Do you remember back in the early 2000’s when cell phones were first becoming a thing? It appeared they could become common place. Do you remember the hysteria about them? Back then there were all these warnings and concerns about brain tumors we were going to get from the magnets in them. That’s when early earpieces started – the irony of taking one electronic magnet away in order to replace it with another, am I right? I will say, at least back then we were still in a state of wonder and questioning of the potential dangers that could come from our excessive engagement in these products. We are definitely guilty of being physical beings. At what point I wonder, did they begin to question the involvement of our minds?
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I describe myself as being of the “AIM” generation. Of course, I started briefly with ICQ – my family has been Microsoft since day one. It was quite the revelation then when AOL created the crossover product of AIM, allowing Apple and Microsoft to collide for the first time. The potential connections became endless. I have noticed some long-term impacts I believe to be from this being the primary form of peer communication I had during peek social development years of middle school. Some of these include a severely monotone voice at times, though this could be linked with my autism traits. I also have a tendency towards transparency and trust – I definitely allowed people insight who proved undeserving. As a writer, it has been really problematic to my verbal communication skills outside of intonation. I need to be able to process and proofread. Ultimately, I am proving to be verbal processor. Sometimes this looks like me making a statement out loud and once I hear it I am just like “that’s not what I meant” inside my head. That is not always forgivable in the era of clickbait and “gotcha” moments.
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Back to the original topic at hand – our fear of brain tumors.. Imagine that the only risk we would actually face would be the loss of ability to make and form genuine connections with people we love. And that’s not even the worst of it. While we are selling ourself on this illusion of satisfaction through the vapid dopamine hit of that notification. We are currently actively participating in the destruction of our ability to have a sustained and functional reward system of any kind. Now we are going to hard pivot to background of my philosophical thinking which of course originates in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. I spent my life in contest with the idea of the antichrist and my difficulty accepting this as a human being. Once I had my first child I spent a full year in prayer for the mother of the anti-Christ. While I was experiencing the passion and love of a mother, I could not fathom a God of love that would subject a mother to that level pain. Over time I gravitated towards the idea that the anti-Christ would be more likely to be a concept or broad movement than an individual. While I do not currently profess this faith in any traditional sense, I do believe value can be taken from all ancient texts and translations.
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When we consider what “the anti-Christ” is presented to be – all knowing in order to be all divisive, all seemingly good. How could we not consider this fashion of communication we are observing to potentially be this conceptual and consuming being. I see many valuable uses for social media personally, this is only because I have healed from the serious damage engaging in it brought me. I am disgusted with some of that hate I have willingly participated in, but I also have gotten to the root and forgive myself for it. I was incredibly invested in my followers and keeping everyone posted on the day to day of my world. As a working commuter student and mother, this was very useful in my feeling connected to my life and keeping me on track. Then I fell into the spiral of overconnectedness to situations which did not concern my life. In 2017, I found myself consumed to the point I was physically ill at the political spectrum of the United States, My husband would come to me and ask if I’d seen what our president had done and I would tell him at least five facts to add to it.
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A week before the end of 2017, I had to stop. I went through my social media and unfollowed every single news source. For a period, any time I saw anything that inspired negativity I unfollowed or deleted. After this I began slowly engaging in things I was interested in like fairy gardening and plants. Then I began exploring bohemian chic décor pages. Gradually this spilled over in the work I was doing on myself and I started gravitating to motivational quotes. Now that I have trained to be a counselor and have gone through extensive trauma work, there are a lot of spoofs on that. What I am saying is that Social Media can be used for good and has been so revealing to the many communities who’ve been isolated and in need of finding one another. A conflict has become the individual’s need for their side to be heard and understood by everyone – and that is never going to happen. Until we utilize the internet for the good it can be, we will continue to see it cause problems of both perversion and division.
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We are not made to sit indoors. We are not made to sit. We are not made to stare at screens. We have been uniquely designed to use our bodies to be able to explore the Earth in a rewarding and fulfilling way. We were made to dance and make music. Our artistic expression and abstract thought and ability to conceive outside of the ordinary makes us who we are. I am in a place in time where I have recognized the real damage that participation in these forms of communication have done for myself and for my family’s health and marriage. For example, my husband and I are not very connected currently. It all started when I went off of Facebook and asked that he do it with me. He would not. Months down the road, his male – woman hating friend, suggested he do it and he did. Weeks after that at a get together, my husband proclaimed how grateful he was to his friend for suggesting this. It is all to common for my husband to wince at my ideas until he hears them from male tongue. Now here we are years down the road and I only long for him to be on Facebook. To be seeing our photos and our kids and be engaging with one another. Instead he listens to overtly conservative podcasters – all male. It has caused him to further separate and this is the most discouraging feeling I can describe. My kids – also barely get out, something I am actively working to remedy.
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The way I am seeing it is that algorithms – while well intentioned, have fueled a vast division. While they are valuable in allowing a person to primarily access things they enjoy, they are severely limiting. Currently, algorithms are interfering with diversity of thought of thought due to lack of exposure. This has led to the angry woman hater having what they see be filtered to see more hate spewed about women and the vile things they have been known to participate in. By similar accord you see the Uber liberal is only buried under a pile of victim sobstories of the unhealed and are therefore inundated with legitimate trauma. These continued exposures have seemingly altered our abilities for compassion toward another. The superficial nature of online communication has become so dehumanizing, it can be difficult to continue. It is the nature of the current world that we are unable to get away from past relational trauma due to this as well. For me, I know I have had to remove people from my friend due to the triggers they cause. One has to find the discipline to not participate in the potentially damaging aspects of social media. Unfortunately, the current model is writing the code against our likelihood of moving toward more emotional regulation and impulse control, rather the exact opposite.
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