Mental Health and Social Media
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[Music]
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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