I'm a Computer Science major. I love technology.
I was a big talker in the class discussion last week about freemium games or DLC models and certainly have a big interest in new technological innovations. I love thinking about how with each passing month, new tech is entering the lives of the public and changing the way we live. A simple app, Square Cash, has made ordering food and borrowing money from friends so easy. I can send an email to someone and money transfers to their account. I can put a big dinner on my credit card and have everyone at the table just instantly deposit money into my account (instead of taking 10 minutes to figure out how much everyone owes, getting change from the waiter, counting it all out, people not having enough, yada yada yada).
These are things that, yes, of course we could all live without, but having them around makes life so much more convenient. Unfortunately, I'm noticing more and more how these conveniences can be doing long term harm for people.
There is a specific instance regarding someone very close to me. She suffers from and struggles with various mental illnesses including depression and generalized anxiety disorder. These are issues that plague her day to day life, something that I cannot possibly understand fully without walking a day in her shoes, and are things she will have to live with for the rest of her life. I've noticed more and more how much technology plays an part, both positive and negative.
There is an endless supply of helpful information and communities online that offer support and advice for how she (and the millions of other people who struggle just like her) can manage her conditions and live a long, fulfilling, and happy life. On the other hand, the internet offers an escape.
On her particularly bad days, days where getting out of bed is the most daunting task, she turns to social media to escape. She has a hard time talking to me about what's going on and addressing the root cause of her feelings, so she runs (and I can hardly blame her). She runs to Facebook, to Twitter, to Tumblr, to Instagram, to YouTube. Checking her feeds constantly, looking at what other people are doing in their lives so she gets a temporary escape from the problems in hers.
It's not just that she get to see what they are up to day to day, but she gets to see the highlights of their day to day. Nobody is posting about the time they got wasted and humiliated themself and nearly lost their job. Nobody is posting about their financial burden and the stress of paying for their education. Nobody is posting about their own health problems (which everyone could be doing). They are posting a #tbt to a great concert they went to with their friends. They are posting gym selfies about how in shape they are. They are posting romantic dinner dates with their boyfriends. They are posting the highlights of their life.
So when she is at her worst, she escapes and gets to see everyone else at their best, and that only sends the spiral spinning down further.
It is hard for me to suggest not doing that, even though I know running from problems isn't the answer, because I know it would be hard for me not to do the same thing. Everyone needs an escape...sometimes.
What it has done for me is given me an increased appreciation of real life. A trip up to Vermont for a weekend with close friends where there is no cell service forces us to live in and enjoy the present, rather than seeing all the fun other people had 3 weeks ago, or seeing the concert tickets someone else got for 3 weeks in the future.
Anxiety is a worry about the future, depression is a negative reflection on the past (a generalization, but a reasonably accurate one). Technology allows for this to run wild. So as much as I love each and every new development that will allow me to stay connected with my friends hundreds of miles away, I have a growing appreciation for leaving my phone to the side and staying connected with my friends who are sitting in the room with me right now.
Matt, I completely agree with you. I feel there's a pressure on social media to not be pessimistic. We don't really post all the awful things about our lives because "nobody wants to see that." Well yeah, nobody wants to see it, but we all need to see negativity once in a while, if only to affirm that our own negative feelings are normal.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the first time I discovered my favorite band, The Weakerthans. I tried showing them to my friends and they were all immediately turned off by the music. "I don't want to hear this," they said. "It's too sad." And the Weakerthans sing about sad stuff all the time, about people dying and giving up on each other and cats running away from home and a whole host of other things. But The Weakerthans taught me that it is a very normal thing to be sad at a time when I had just joined Facebook and the whitewashing of emotions had already begun.
I totally see what Facebook and the like have done, and I think we could all benefit from being a bit more honest with ourselves and our "Friends." But it's just way too easy to push those nagging feelings of dread and sorrow away while we push our best photos to Facebook and yell, "Look at me! Help me appreciate the good things in my life because I can't do it by myself anymore!"
On a more positive note, one thing the internet /is/ good for is discovering more healthy solutions for negative feelings. Music, for one. I would have never learned about The Weakerthans had it not been for the internet communities I frequented, and I would not be the person I am today as a result. The problem is it's too hard to distinguish between the good and the bad.