THE LONELINESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

An Investigation Into The Psychological Impact Of Technology

Gerald Lombardo
Sep 9, 2018 · 5 min read
Image from Unsplash

With all of the connective technologies that exist today, one would think that we could — should — be able to eliminate loneliness. But the more we get drawn into the virtual world of social media, the worse we tend to feel. Some have suggested that the medium itself is the problem. We have become over-reliant on connecting through our devices, they say, at the expense of more traditional types of social interaction. But, while there is likely some truth to this assertion, it is not the root cause of the loneliness that plagues the modern man.

Today, perhaps more than ever, people are lonely because of their lack of a well defined and effectual sense of self.

Inner Emptiness

One’s sense of self exists on a spectrum. On the one side are those with a strong sense of self. Such people feel they have a place in the world. They know what they want with their lives, and they take the necessary actions to move in the direction of their goals.

Then, on the other side, are those with a weak sense of self. These are the empty men and women. These people don’t know what they want from life, they don’t know what they want to be, they don’t have any long-term goals around which to structure their days and, worst of all, they feel powerless to improve their own situations. These empty people tend to drift through life in a passive manner. They follow the path of least resistance and are often crippled by existential doubts.

The Fall Of Social Structures

This problem of emptiness is a symptom of a society in flux. For one’s ‘selfhood’, or lack thereof, is influenced by the social structures of one’s day. In the West many of the institutions which have traditionally helped people find their place in the world have fallen to the wayside. The decline of Christianity, for example, has left the West lacking a religious or cultural axiom to which people can turn to find their place in the world.

The End Of The Tribe

The growth of the state has also contributed to the pathology of emptiness. For the rise of the state has led to the destruction of smaller communities and the degradation of the family unit — two things which, for millennia, have been integral to the development of one’s selfhood.

The confluence these forces — and others, including economic turmoil — has created a society of dead men and women.

A society inflicted by a pathology of emptiness is a society full of anxiety. For anxiety is a natural response to the feeling of powerlessness. And, for the hollow men and women, these feelings of powerlessness and anxiety are felt most acutely during times of solitude.

Solitude

If there is nobody is around to distract us than our thoughts turn inward. This leads the hollow among us to become aware of their inner void.

Unlike someone with a strong and individual sense of self (for whom periods of solitude can be rejuvenating), solitude for the hollow man is a painful experience — it’s a loneliness that he must avoid at all costs.

In generations past, the hollow man would turn to the comfort and safety of friends and family, or he takes part in social events to avoid the anxiety that was triggered in times of solitude. To avoid solitude in the present day, however, we don’t even need to leave to comfort of our home. Instead, we need only to turn to the comforting glow of our phones and immerse ourselves in the reassuring world of social media.

We can even go as far as to construct a pseudo-self to mask our emptiness by selectively posting only positive bits and pieces of our real-world lives online. By doing so we can pretend to be someone we are not and we can feed off of the social validation offered by others playing this pernicious game.

The Comfort Of The Crowd

This defense mechanism, used by the hollow man or woman, whereby they flee to the comfort of the crowd is used also by pre-psychotic individuals in the attempt to avoid a psychotic break. In its extreme form, the fear of losing one’s self is (in effect) the fear of psychosis.

The outward turn to the security of the social world usually fails to protect one on the cusp of a psychotic break, and so too does the world of social media ultimately fail to protect the hollow from their anxiety and their loneliness. It’s like trying to fix a breach with bubble gum.

The validation gained on social media is as empty as those who give it. For as, Rollo May noted, “The hollow among us are bound to become more lonely no matter how much they lean together; for hollow, people do not have a base from which to learn to love.”

What makes the rush to social media so harmful — more harmful, even, than other forms of avoidance — is that it prevents people from taking the necessary steps to fixing their lack of a sense of self. People can not live in emptiness for long. To do so is death.

The Cure

The true antidote to loneliness and inner emptiness is to discover what we truly want with our lives and to take the necessary actions to bring that life in existence. To accomplish this, we must be willing to face up to our loneliness and our anxiety.

We must realize that loneliness is but the evil opposite of aloneness, and it is in periods of aloneness that we begin to learn who we are and what we want with our lives.

Facing up to our aloneness and cultivating our selfhood is no easy task. And it requires that we first and foremost take the difficult step of diminishing our need for social validation. To build our individual sense of self we must distinguish ourselves psychologically from our peers.

As we strengthen our sense of self it is inevitable that we will become less and less like those around us. But, fear not, this doesn’t mean that we are doomed to turn into outsiders, outcasts. Rather, those with a strong sense of self only improve their social skills and enrich their relationships. For those who possess a strong sense of self cannot be held back in their social interactions by the need for validation. Instead, a strong sense of self-enables us to behave with spontaneity, one of the most attractive of human characteristics. For, as the etymology of the word implies, acting spontaneously means acting in accordance with our own personal will — something possible only after we have developed a strong sense of self.

The Polymath Project

Figuring out how to live in a world we don't understand

Gerald Lombardo

Written by

Sub Species Aeternitatis

The Polymath Project

Figuring out how to live in a world we don't understand

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