I have been thinking about this for a long time and one of the main reasons I got rid of my Instagram and other social media is because I didn't like the person I was becoming, didn't like the influx of jealousy and hopelessness it brought. Thank you for articulating this!, I think this is deeply relevant to everyone living in today's world
Santhwana, it's courageous to take such a significant step towards preserving your well-being and integrity. If you don't mind sharing, may I ask what changes have you noticed in your life or mindset since you've stepped back from social media? It’s always inspiring to hear how others navigate these challenges.
What I've noticed is that I've become more patient with the people in my life. I think social media perpetuates the expectation of being connected 24/7 and knowing everything about everyone and having access to people. I've learned to not expect things from people, to listen when I'm being spoken to, to have conversations (rather than a passive like or emoji reaction to a text message). I've learned to be quiet in my mind and in my life, I no longer feel like I have to "catch up", both in the sense of reaching a perceived ideal of life and in the sense of having unmitigated access to another person's life. Basically, I've learned to mind my own business and not take people so seriously all the time but also to take people seriously rather than dismissing them with a like or scrolling.
Well put, I closed my social media accounts 4 years ago this May. And I couldn't have said it better myself. I take the time to interact individually with family and friends now. Via texts and phone calls, and catching up in real life over coffee. And I really enjoy it.
Maybe this is naive, but sometimes I can’t believe how *mean* the internet can make people. I read the comments section sometimes on FB or IG posts and I truly can’t believe the way people speak to each other. I see it a lot in mothering/parenting spaces but I’m sure it’s everywhere. I’m not talking about voicing differing opinions or challenging someone— I’m talking about this digital vehemence that bubbles up behind the protection of a pixelated avatar and a seductive screen. Unwarranted dehumanization, cruel absence of nuance, the lack of empathy, and then people get praised for their funny/mean comments in the form of a like and it fuels the continuation of it. It all makes me really sad and disheartened.
My daughter is a new mother and has told me about how awful some of the mom groups are and how some topics can't be brought up - like how to handle sleep - because of how ugly it gets. I was shocked to learn there are sleep groups that require photos of your baby's sleep space to make sure you're doing it "right" before they let you in. I'm so grateful I didn't have all that judgment and contempt coming at me when I was a young mother needing support.
I am a grandma now. I remember when I had my first and how judgmental people were to my FACE. I swore I would never do that. I hope that I haven’t. But now the anonymity is so easy to give unwanted advice and criticism it becomes too easy to hurt people. Even when people read it out loud to themselves they can’t see why it is offensive to the other. In their minds it is just true. The other person should see the truth (my truth) and learn. He cried too long, you should let them cry themselves to sleep, you should always pick up a crying baby. These people who give “advice” seem to have lost something important. Hmmm what could that be? Compassion, empathy, listening skills, or just People Skills?
You know what’s wierd is my 16yo daughter’s friends are so syrupy sweet in comments so that it sounds fake! They post a selfie or a pic with friends, and everyone is competing to tell you in the most creative way how great you look, using words or just emojis. It seems so fake and insincere to me, but I think it is also their way of interacting while eliminating the possibility of being interpreted as anything less than positive. But it “gives” creepy to me…some of the girls that post those kinds of comments are not necessarily her friends, so are they being sycophantic? Sarcastic? Or maybe friendly? I don’t know! I hate that she’s on Instagram, but I let her do it for Sand Volleyball networking (it’s how they find partners to play with). But I hate when she tells me she wants to be an influencer. She’s so much more valuable to this world than that!!
Feel this too, the phony sweetness is creepy. It’s the adults who are mean-mean! I would hate that too; I might not know her but she is certainly more valuable than that. Tough times to navigate with a teen.
Berlin, I'm sorry to hear that. It's truly disheartening to see the harshness that can emerge in online interactions, especially in spaces that should foster support like parenting forums. The anonymity of the internet does sometimes encourage a kind of boldness in negativity that most would not display in face-to-face conversations. Do not take their words to heart.
