Shohini Banerjee

The perils of social media – how your usage of twitter, Instagram and snapchat is leading to increased depression and loneliness!

Just kidding – this is not a research paper. 

Yes, this is another article about the negatives of social media. No, it will probably not be something new that you haven’t heard or read. Maybe, it’ll still be interesting?

I believe I am an empathetic person. I also believe I have, what my friends call, an addictive personality. As in I get addicted to things very quickly. I’m like the dog from ‘Up’ who while talking about something gets distracted – that’s my relationship to social media or new things in general. 

Except instead of something cute like a squirrel, I often go down the rabbit hole that is the depressing news of the internet. I’ll jump from an article about rape to how the country is demonising Muslims to how our planet is actually on its path to extinction. It’s not just me though – we are all in this together. Scrolling through twitter, facebook, other forms of social media or just news articles in general; there are so much depressing things out there. But the stories that really get to me are the individual ones and I am quickly able to be in the person’s shoes. I get to the stage where I can almost feel the person’s fear, shame, terror, guilt or whatever. Because ultimately, they are all human emotions that every single one of us has felt and it is easy to think ‘what if it was me’. That’s why adding a face to issues always makes it more powerful. 

Reading the news really gets me to an existential rut though. It starts with the story of a person who has been brutally raped and murdered. Thinking about what that person’s family might be going through. The depression gives way to anger about how our society and politicians are not doing enough to tackle these issues.

This gives way to more depression thinking about how I’ve also been complicit in not changing the world.

I realise that the snowballing of negative feelings is growing so I quickly find something that can distract me. Which ends up somehow making me feel worse. Then I start researching how I can make a difference. This leads to decision and action paralysis then depression and then acceptance that the world is going to shit. 

Pretty bleak right? 

I’m sure you also do the same. Go down the same rabbit holes and feel the same frustrations. Addictive personality or not. It’s just the immediacy of social media. The information that we are exposed to all the time. I remember reading a quote somewhere – “I want to grab your attention and hold it for a second”. That’s literally what I feel our world has become. Twitter, snapchat, Instagram and scrolling. It’s just information that calls your attention for a second, and that’s it.

Of course, I see the benefits of having so much information and about being well-informed. To be able to be passionate and care about the environment and politics and gender equality and sexual harassment and the Kardashians. The world of information is at our fingertips and we can curate it however we like. It is easy to be consumers of snippets of information and pass on those snippets to others. To know the gist of the problem and have a quick solution. The immediacy and proximity to the problem due to the global connection of the internet and the need to do something since there’s another news calling for your attention. I get it. But the more time I spend on social media, specifically twitter, the more heightened anxiety and depression I have about the world. While it may be an accurate representation, if it is leading to paralysis or distraction, there’s no point in that. 

So, I spent some time figuring out what role I can play in this whole system. How I am contributing to the problem of bite-sized information and quick solutions.