Reclaiming mental health is more important now than ever.
Photo by Kon Karampelas via UnsplashAfter college, I took a writing class with a local author who lived off the grid. I thought it was unusual behavior in 1998, even for an artist. I was working full time as a teacher, taking grad school classes in the summer, and struggling to figure out how my writing would get the time and attention that it needed with all this going on. I asked her advice on how to do it.
“Listen to me very closely,” she said, leaning in. “When you get home today, grab a brick and throw it into your television.” She was dead serious.
She firmly believed that we had a much greater supply of creativity, positivity, and time by destroying the main distraction that pulled us away from our creative pursuits and our happiness.
I didn’t break my TV when I got home. It took me 20 years after that conversation to launch a writing career. Now, the brick needs to hit something else.
There is a reason I hate reality television. Only one of two things happens when we watch it. Either we feel horrible about our own lives or we watch other people’s lives to come to the realization that the train wreck we think we’re living is just merely a train delay.
Whichever one happens, neither feels good. This is the exact same experience I have on social media. I would say that the vast majority of us feel this.
Last night, I watched The Social Dilemma, a Netflix documentary with countless interviews from people who have become conscientious defectors from the apps they spent much of their career building. It’s terrifying but for an hour and a half, the world made sense to me.
Right now, the world is falling apart at every seam and everyone seems to have a thought about it. They’re not necessarily interesting or intelligent thoughts but people shamelessly sign their name to them regardless.
Do I sound judgmental and angry? It’s because I’m judgmental and angry. I’m coming to realize that’s not necessarily my fault. and I’m not alone in it. I’m judgmental and angry and it’s by design. And now I’ve moved from angry to livid.
The premise of The Social Dilemma is to show us how we are being manipulated by social media as a result of its intrinsic design. People who have designed major functions of the app explain how they work and psychologists explain what happens to our brains as a result.
Our mental health has been monetized in a destructive manner in order to fill the pockets of advertisers and it’s dismantling humanity. And we signed up for it willingly.
It sounds dramatic. I know. But, it’s neverending and the longer we stay involved in it, the worse it gets. The decrease in the quality of my life over the last ten years, as a result of social media, is staggering.
Before social media, I generally had no idea what my friends’ political beliefs were. Now, I find myself resenting people I used to adore because they’re not on the same page I am. I am part of the divisiveness.
Bail et al. at Duke University found that our exposure to an onslaught of political statements and images, whether we agree with them or not, actually increases our foothold on our beliefs. We don’t become open-minded. We become more polarized.
I am more inclined to spend money on things I don't need because I am routinely bombarded with ads for stuff I glanced at for 5.3 seconds online. I am less able to separate a want from a need.
A few years ago, Cooper Smith at Business Insider explained why this happens. Facebook and Amazon interact with each other to allow cookies from one site to promote goods on another, all using metadata, to show me the same rug 2,483 times.
And it works. I can’t stop thinking about that damn rug and practically have to freeze my credit card in a large ice cube to not buy it. Of course, Google stores my card information, making it really easy to get the rug frozen card or not. This technology is wearing me down.
People who display perfectly curated lives online when I know their marriage/jobs/children are falling apart, in reality, give me trust issues and have made me a bitter skeptic. I believe nothing I see.
At the same time, I believe everything I see. I have been fed a distorted reality of what happens in the world based on the millions of pieces of data apps have collected on me over the last decade.
This is intentional and we’ve lost the ability to separate truth from fiction. A study by MIT found that a fake news story will spread six times faster than one with actual truth. How do we filter out misinformation?
Beyond FOMO, I have recognized anger and depression over actually missing out when I see pictures of outings I was not invited on. It has made me question the strength and value of relationships.
Nothing good comes from this. Sure, I have learned about far off places through pictures I normally wouldn’t see. I have been inspired by the work of others and been able to share my work with a larger audience. Because of the existence of Facebook, an article I wrote this summer reached 75k readers.
Still, we stand to be better people without the endless parade of stimuli that clutters our minds. It’s time to reclaim our own thoughts. The digital age has run its course and it’s run itself right off the track.
Immediately after the credits rolled on the documentary, I deactivated my Facebook account. Today was the first day I didn’t wake up and check it before I’d even had coffee. I turned every single notification off on my phone. There is no reason to look at my phone before bed or first thing when I wake up. Anything there can wait until I’m ready for it.
This is the first stage in a digital clean-up. Basically, reprogramming my brain has to happen. I need less contention and more contentment. I need less artificial intelligence and more actual intelligence.
I need more joy. I like the idea of choosing joy over anything else. I feel that deep in my being. I need a period or mental repair. I want my time back.