Well put, the "boldness in negativity" is not unlike the way people are emboldened to be rude and angry with each other while driving. I don't typically engage on social media for that reason (except here on substack!) so I haven't really gotten tangled up in any vitriolic exchanges - just a sad observation I've made as a third party.
Indeed it is, a really sad observation. I guess it's human nature to be sad, mean or violent especially on social media when they are aware their identities are hidden. Thanks for sharing your perspective with us, Berlin!
“For many of us, the source of our insecurity isn’t low self-esteem, but self-preoccupation. What we need isn’t to think more highly of ourselves, but to think of ourselves less.”
This article is not about self-forgetfulness but faith in Jesus. Faith in Jesus has helped some people, no doubt. People that can truly surrender and belief. But they are extremly rare. Looking back over the past 2000 years, faith-based religions have contriuted to a moral code that is an improvement to the brutality of the cultures before that, it appears. However, the world and almost everyone living in it, is still sturggling and suffering to a great degree. I think the Eastern based spiritual systems based on personal introspective work and awareness offer more hope. Of course, that's just my personal perspective and experience. Each to their own.
Yeah, as a Jew this also struck me as a little weird. The Jewish philosophy is that we were put here on this earth with a divine duty to repair the world — that’s what tikkun olam is. We see ourselves less as individuals with the ability to live our lives in the way we choose, but as moral actors with personal agency for the outcome of our actions. We are also taught to practice humility so that we avoid thinking of ourselves as personal Jesuses, which is why worship as a means of “salvation” is a baffling concept to me.
Total digression from discussion of this article, but I like how you articulated that. I left my fundamentalist Christian upbringing and finally explored Eastern thought traditions, and I also find them more helpful and pragmatic for my spiritual understanding and betterment. My family all prays for me though. I think they worry that I don’t “follow Jesus” anymore. But my morality is still the same. I just feel more motivated and more hopeful with a sense of agency from personal introspection, as you say, rather than submission to the will of a diety. But all this language gets in the way :-( Don’t we all just want to love and be loved?
Don't we all just love and be loved? Exactly. This is the very foundation of any spiritual pursuit. It can be pursuited out in the world or within ourselves. To love our true selves is essential. But often we don't know it and confuse it with our egoic conditioning. Anyway, as you said, all semantics. Good luck and let them pray for you. Never harms. Just don't let them manipulate you. Only we know what we really need. All the best and lots of love.
This by philosopher John Gray expressed (for me anyway) the essence of what has been lost: "“Instead of the daily encounters that enable communities to sustain a common life, random collections of solitary people are protected from each other.... Rather than connecting in troublesome relationships, they are turning to cyber-companions for frictionless friendship and virtual sex. The contingencies of living in a material world are being swapped for an algorithmic dreamtime. The end-point is self-enclosure in the Matrix – a loss of the definitively human experience of living as a fleshly, mortal creature..... the defiant smile in the face of cruel absurdity, the glance that began a love that changed us forever, a tune it seemed would always be with us, tears in the rain.” https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/take-me-to-your-experts
Right on point! I was already worried when selfies became so popular that it was a sign of our society’s growing self-obsession. It’s gotten so much worse than I could imagine. Also, all that virtue signaling 🤢!!
Loved this passage:
“Now you can be showered with praise for that heartfelt tweet you typed about your mum on Mother’s Day when you didn’t bother to call her or write her a card. You can be applauded by strangers for that Instagram post about how much you love the daughter you don’t spend any time with and never really listen to.”
Oh, yeah. I’ve noticed that the “Be Kind” set is one of the worst. I guess it’s (un)social(ized) media that tells them to put that stupid sign in their yard to let everyone know how wonderful they are while being horrible to everyone online.
This is fantastic. This is the kind of actual honesty we're more ready for than we know. It's so fascinating and tragic to me that I now can't go a week without hearing someone comment on how everything just FEELS wrong these days, these past few years. So often whoever has said this can't quite articulate why...they just know something feels off. I'm convinced that this is mostly attributable to what Freya's getting at here. Everyone has become worse but we mostly either pretend that we're unchanged or - perhaps more commonly - that we're doing better than "before." If Freya is right - that most of us KNOW this and we walk around with this knowledge yet won't address it - then wouldn't all that denial add up to something? A constant sense of unease, the general collapse of all kinds of faith?
