Toxicity on Social Media

[Music]

this

you’ve just woken up the first thing you

do is

grab your phone and check the time where

you see

you’ve been bombarded with dozens of

notifications the first thing you do is

open whatsapp

you check your family group where you

greeted a very good morning

by a rather creepy image of a smiling

baby

or for instance a motivational quote by

someone

really really famous like this

then you open instagram or facebook and

endlessly scroll through memes wear tick

tocks and

shower love on your friend’s latest post

let’s say think

that if you don’t do it then you’ve

ruined their

life melanie if you’re watching this

let me take the opportunity to say i’m

not sure i wipe with your duck face so

please

stop spamming me i will not like your

post

if this is how your day starts then

congratulations

you’re one of 3.5 billion social media

users across the world

to give you some context that’s half of

the world’s population

or a regular day in a mobile open so the

plumber

who came to fix a kitchen sink has a

facebook account

your teacher who you’re probably making

fun of on instagram

they know what you’re up to and they’re

on their way to ring up your parents

this is a place where you find

heartbroken 12 year olds reciting poetry

about relationships

housewives finding their passion by

posting cooking videos

and angry uncles writing on twitter

after a rather heavy session of drinking

social media has truly made the world a

smaller place to live in

but let’s look at the other side of the

spectrum the

other 3.5 billion people i’m sure we all

know somebody

who isn’t into any form of social media

let’s say his

name is bob if bob was a south asian

teenager he probably doesn’t have an

account because his parents took his

phone away

and are forcing him to prepare for some

sort of entrance examination

for our story however let’s just assume

bob is a grown

adult who simply doesn’t use social

media because

he doesn’t want to now bob will tell us

that the purposes and intentions of this

platform

aren’t what they used to be say a decade

ago he will talk about how when you have

people of different strata of society

present on an equal platform

the consequential engagement is

susceptible to a whole

load of problems the rest of us

are completely annoyed by people like

bob because we know that their argument

is absolutely correct and

yet we lack the discipline to stay away

from it no matter how hard we try

we try doing this for a variety of

reasons one of them being

peace of mind so today

let’s play devil’s advocate and delve

deeper into bob’s arguments

i’ll try my best to sound super smart

and make over-the-top hand gestures to

be taken more seriously

the first aspect which contributes to

the toxicity is our very own anxiety and

insecurities

our instagram facebook and twitter feeds

can be a virtual representation of the

society we live in

and what do we see pictures of friends

having the perfect night out

people we know going someplace super

fancy like switzerland

the south of france perhaps or even the

palm line streets of california

if you’re in your mid mid-20s chances

are you’ve seen pictures of your friends

and relatives

marrying settling down conforming to

social norms

and living happily ever after if you’re

someone older in the audience you can

see

older batch mates and co-workers

boasting about how successful their

children are

weird how they are how they all have a

son working in google on nasa

wait hold up what can i hear the sound

of bitterness

envy and jealousy for many of us

these pictures and overtly exaggerated

statuses and updates

tend to incite a form of social

comparison which in turn

breeds depression and demotivation

we start asking ourselves what have i

done with my life

why wasn’t i invited to this party how

boring is my life

it’s a phenomenon called compare and

despair a source of self-consciousness

which quickly develops into anxiety the

anxiety fuels a need for attention

and pursuit of portraying ourselves in

positive light it then wires our brain

into creating this persona on social

media which we tend to

self-edit to be the perfect version of

ourselves

we stop being who we really are and in

turn

become someone whom we think other

people will like

the most extreme version of this

obsession is

being cautious of our followers likes

comments or even begging other people to

give us the validation that we also

dearly crave

allow me to demonstrate the issue we’re

talking about in terms of sheer numbers

an organization called pushon surveyed

over a thousand people across the uk

to see if there’s a correlation between

social media usage and mental health

57 percentage of the people who

participated in the survey

have been diagnosed with anxiety and 55

percentage with depression

anxiety was especially high for 16 to 19

year olds with 56 percentage of them

having been diagnosed with it and 41

percentage of survivors

felt that social media made them feel

lonely

now i want to talk about myself for a

second i spent these million years of

quarantine

by simply scrolling through my instagram

feed felt miserable about not being

productive enough

and yet ended up finishing the netflix

catalogue and kept playing fortnite in

valden

i was bored out of my mind some may say

an empty mind is a devil’s workshop

but it gave me an epiphany no not the

festival

but something which google calls a

moment of sudden and great revelation or

realization

fancy word and i want to share that with

all of you the epiphany is simply

this some people are way more successful

than you

some of these people may be elder to you

some younger to you

and some the same age as you it may be

because they’re smarter than you or

they’re complete

idiots it may be because they deserve it

or it was pure luck

their privilege but on the other side

you are more successful than a lot of

other people

you may be deserving of the success way

more than other people or maybe you

don’t it was your luck and privilege

there are also people way more

attractive than you but you’re also more

attractive than a lot of other people

due to a plethora of reasons like

genetics or the fact that they care

