Social media illusions
If you follow those who only complain about negativities around them but offer no solutions, it becomes easy to believe that the world is no longer a place that can be lived.
Yes, we do encounter many incidents that make life unbearable. We know that every era comes with its unique and seemingly unsolvable problems, just as we experience today.
But if we want a healthy view of the world, we must stay away from those accounts on social media that work like demoralizing machines, constantly complaining but not lifting a finger to solve anything. When our only news source becomes the individual and institutional accounts that we have selected, then after a while our perception is shaped according to what we see. In other words, what they say becomes “our world and our perception.” In these circumstances it is a must to eliminate those who share bad news without questioning the source and those accounts that depress your soul with every sentence.
This elimination has to be done to keep your sanity in a world where children are massacred on their way out of a concert.
In daily life, everybody is aware of men who constantly objectify women as “sexual beings.” They are on the streets, at the restaurant you go to; they are present while exercising and walking on the pavement.
You can come across them everywhere. Some of them look crazy and some of them look more “refined.” It is sometimes the culture they have been raised in, sometimes the neighborhood pressure, sometimes personal reasons cause this objectification.
No matter what their background is, their repressed sentiments come to surface in a similar way. The harassment women are subject to on streets finds its place also in social media.
In this media, women are subject to a similar “virtual harassment.” The thought mechanism of these types of men functions similarly. For instance, if a man’s following list is only made up of girls who show their bodies, it means he has the illusion that all women on earth use social media to show their bodies. When he sees any photograph or any woman, he thinks it is his right to write shameless messages. Because he only sees on his own timeline that women who want to receive “likes” over their bodies, he regards all women in this context.
We know that these men do not make up the whole society, but these kinds of harassers one comes across on social media may cause wrong perceptions about men.
To be angry at such men, to worry and to reply to them are also one of the biggest delusions of social media. The best option is to make complaints to the relevant social media platform and block.
The codes of relationships have changed together with social media. Even though it looks as if all life is being lived on social media platforms, it is possible to live a “parallel life” with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles and be able to hide who you really are.
It is easy to reach pornographic content, almost with one message. Easy access and the means to hide your identity are like a “locked and dark drawer” of social media.
A health organization in the U.K. has found that Instagram was the most harmful mobile application in terms of mental health. With its feature of triggering loneliness and anxiety, it causes young users to have distorted and wrong perceptions.
When they see modified photographs and “refined” realities, kids compare themselves with what they see in photographs.
According to USA Today, a survey conducted in 2015 found that spending more than two hours on social media can lead to psychological problems and even the tendency to self-harm.