I think this is where the conversation needs to be now. We're almost post-data. The data is obvious and alarming. This is much bigger than that. Humanity. This is a conversation I'm desperate to have and to hear. I have valued all your pieces, Freya, but this one was different. You cut right to it. I'll be printing this one and sharing it with my students. Thank you.
Freya is like a biblical prophet. Jonah going to Nineveh to save the people from their own wickedness.
But it’s so refreshing to have a modern prophet that’s not merely religious per se, but plainly just rational and pragmatic. One can still agree on a morality without religion, right? Can we have islands of moral clarity as a culture without having to alienate anyone based on faith?
Are there any arguments against the wisdom Freya just spoke here?
The argument I have is I don't think social media is the root of the problem. It's just the latest manifestation of capitalism. The problem started with the industrial revolution and producer capitalism in the 1700s:destruction of all our levels of organization between our psychological parts and large companies and states.
So fighting social media is like the person who lost their keys in the parking lot and is looking for them in another place where there is a bright light, because it's easier.
Excellent piece Freya! Just as social media algorithms trigger chain reactions of anger and outrage, they ramp up self-focus, stripping us of the very core that makes us human: to care, empathize, and love others. In Johann Hari's book Stolen Focus, Tristan Harris comments that algorithms are "debasing the soil of society...You need...a social fabric, and if you debase it, you don't know what you are going to wake up to."
Finding true human connection will only happen in the Real, and that means turning away from social media and turning towards each other.
The idea that we should get rid of anyone feeling shame for anything is counterproductive. We evolved the emotion of shame for a reason, to keep you from doing maladaptive things that are likely to get you exiled from the tribe to die alone in the wilderness. All the emotional responses we have, we have because they helped our ancestors to reproduce (or at least didn’t stop them from reproducing) — so shame, hate, anger, jealousy, etc. exist for reasons (letting you know when you’re behaving badly, when you need to fight back, motivating you to get better, etc.). The progressive idea that everything should be about love and acceptance of everyone and everything (except the outgroup of course, whether that be conservatives, whites, Zionists, capitalists or whatever) is a trap. Like any emotion, “negative” emotions can be put to good use or bad use, but trying to suppress them is a recipe for disaster. We need to let those emotions work in the way they were intended to, and shaming people for engaging in maladaptive behaviors is a big one.
Many years ago, I quit all of them, FB, IG, even LinkedIn, cold turkey, completely, and have never gone back. I never actually "missed" any of them in any way, other than it took a few days to lose the habit of mindlessly pulling out my phone to "scroll", but once you unlearn that habit, the reality of all social media, is that it's just a valueless time vampire.
Perhaps this is easier for me to say, because I'm old enough to have lived before any of it existed, so leaving all of it was therefor made less significant to me? Hard to say, but what is easy for me to say is "Social Media sucks, it's garbage, and it's a waste of your valuable time; And that is before we get to everything so brilliantly detailed in this article"
Seriously- turn that shit OFF! You'll recapture so much more of your time and energy, to use on things that actually matter, and can be productive.
My daughter (13) has started asking for SM "because all my friends have it."
I said we'll talk about it when she is 16.
I'm hoping that over the next three years the world will wake up to the fact that SM is a new form of paediatric cancer, and by the time she is 16, she won't want it anymore.
People talk about the positive side of social media - but we know that the rise in youth suicide has mirrored the rise in SM. In what civilised society could a bunch of miserable and dead youth possibly be a reasonable price to pay for any positives that come from these platforms?
I don't believe in banning SM (people should have the right to start an app) - change has to come from us parents. I'm sure most of us are concerned about it. I'm bloody terrified.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts so eloquently, if rather sadly. I wonder how much of the problem is due to our loss of faith? We have dropped the boring old rituals, but without the transcendent ideal, we are by default the centre of our own reality. We just assumed the old religion didn’t matter any more, that we had grown out of it, so we could be our own free authentic selves. Even if this is just a theory that goes nowhere, how do we engender gratitude to those who came before us and appreciation of our neighbour as bearing the imago dei rather than their social media profile? Any suggestions?