about how they look way more than you do

or you care about your appearance way

more than other people oh

and some people are richer than you more

knowledgeable

and simply way happier than you and you

are also more

richer knowledgeable and happier than

some other people

look the point of sharing my epiphany

wasn’t to give you

a mixed bag of opinions to ponder upon

rather i want us all to be aware of our

strengths

weaknesses and have a realistic

appraisal of our talents

people have different circumstances so

please stop the comparisons

the minute we stop being so insecure

about ourselves

that’s when real happiness begins social

media however is not just a source of

entertainment or where your friends post

the mirror selfies they take every time

they go out

it has also become a platform for the

voiceless and the poster boy for

transparency and engagement

mark zuckerberg the founder of facebook

and the man pictured here

wearing too much sunscreen once said but

giving people the power to share

we’re making the world more transparent

and he couldn’t be more correct

major socio-political revolutions over

the past decade

the arab spring the pro-democracy

protests in hong kong

belarus and sudan and the metoo movement

can all find their roots to deep

insightful

discussions in social media it has

helped topple powerful people who were

once thought to be untouchable by

bridging the gap between them

and the common man chances are most of

the general knowledge you and i possess

today

comes from some form of social or visual

media but amidst the

many discussions that we have on this

platform every day the odds are

we may not agree with each other on

everything and in an ideal world that

should be perfectly okay

now open twitter i’ll wait

okay i just realized this is a

pre-recorded conversation so i assume

you already have

you will have people disagreeing over

everything from

politics religion caste and

even tv shows oh my god french is the

best show in the world or chandler what

a mood

if you don’t think this is the best show

something is clearly wrong with your

sense of humor

okay karen i get that you love the show

but stop

eating my soul by forcing me to agree

with your opinion

and that ladies and gentlemen is the

most featherweight example

i can give of how you’re forced to agree

to an opinion on social media

and if it’s a more serious discussion

with someone who sleeps in their mom’s

basement

you will be met with unsavory insults if

you’re not on the same page

and get ready for multiple tweets

instagram stories with the same tweets

and attempts to shame you and pull you

down by digging into your past

at this very instant social media has

lost its true intentions of being a

simple platform for engagement

it has become one filled with hate and

ignorance

is there anything inherently wrong about

listening to what the other person has

to say

and having a discussion without getting

all defensive and be open

we don’t need to respect a person’s

opinion yeah but we can certainly learn

to respect another person’s

right to have an opinion right some of

you may not be convinced

but i want to demonstrate this point of

mind with an example

suppose i tell you a friend of mine

broke his hand

now a lot of you in the audience would

be tempted to sympathize and ask me if

he’s doing okay

because me conveying this piece of

information means that everyone

needs to sympathize with him now what if

i forced you to care and sympathize with

him

or what if i attacked you for not caring

too much apart from a simple i hope he’s

doing okay

you not don’t mean harm to anyone but

would you like it if someone orders you

to feel in a way

and they don’t give you the choice now

what if you get to know that my friend

broke his hand

because he punched a stranger you will

feel

that he deserved to get his hand broken

and now what if i told you he punched

the stranger because he tried stealing

the purse of an elderly woman

did i christopher nolan the hell out of

you fun fact i just dropped my

headphones off anyway

what i’m trying to say is that truth is

multi-dimensional and it has different

layers and context to it

things aren’t always black or white some

can be grey too

so why should we force anyone to accept

or agree with our narrative and take on

situations

it’s like how batman says if you kill a

killer the number of killers in the room

remains the same

have we truly achieved the original

purpose of spreading our message

by rubbing it over other people’s faces

by force at the cost of their mental

health and yours

now of course i’m not implying that we

shouldn’t express our opinions on social

media

i’m not even implying that we shouldn’t

stand up for the right causes

but not all our look fingers look the

same so

isn’t it obvious that we might also

think in different ways

over the course of 2019 word see what i

did there

i have used the word social media as

many times as

as you’ve heard a certain karen in her

life tell you how

great of a show friends is i’m only the

millionth ted speaker to talk about the

evils of social media

but again this speech wasn’t an advisory

on how you should deactivate all your

social media accounts

go outside smell the flowers and do goat

yoga

i’m also not attempting to whitewash and

tell that i have never done all of those

things i talked about earlier

i have and chances are you have to

2020 has certainly not been a creator

we’ve seen the worst and lost the people

we love

but at times like these the only thing

which unites us

is the hope that sometime in the future

we’ll raise above the odds and stay sane

in the meat

we deserve a break need to chill out for

a bit and

accept the fact that not everyone’s the

same and

not get too self-absorbed while most of

us can’t stay off social media

the least we could do is tailor a more

positive experience for ourselves

and others while we are on it and the

least i can do

is hope for a world where people accept

themselves and others for the way they

are

in conclusion relax calm down

abs empty and don’t forget to follow me

on instagram

kingfisherpuppy hashtag like for like

follow for follow

thanks for hearing me rant and cheers