Mental Health and Social Media

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wow

four years ago i went to see my cousin

for lunch at her workspace and

she works as a social worker in a mental

asylum and she

warned me before i turned up not to be

afraid

not to be scared not to be shocked and

once i

arrived i said are you joking

i’m fascinated by this place so the next

day i went

to meet the director

of the facility and

i explained her my intention which was

the best one

and i’ll tell you later about what it

was and

she gave me full pass to arrive every

day and

just wander around the corridors

playrooms

and film and that was the time that i

actually learned the most about

perception and what perception is and

that was the time when i stopped using

social media and got cut off from my

life from my social life from my

professional life um and

was actually somehow i was very sad to

leave at the end

i think for my sanity at the time i

was really ironic that i was spending

time with people

that are perceived as insane

one afternoon after lunch we went back

to the bedrooms and

i sat down a group of girls and started

interviewing them

and i was asking them how old would they

were and

one of them was 20 and another one was

and and i said well you’re just a one

year difference and they couldn’t

couldn’t understand what i was saying so

i asked them what

is 21 minus 1

and one of them said 20 and the other

one looked at her and said

no you’re stupid it’s too

in that moment i i was shocked

they were both right and i could not say

what they

they were both right because i could see

what both of them

see and their perception was com just

different and it’s the same way that if

let’s say you were sitting in a cafe

and you saw

two women with a baby walking past you

would think maybe

it’s the mother with a baby and

and with her own mother but maybe it’s

the nanny

and and her younger sister the

possibilities are endless so

to be right you can never be categorical

about anything and we live within 10

different realities and we have to

sometimes stay in a neutral zone and

and understand that there are 10

different realities then 10 different

things that the 10 different people will

be

thinking and there are different

perceptions so

i think all of us can relate to that not

just the two girls in a mental asylum

and um people

were asking me after they saw the film

they they asked me how did you

manage to stay in such a

horrific environment and i must say that

i haven’t laughed as much

as i did there

i think the irony of life is funny and

we should all laugh at that

and uh the examples that they saw there

i think we all

have them in our own lives so after my

month finished

i went back to london the big great city

that everybody thinks that if you live

there

all your dreams will be achieved i

sometimes think it’s a propaganda that’s

it’s a soul to us to think that if you

want to achieve anything in life you

have to be

in to live in the capital city and at

the end all i

see every time i depend and out i just

return

i see my friends being so exhausted and

running running in a rat race and not

even knowing what they’re racing for

it’s a world where social validation

social currency

drives your success

and social media plays a huge part of

that

and um

the contrast was so huge

and i knew that i came back

a changed person and i started thinking

more and more

what social what what are the social

media impacts on our health

especially mental health it has altered

the way that we communicate with each

other it has altered the way that we

date it has killed the romance in many

ways

i just feel like our brains have been

programmed

to bend down and scroll the same screen

over and over again

waiting for that one hit of dopamine

that

gives us validation

and it’s a huge huge addiction

it’s something that we don’t think about

when we think of addiction people

usually think about

alcohol smoking drugs

but we don’t realize that we’re all

addicts whether it’s shopping

sex sugar food social media

love chaos stress

lateness these are all addictions

and we give a device to a young child

and i think it was all very fun at the

beginning

um but it all started off but we know

now and we should be better because

it belongs to us it should belong to us

and i think it’s something that should

be

regulated and people should be educated

about

when we didn’t know smoking was bad you

would get cigarettes prescribed

um now we know it’s bad

so we

betrayed those addictions

before social media it was hollywood

movies that were informing our

opinions about the society gender roles

and um even racism if you look at movies

from the 80s

there’s so many misogynist racist jokes

that

back then they could get away with it

not today thank god

um but and the same future will have to

happen in social media the the content

that we receive every single day

is making us think less and it’s not

moving us forward

that’s why we also need filmmakers and

content creators to be socially

conscious

and be extremely cautious

in what content they’re delivering to

the public