Thought provoking comment. I left my religion and worry that I have done a disservice to my children for this reason. And yes those rituals were boring! Mostly they were just too long and intellectual. Maybe if there was more movement and also more beauty…
I kind of wish there was a nature based faith practice in America, like the Native Americans had. I read about it in “Braiding Sweetgrass”. Where humans aren’t the focus at all, but rather one with nature. Giving and receiving in a sacred balance. I like nature as God because it’s less abstract than the Christian God I was raised on, and more connected to the senses and observable phenomena. Not to mention physical survival imperatives. Maybe in place of needing a perfect father to aspire to and fall short of, why not just worship “that from which we all emerged and shall return to”? Like a more beautiful and spiritual version of climate activism. Let’s start it.
Or maybe create a social media platform that somehow incentivizes acts of generosity and kindness and somehow doesn’t cause you to lose track of your time or sleep.
It's hard to reinvent or recycle the good bits of the old religion, and create a new framework that works across a broad swathe of society. I think we were shaped subconsciosuly by cultural Christianity and are now too far from the source for this to have enough traction. Maybe though now is the time to re-evaluate things. The fusty bits of Christianity are probably necessary at one level, but if we leave that to the professionals, there is a deep wellspring for the taking in nature, art, music, mystery, and just sharing a culture that brings people together - age, class, race, language, and time itself.
Fascinating questions raised in the chat, and profound questions about what social media does to our humanity. Thank you Freya and the people who took time to share their thoughts. Placing us - humans, created things of any sort— at the center of the universe is what causes the decay of humanity. We are not meant to worship ourselves the way we do on social media. Our souls are meant for much more. I truly think that when people remove the “afterlife” from their worldview, regardless of religious worldview or not, you have the empty vacuum of no accountability. Our desires become the golden calf, and we worship false idols. We make ourselves into idols, maybe.
I find it hysterical when people congratulate their spouses with anniversaries on Facebook. I triggers a fit of laughter in me. Like you can’t hug them and say honey, thanks for sticking by me all these years. Same with moms on Mother’s Day. The world doesn’t need to know that you appreciate them. We all do! Give them a bouquet, have a private dinner and hug them to death. No audience needed. I post some things out of vanity and maybe someone is laughing at them too. Great article! Truly enjoyed reading it!
I love reading great articles like this. It's nice to see someone is influential as you writing about important topics like this. At least I know I'm not the only one writing about this type of stuff all the time. 🤷♂️ Excellent work!
I feel like there isn't space for the nuance of being human on social media, and it's increasingly seeping into "real life". Like everyone's holding themselves up to the idealised "brand" version of their identity they portray online, falling short, and diving into further introspection and self-absorption to meet an impossible standard. There's no room for grace, acceptance, disagreement or originality.
Matt Damon recently said, " The moment you get fame, you get retarded". I think this is precisely what's happening in a mass scale for a generation of people through social media. Insta, facebook, even twitter makes us trip over and over ourselves. It's vanity on steroids.
The biggest casualty in all of this is: Love and authenticity--Love is self-giving, self-forgetting. Today its all about my life, my virtues, my causes, my rights.
I’m only on social media for business purposes. I wish I didn’t have to be. And I feel the same way when I’m told I need to take more photos, share more video of my family, to get more likes. It’s toxic. And it’s hard to get away from it because it’s everywhere.
I have been thinking about this for a long time and one of the main reasons I got rid of my Instagram and other social media is because I didn't like the person I was becoming, didn't like the influx of jealousy and hopelessness it brought. Thank you for articulating this!, I think this is deeply relevant to everyone living in today's world
Santhwana, it's courageous to take such a significant step towards preserving your well-being and integrity. If you don't mind sharing, may I ask what changes have you noticed in your life or mindset since you've stepped back from social media? It’s always inspiring to hear how others navigate these challenges.
