breeding ground of hatred and jealousy, desecration of morality, obscene photos in hopes to get views….
It just keeps getting worse and worse.
As I read in a Tweet, “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet just because there is a picture with a quote next to it.”
But Facebook is not alone in that. All social media spaces, sooner or later, got corrupted.
Instagram, famed for influencers, has sadly influenced users in the wrong direction. We are now hooking ourselves more than ever in indulgences like reels, shorts, and TikTok clips, engaging in content that is filling our brains with junk and hijacking our dopamine transmitters for a feel-good boost every 15 seconds.
Your hands will start trembling if you keep away from your devices for even an hour; you don’t know why, you don’t know how, but somewhere in the tech boom, you got so invested that you forgot how to be human and only remembered how to be a user.
Socializing Vs. Social Media
Instead of relying on their natural talents and fostering social skills, people are vetting to become “keyboard warriors”: bold and brave typers of the mighty keyboard with no ability to speak and articulate their thoughts in real life.
And it’s not as if they have anything meaningful to say; all they do is raise issues and questions that don’t concern them, fight for battles that are not theirs, and stall their real-world problems with media scares about climate change, racism, cancellation, sexual accusations, etc.
Meeting these people in real life will make you hate them, such as their manners, for they were brought up as part of the social media generation and never found meaning in developing their personality, only their profiles.
No matter what truths we hold onto, there will always be disagreements, but who knows the etiquette to conduct those discussions? Not many, a very few, for we never honed our abilities and just typed away.
Respect, dignity, admiration, manners, composure, peace, gratitude, belief, faith, reason — these are words strangers to our minds. We did graduate in memes and comments, though, so we should be good to go.
An advocate of FOMO, we have been overloaded and overstimulated with events that don’t enhance our quality of life but make us feel depressed if we miss out.
Without repercussions, it has brought out the ugliness in people, resulting in increased racist comments, hate crimes, harassment, cyberbullying, and worse.
Losing the Psychological Battle
In a world more “connected” than ever, psychological disorders are on an upward trend. Daily, the stats for bipolar disorder, clinical depression, suicidal tendencies, self-harm, loneliness, narcissism, BPD, and SOCIAL anxiety are headlines.
Social media, in its current state, is a harbinger of cognitive destruction. Numerous studies have linked personality decline, emotional imbalances, sleep dysfunction, lowered self-esteem, increased isolation, and psychological disorders to heightened use of social media.
The sound of a notification pops off a burst of oxytocin in our mind, a neurotransmitter meant to enliven the joy of companionship, but when we meet the same people in real life, there’s nothing but hatred for them. The corporations won’t suffer; you will, and I will.
Instead of tapping into their potential and surmounting psycho-emotional obstacles, people find comfort in anonymity behind their screens. We are sowing destruction for none but our own future: a future where everyone is connected, but no one is bonded.
Let us not discount its benefits: it is great for long-distance communication, creating a digital presence, promoting our business, meeting new people, and the like.
Knowing that, how we regulate and approach social media will define our experience.
Final Thoughts
There must be an outcry for a return to bonding.
There must be a return to lunches without snapshots.
There must be a return to picnics without stories.
There must be a return to travels without selfies.
There must be a return to greetings without DMs.
There must be a return to reading without scrolling.
There must be a return to writing without typing.
There must be a return to gazing without viewing.
There must be a return to leading without influencing.
There must be a return to befriending without networking.
There must be a return to complimenting without commenting.
There must be a return to loving without liking.
There must be a return to nature walks without digital footprints.
There must be a return to being alive without going live.
There must be a return to being a man more than a machine.
Yes…there must be a return.
That’s the end of my post, folks. Some thoughts I had about the increasing use of social media and its adverse effects on our mental health. You can also check out Dr. Mehmet Yildiz’s insights on social media for further reading:
Social Media Is a Double-Edged Sword for Creators, But We Can Use It for Good Outcomes
Here are some sample stories from my writing collection.
My Experience with Reading: Recollecting My History with Book
Animal Farm through the Lens of an Apolitical, Common Reader
“In the Dark, You Shall Find Yourself”: Reflecting on the Nature of Introversion and Extroversion
I suggest all writers check this story on how writing on Medium might bring intangible benefits. I agree that money is not everything in a writer’s life, even though it is important.
I recently volunteered to be an editor for ILLUMINATION publications on Medium and found this time investment helpful for me to meet more writers and support them.
The editorial team posted a monthly update showing progress and plans for improvement. I believe reviewing this newsletter might be helpful for writers. There are new opportunities for writers’ growth on Medium.