and how that what impact that content

has on our societies is shaping us as a

better society

when i made a movie about transgender

community in mexico city

i thought i was going to interview drug

addicts and prostitutes

but the people that i met were actually

architects entrepreneurs

models influencers there were people

that worked during the day

and people that were no matter the odds

and the difficulties and challenges they

faced every single day they

were actually getting out of bed and

going for the fight

for their dreams and i realized that the

sensationalist

storytelling is not if i were to go out

there and make a film about that the

prostitutes and

and drug addicts i would not be helping

their community and i would not be

helping the society to see them

as people so i’ve showed the great

example

of the difference and i’ve been that

moment i’ve realized

how documentary is so powerful as a tool

to change the world and change our

perceptions

because don’t forget that hollywood has

had a long-distance relationship for the

longest time with

washington and cia and

a lot of films go past through there

and now most of the content and and

stories and

news that we actually see comes through

social media not the tv

or the movies people don’t even have the

enough attention to sit

throughout the movie so

the content that you see is also heavily

influenced

by people that want to control us

um covet has happened and the world has

changed forever it will never be the

same

i think we have already enough

documentaries about serial killers

i think we already have enough

telenovelas

i think we already have enough um stupid

talk shows that have incredible speakers

on

as their guests but they rather ask

about their dating life which is

non-existent because they’re simply too

busy

uh instead of their knowledge and

their knowledge their intelligence and

their their point of view that might be

rich enriching to the public instead of

trying to get some gossip to be honest

human nature has not changed because

if that was happening today i’m sure

that a lot of people would be curious to

see something like that

i think it’s completely inevitable that

eventually we will have

regulations and posts on social media

um as i said

was fun at the beginning but now we know

and

and and we need to protect our

kids uh it’s an extremely addictive

practice and we are we’re so foolish

that

you know even if even if you would say

parents should start regulating that’s

absolutely true because don’t expect

that

from politicians anytime soon so it

should start within your own household

the problem is that most of the parents

are hooked on their phones themselves

so but if as a parent if you see that

it’s having an impact on you and your

mental health and your relationships on

your

moods and your self-confidence

think what it will do to your children

no one is safe at this point the only

call you should

answer is the wake up call and

i would suggest try to leave your phone

next door when you go to sleep

because the first few minutes when you

wake up

spend with yourself will be way more

beneficial than

the lost time on

instagram that will probably turn into

20 minutes

and at the end of it you you haven’t

really gained anything

we’re all on a quest for happiness and

i’ll tell you that

one thing that social media won’t

give you that it will give you a quick

fix but then you will come down crashing

wanting for more and it’s just it’s not

going to be there

it’s not there it’s never been there

um i may sound really negative there’s

so many wonderful things about social

media it has changed our

lives for better for the way that we

connect with

with people you might be on a holiday

and then you you run into an old friend

after so many years just by knowing that

you’re in the same place

while you would have never known so it

has created

so many beautiful things in our lives

but anything good too much

ends up being bad and i think at this

point

it became a social norm for people to be

constantly on their phones

not we don’t even look into each other’s

eyes when we meet we don’t we don’t even

smile

if you if you if you ask someone for

directions on the street

because the app sometimes still fail you

it’s technology

um you may not even look into

that person’s eyes do we do we connect

to

people that are serving us food in a

restaurant not that much

we don’t look into each other’s eyes

anymore

we don’t smile at each other anymore

we’re just like robots

and and i and i and social media is

completely unnatural to

us humans it’s it’s almost like a

alien force that is now interacting

in in the way that we interact with each

other

and it’s a natural exactly i just think

it’s a natural to

humans and and the way that um

you know it’s just a natural to humans

social media is

having a huge huge huge impact on our

mental health

and mostly a very negative one

so i would please please please

i would ask everyone have a day in a

week where

you just don’t look at it don’t

give yourself the power back into your

hands

try to have a real conversation that is

not on whatsapp

um you’ll be much happier