What I've noticed is that I've become more patient with the people in my life. I think social media perpetuates the expectation of being connected 24/7 and knowing everything about everyone and having access to people. I've learned to not expect things from people, to listen when I'm being spoken to, to have conversations (rather than a passive like or emoji reaction to a text message). I've learned to be quiet in my mind and in my life, I no longer feel like I have to "catch up", both in the sense of reaching a perceived ideal of life and in the sense of having unmitigated access to another person's life. Basically, I've learned to mind my own business and not take people so seriously all the time but also to take people seriously rather than dismissing them with a like or scrolling.
Well put, I closed my social media accounts 4 years ago this May. And I couldn't have said it better myself. I take the time to interact individually with family and friends now. Via texts and phone calls, and catching up in real life over coffee. And I really enjoy it.
Well said Santhwana, thank you for sharing.
Maybe this is naive, but sometimes I can’t believe how *mean* the internet can make people. I read the comments section sometimes on FB or IG posts and I truly can’t believe the way people speak to each other. I see it a lot in mothering/parenting spaces but I’m sure it’s everywhere. I’m not talking about voicing differing opinions or challenging someone— I’m talking about this digital vehemence that bubbles up behind the protection of a pixelated avatar and a seductive screen. Unwarranted dehumanization, cruel absence of nuance, the lack of empathy, and then people get praised for their funny/mean comments in the form of a like and it fuels the continuation of it. It all makes me really sad and disheartened.
My daughter is a new mother and has told me about how awful some of the mom groups are and how some topics can't be brought up - like how to handle sleep - because of how ugly it gets. I was shocked to learn there are sleep groups that require photos of your baby's sleep space to make sure you're doing it "right" before they let you in. I'm so grateful I didn't have all that judgment and contempt coming at me when I was a young mother needing support.
I am a grandma now. I remember when I had my first and how judgmental people were to my FACE. I swore I would never do that. I hope that I haven’t. But now the anonymity is so easy to give unwanted advice and criticism it becomes too easy to hurt people. Even when people read it out loud to themselves they can’t see why it is offensive to the other. In their minds it is just true. The other person should see the truth (my truth) and learn. He cried too long, you should let them cry themselves to sleep, you should always pick up a crying baby. These people who give “advice” seem to have lost something important. Hmmm what could that be? Compassion, empathy, listening skills, or just People Skills?
“…this digital vehemence that bubbles up behind the protection of a pixelated avatar…”
So true. The meanness. Who wants to grow accustomed to masked meanness??
You know what’s wierd is my 16yo daughter’s friends are so syrupy sweet in comments so that it sounds fake! They post a selfie or a pic with friends, and everyone is competing to tell you in the most creative way how great you look, using words or just emojis. It seems so fake and insincere to me, but I think it is also their way of interacting while eliminating the possibility of being interpreted as anything less than positive. But it “gives” creepy to me…some of the girls that post those kinds of comments are not necessarily her friends, so are they being sycophantic? Sarcastic? Or maybe friendly? I don’t know! I hate that she’s on Instagram, but I let her do it for Sand Volleyball networking (it’s how they find partners to play with). But I hate when she tells me she wants to be an influencer. She’s so much more valuable to this world than that!!
Feel this too, the phony sweetness is creepy. It’s the adults who are mean-mean! I would hate that too; I might not know her but she is certainly more valuable than that. Tough times to navigate with a teen.
Berlin, I'm sorry to hear that. It's truly disheartening to see the harshness that can emerge in online interactions, especially in spaces that should foster support like parenting forums. The anonymity of the internet does sometimes encourage a kind of boldness in negativity that most would not display in face-to-face conversations. Do not take their words to heart.
Well put, the "boldness in negativity" is not unlike the way people are emboldened to be rude and angry with each other while driving. I don't typically engage on social media for that reason (except here on substack!) so I haven't really gotten tangled up in any vitriolic exchanges - just a sad observation I've made as a third party.
Indeed it is, a really sad observation. I guess it's human nature to be sad, mean or violent especially on social media when they are aware their identities are hidden. Thanks for sharing your perspective with us, Berlin!
