Why Social Media is Ruining Your Sense of Suffering
As someone with multiple chronic health conditions, I am certainly no stranger to the phrase “it could be worse”. In fact, I’m sure anyone with a chronic condition, physical or mental, is no stranger to it.
As patronising and superfluous as this phrase is, any significance once intended is now lost in a narcissistic world of “nothing is worse than this”.
“It could be worse; you could have cancer… It could be worse; you could be terminal… It could be worse; you could have gotten no likes on your profile picture at all…”
Algorithmically dependent gratification is a serious problem and social media is being leveraged every day in the hopes of attaining it. The sensitivity of the online community (4.57 billion as of July 2020 according to Statista) is climbing faster than influencers climb the trivial social ladder. Of course, we are all consumed by our own bubbles to some degree, but when your bubble expands to so many other people, whether you intend it to or not, it’s bound to burst.
I have no doubt that social media causes undue mental health issues, especially in teenagers. What I do doubt, however, is that the majority of its consumers have ever actually faced genuine suffering. When so publicly confronted with a lack of instant gratification or worse yet, profound rejection online, life becomes unbearable. Except it’s not unbearable, not truly at least. It is rather one of many virtual algorithmic encounters that appears more real than reality itself. Throw in neurological chemicals and the opinions of billions of other addicts and you have a recipe for disaster. And profit.
Humans are attention seekers by nature. We love to indulge ourselves and love it even more when others indulge in us. People place immense importance on fake likes, fake connections and fake news online nowadays. When things don’t go to plan, it is quite “literally the end of the world” for them. Their world crumbles before them into a desolate pit of emptiness to the point where they are calling it trauma. That’s right, social media, a place where everything is phony and irrelevant in the real world, now has complete emotional control over billions of lives.
Isn’t that sad?
As a type one diabetic since the age of 4, I understand the reality of living with something that completely dictates your life. I understand the reality of waking up alone in the middle of the night with low blood sugar and thinking that you’re going to die. I understand the reality of missing an injection and ending up on a drip. But here’s the difference between my life as a diabetic and my life online: my life as a diabetic is real.
If something were to happen to me, it could have genuine, devastating consequences on my life and those around me. Getting a dislike on a social post is, at worst, a little irritating. Getting your foot cut off for uncontrolled blood sugars is, probably, marginally worse.
We have created a simulated environment that people believe revolves around them. They think that people care about a photo of a quinoa salad that they had for brunch. When the response is negative or negligible, it’s so much worse. If something so trivial causes that much distress, surely there’s a problem in its design?
We are so quick to complain about how pivotal our personal suffering is to mankind, but far slower to relativise it. My type one diabetes is fairly well controlled; there are others, with conditions and circumstances considerably worse than mine, who are far stronger than I will ever be. They are able to understand true pain and suffering and apply it to everyday life as a way of staying grounded. As much as I would like to say I think about that every time I have a bad day, I don’t. I wouldn’t be human if I did. But I can try, because chances are, if you do think about it, it really could be worse.
