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