“For many of us, the source of our insecurity isn’t low self-esteem, but self-preoccupation. What we need isn’t to think more highly of ourselves, but to think of ourselves less.”
A short article on the freedom of self—forgetfulness: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/women-insecurity-and-the-self-help-gospel/
Love that
This article is not about self-forgetfulness but faith in Jesus. Faith in Jesus has helped some people, no doubt. People that can truly surrender and belief. But they are extremly rare. Looking back over the past 2000 years, faith-based religions have contriuted to a moral code that is an improvement to the brutality of the cultures before that, it appears. However, the world and almost everyone living in it, is still sturggling and suffering to a great degree. I think the Eastern based spiritual systems based on personal introspective work and awareness offer more hope. Of course, that's just my personal perspective and experience. Each to their own.
Yeah, as a Jew this also struck me as a little weird. The Jewish philosophy is that we were put here on this earth with a divine duty to repair the world — that’s what tikkun olam is. We see ourselves less as individuals with the ability to live our lives in the way we choose, but as moral actors with personal agency for the outcome of our actions. We are also taught to practice humility so that we avoid thinking of ourselves as personal Jesuses, which is why worship as a means of “salvation” is a baffling concept to me.
Total digression from discussion of this article, but I like how you articulated that. I left my fundamentalist Christian upbringing and finally explored Eastern thought traditions, and I also find them more helpful and pragmatic for my spiritual understanding and betterment. My family all prays for me though. I think they worry that I don’t “follow Jesus” anymore. But my morality is still the same. I just feel more motivated and more hopeful with a sense of agency from personal introspection, as you say, rather than submission to the will of a diety. But all this language gets in the way :-( Don’t we all just want to love and be loved?
Don't we all just love and be loved? Exactly. This is the very foundation of any spiritual pursuit. It can be pursuited out in the world or within ourselves. To love our true selves is essential. But often we don't know it and confuse it with our egoic conditioning. Anyway, as you said, all semantics. Good luck and let them pray for you. Never harms. Just don't let them manipulate you. Only we know what we really need. All the best and lots of love.
This by philosopher John Gray expressed (for me anyway) the essence of what has been lost: "“Instead of the daily encounters that enable communities to sustain a common life, random collections of solitary people are protected from each other.... Rather than connecting in troublesome relationships, they are turning to cyber-companions for frictionless friendship and virtual sex. The contingencies of living in a material world are being swapped for an algorithmic dreamtime. The end-point is self-enclosure in the Matrix – a loss of the definitively human experience of living as a fleshly, mortal creature..... the defiant smile in the face of cruel absurdity, the glance that began a love that changed us forever, a tune it seemed would always be with us, tears in the rain.” https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/take-me-to-your-experts
Right on point! I was already worried when selfies became so popular that it was a sign of our society’s growing self-obsession. It’s gotten so much worse than I could imagine. Also, all that virtue signaling 🤢!!
Loved this passage:
“Now you can be showered with praise for that heartfelt tweet you typed about your mum on Mother’s Day when you didn’t bother to call her or write her a card. You can be applauded by strangers for that Instagram post about how much you love the daughter you don’t spend any time with and never really listen to.”
‼️
My personal favorite is when absent fathers get tattoos of the names of their human kittens that they haven't made any effort to see in years.
😹😻
Oh, yeah. I’ve noticed that the “Be Kind” set is one of the worst. I guess it’s (un)social(ized) media that tells them to put that stupid sign in their yard to let everyone know how wonderful they are while being horrible to everyone online.
This is fantastic. This is the kind of actual honesty we're more ready for than we know. It's so fascinating and tragic to me that I now can't go a week without hearing someone comment on how everything just FEELS wrong these days, these past few years. So often whoever has said this can't quite articulate why...they just know something feels off. I'm convinced that this is mostly attributable to what Freya's getting at here. Everyone has become worse but we mostly either pretend that we're unchanged or - perhaps more commonly - that we're doing better than "before." If Freya is right - that most of us KNOW this and we walk around with this knowledge yet won't address it - then wouldn't all that denial add up to something? A constant sense of unease, the general collapse of all kinds of faith?
