When I see my Therapist I sit in a waiting room with say 10-15 other people. Nearly all of them are playing on their smart phones, except for me. I believe excess use of those electronic devices-including computers-promotes anxiety. We were not meant to be an element in an electric circuit, but to interact with other human beings and watch/hear them. Ok, I'm an older guy so I was raised without all those electronic tools-that's part of it. And I have to use my smart phone and laptop on the job, obviously. But, I truly believe when you can you need to put those devices down and INTERACT with other human beings! I think that would help a lot of folks Anxiety. My Therapist agrees. Thoughts???
Do you want the long response or prefer it in a meme format?
I think my biggest issue with it is not how frequently it is used. These days it is pretty much everything in one place. No different to getting everything all at once at a supermarket. They also grow up with it and don't know different. This thread is pretty close to, 'In my day.' lol.
My issue with it is it creates walled gardens and a false sense of actions being taken. When much of it is an empty echo chamber where little moves in the real world. With various algorithms that intentionally show you what you want to see and obscure beyond it. This entrenches those echo chambers, fosters deeper tribalism to an extreme degree. That now results in most discussion ending up at snowflakes and nazis. Or people blowing themselves up in homemade rockets to prove the earth is flat. Or killing themselves with the latest 'internet challenge.' For youtube likes... On some level stupidity has become a new kind of celebrity. It bothers me a person who eats stupid things makes more money than nurses.
It also allows sadism to run amok, unchecked by anything to the point school bullying has taken on a whole new dimension of awfulness. Amanda Todd is a prime example of that.
Social media was meant to connect people but for the most part, it connects people with their masks and the distorted pictures they paint of perfect lives to be painfully envious of.
The worst aspect which you already touched on is losing out on learning social skills. A lot of media has stunted direct interaction. Or made it easier to not take the risks involved in being uncomfortable, or being laughed at or rejected in public. Easier to hide behind a facade and talk about the blueberry muffin you ate. If you are not developing these skills you are pretty much condemning yourself to painful loneliness and awkwardness when forced into social situations. That then just reinforce how you can’t handle social situations and why you should avoid them even more. Living a half life that is just satisfactory enough to keep you inside, but painful enough it is a chronic ache of emptiness, that is prodded painfully by looking at the joyful experiences of others on social media. Even if those joyful lives are masks of their own.
The internet also feeds anxiety because of how media distorts reality to manipulate you for ad revenue, and fear sells better than positive stories and hope. Just look at what is happening with Coronavirus. Instead, force-feeding you a terrifying world of countless rapists in the bushes and other bogeymen. I am really not surprised that anxiety is so high. Especially when news itself has fully infiltrated social media, then is shared relentlessly, and conjecture based on nothing becomes a reality all of a sudden. It also is ongoing 24/7, information overload.
Facebook has also engaged in some very unethical practices. Playing with users mood. Social media also has wider ramifications when it comes to politics. As you have parties essentially buying people to spread messages. You have corporations doing the same. Often under the veneer of being genuine people.
What scares me most of all is looking at my young niece staring into the glowing screen of a tablet and having no idea what this is doing to a developing brain? I watched her watch these toy opening videos. Its all she was doing. Endless toy opening videos! All I see is people being groomed to be even more of a mindless instinctual consumer. Who needs mind control when you already have child brand imprinting and opinion being sculpted by giant think tanks. Who have weaponised Goebbels levels of psychology.
That nowhere in education are you taught to critically assess. As most of education at a critical point of development is rote memory. Maybe it gets better higher up, but I have never got there to know.
In a lot of cases, you succumb to the psychological warfare and in some ways lose authentic choice as it has been hijacked by other agendas. That is my issue with it.