I think this is where the conversation needs to be now. We're almost post-data. The data is obvious and alarming. This is much bigger than that. Humanity. This is a conversation I'm desperate to have and to hear. I have valued all your pieces, Freya, but this one was different. You cut right to it. I'll be printing this one and sharing it with my students. Thank you.
Freya is like a biblical prophet. Jonah going to Nineveh to save the people from their own wickedness.
But it’s so refreshing to have a modern prophet that’s not merely religious per se, but plainly just rational and pragmatic. One can still agree on a morality without religion, right? Can we have islands of moral clarity as a culture without having to alienate anyone based on faith?
Are there any arguments against the wisdom Freya just spoke here?
I can’t think of any.
The argument I have is I don't think social media is the root of the problem. It's just the latest manifestation of capitalism. The problem started with the industrial revolution and producer capitalism in the 1700s:destruction of all our levels of organization between our psychological parts and large companies and states.
So fighting social media is like the person who lost their keys in the parking lot and is looking for them in another place where there is a bright light, because it's easier.
Excellent piece Freya! Just as social media algorithms trigger chain reactions of anger and outrage, they ramp up self-focus, stripping us of the very core that makes us human: to care, empathize, and love others. In Johann Hari's book Stolen Focus, Tristan Harris comments that algorithms are "debasing the soil of society...You need...a social fabric, and if you debase it, you don't know what you are going to wake up to."
Finding true human connection will only happen in the Real, and that means turning away from social media and turning towards each other.
The idea that we should get rid of anyone feeling shame for anything is counterproductive. We evolved the emotion of shame for a reason, to keep you from doing maladaptive things that are likely to get you exiled from the tribe to die alone in the wilderness. All the emotional responses we have, we have because they helped our ancestors to reproduce (or at least didn’t stop them from reproducing) — so shame, hate, anger, jealousy, etc. exist for reasons (letting you know when you’re behaving badly, when you need to fight back, motivating you to get better, etc.). The progressive idea that everything should be about love and acceptance of everyone and everything (except the outgroup of course, whether that be conservatives, whites, Zionists, capitalists or whatever) is a trap. Like any emotion, “negative” emotions can be put to good use or bad use, but trying to suppress them is a recipe for disaster. We need to let those emotions work in the way they were intended to, and shaming people for engaging in maladaptive behaviors is a big one.
This is a very important and insightful piece!
Many years ago, I quit all of them, FB, IG, even LinkedIn, cold turkey, completely, and have never gone back. I never actually "missed" any of them in any way, other than it took a few days to lose the habit of mindlessly pulling out my phone to "scroll", but once you unlearn that habit, the reality of all social media, is that it's just a valueless time vampire.
Perhaps this is easier for me to say, because I'm old enough to have lived before any of it existed, so leaving all of it was therefor made less significant to me? Hard to say, but what is easy for me to say is "Social Media sucks, it's garbage, and it's a waste of your valuable time; And that is before we get to everything so brilliantly detailed in this article"
Seriously- turn that shit OFF! You'll recapture so much more of your time and energy, to use on things that actually matter, and can be productive.
FREEDOM!!
Might sound silly but — If I look at IG before bed, I have nightmares.
It's an agonising to time to be a parent.
My daughter (13) has started asking for SM "because all my friends have it."
I said we'll talk about it when she is 16.
I'm hoping that over the next three years the world will wake up to the fact that SM is a new form of paediatric cancer, and by the time she is 16, she won't want it anymore.
People talk about the positive side of social media - but we know that the rise in youth suicide has mirrored the rise in SM. In what civilised society could a bunch of miserable and dead youth possibly be a reasonable price to pay for any positives that come from these platforms?
I don't believe in banning SM (people should have the right to start an app) - change has to come from us parents. I'm sure most of us are concerned about it. I'm bloody terrified.
As a young parent, I’m terrified of social media
But i think banning is helpful because at a society level, we can’t rely on individual ownership only
There is a reason hard drugs are banned
Friction reduces product usage - it’s a well established fact in the tech world
Thank you for sharing these thoughts so eloquently, if rather sadly. I wonder how much of the problem is due to our loss of faith? We have dropped the boring old rituals, but without the transcendent ideal, we are by default the centre of our own reality. We just assumed the old religion didn’t matter any more, that we had grown out of it, so we could be our own free authentic selves. Even if this is just a theory that goes nowhere, how do we engender gratitude to those who came before us and appreciation of our neighbour as bearing the imago dei rather than their social media profile? Any suggestions?
Thought provoking comment. I left my religion and worry that I have done a disservice to my children for this reason. And yes those rituals were boring! Mostly they were just too long and intellectual. Maybe if there was more movement and also more beauty…
I kind of wish there was a nature based faith practice in America, like the Native Americans had. I read about it in “Braiding Sweetgrass”. Where humans aren’t the focus at all, but rather one with nature. Giving and receiving in a sacred balance. I like nature as God because it’s less abstract than the Christian God I was raised on, and more connected to the senses and observable phenomena. Not to mention physical survival imperatives. Maybe in place of needing a perfect father to aspire to and fall short of, why not just worship “that from which we all emerged and shall return to”? Like a more beautiful and spiritual version of climate activism. Let’s start it.
Or maybe create a social media platform that somehow incentivizes acts of generosity and kindness and somehow doesn’t cause you to lose track of your time or sleep.
It's hard to reinvent or recycle the good bits of the old religion, and create a new framework that works across a broad swathe of society. I think we were shaped subconsciosuly by cultural Christianity and are now too far from the source for this to have enough traction. Maybe though now is the time to re-evaluate things. The fusty bits of Christianity are probably necessary at one level, but if we leave that to the professionals, there is a deep wellspring for the taking in nature, art, music, mystery, and just sharing a culture that brings people together - age, class, race, language, and time itself.
Fascinating questions raised in the chat, and profound questions about what social media does to our humanity. Thank you Freya and the people who took time to share their thoughts. Placing us - humans, created things of any sort— at the center of the universe is what causes the decay of humanity. We are not meant to worship ourselves the way we do on social media. Our souls are meant for much more. I truly think that when people remove the “afterlife” from their worldview, regardless of religious worldview or not, you have the empty vacuum of no accountability. Our desires become the golden calf, and we worship false idols. We make ourselves into idols, maybe.
I find it hysterical when people congratulate their spouses with anniversaries on Facebook. I triggers a fit of laughter in me. Like you can’t hug them and say honey, thanks for sticking by me all these years. Same with moms on Mother’s Day. The world doesn’t need to know that you appreciate them. We all do! Give them a bouquet, have a private dinner and hug them to death. No audience needed. I post some things out of vanity and maybe someone is laughing at them too. Great article! Truly enjoyed reading it!
One of the great joys of having quit social media is not being bombarded with people’s performative Mother’s Day posts.
I love reading great articles like this. It's nice to see someone is influential as you writing about important topics like this. At least I know I'm not the only one writing about this type of stuff all the time. 🤷♂️ Excellent work!
I feel like there isn't space for the nuance of being human on social media, and it's increasingly seeping into "real life". Like everyone's holding themselves up to the idealised "brand" version of their identity they portray online, falling short, and diving into further introspection and self-absorption to meet an impossible standard. There's no room for grace, acceptance, disagreement or originality.
A deep and thoughtful piece Freya.
Matt Damon recently said, " The moment you get fame, you get retarded". I think this is precisely what's happening in a mass scale for a generation of people through social media. Insta, facebook, even twitter makes us trip over and over ourselves. It's vanity on steroids.
The biggest casualty in all of this is: Love and authenticity--Love is self-giving, self-forgetting. Today its all about my life, my virtues, my causes, my rights.
We've become forever teenagers.
I’m only on social media for business purposes. I wish I didn’t have to be. And I feel the same way when I’m told I need to take more photos, share more video of my family, to get more likes. It’s toxic. And it’s hard to get away from it because it’s everywhere.
You are not alone ...