Garth Rattray | The paradoxical desocialisation by social media – Part 2

I am a huge fan of the WhatsApp social media platform. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I get hundreds of messages daily. WhatsApp was especially helpful in maintaining stability, connectivity, and the sharing of important information during the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ability to make voice and video calls brings people in our lives close to us – virtually.

But social media has a way of revealing the predilection for addictive behaviour, anxiety, depression, body dysmorphism, reclusive tendencies, stoicism, voyeurism, malevolence, antisocial behaviour, and even cruelty within some of us. Because of the plasticity and vulnerability of young minds, some countries are planning to implement age restrictions for social media sites.

Australia will lead the way on December 10, when social media platforms will be required to prevent teenagers under 16 from having accounts. There will be penalties for noncompliance. New Zealand and Malaysia are making similar plans. Denmark announced an agreement to ban social media for children under 15. Spain and Japan are mulling over age-based restrictions on the use of social media platforms for their citizens.

Although we know that there are very tangible pitfalls to most teenagers using social media in an unregulated way, the Pew Research Center [2022 and 2023] surveys discovered mixed impressions about social media among US teens and adults. The majority of respondents reported neutral or positive experiences but noted concerns about mental health, data privacy, and misinformation.

SCREEN TIME

Although social media allows young people to connect with friends, keep up with the news, and enjoy a wide variety of entertainment, as it turns out, young teens habitually engage in too much screen time. Social media extends the range and impact of harassment and bullying (called ‘cyberbullying’). Unrealistic images are often posted and end up causing some children to feel inferior and dislike their own bodies so much that they experience body dysmorphism. Such things can lead to anxiety, depression and even suicidal ideations.

Because everything can be manipulated on the internet, and since, at one time or the other, we have all fallen victim to misinformation and/or disinformation, people are tired of being duped and have compensated for their gullibility by becoming sceptical about many things. Some have been hoodwinked because they trusted deep fake postings. When we can no longer believe or trust our ears and eyes, our world takes on sad and scary characteristics.

Social media produces several paradoxes, it can desocialise us and, although social media connects us, it tends to isolate us. Because of social media we unlearn some of our social norms. It is common to see couples or groups sitting together with their heads buried in their individual cellular phones. Couples fall asleep back-to-back as they immerse themselves into their cellular phones. People might dine at the same table, but their thoughts and minds are a cyber world away from their physical surroundings. Humans are gregarious, immersing ourselves in social media is unnatural behaviour, we are unlearning the social norms of human interaction … the norms that made our specie succeed and dominate.

Desocialisation is often followed by resocialisation. People therefore tend to adopt the new norms, values and attitudes that are consistent with the cyber age. An example of this is instant gratification. We see this burgeoning behaviour everywhere throughout our society. Road users often exhibit a total lack of patience, the patience that their fellow road users must adhere to if they don’t intend to break the law. People are always in a hurry. Nobody wants to wait on anything or anybody. Their minds have become accustomed to accomplishing tasks with a click of a mouse or the tap of a button or a touch of a screen.

DECLINED

Social media platforms promised to make geographical gaps a thing of the past, create global communities, and empower the marginalised. However, as social media evolved, community spirit declined. People seemed to prefer interacting, clothed in a protected cyber suit that portrays them as whatever avatar they choose. The inhibitions learned and practised in the real world are often abandoned and some become purveyors of crassness and crudeness, further isolating them from their physical society.

The surrealness inherent in interacting through social media encourages more and more outrageous and shocking posts. Many people with a phone camera imagine themselves as journalists rushing to record macabre events and broadcast them before anyone else can. The act depersonalises not only the hapless subject, but it also depersonalises the observer. In the long run, we are transforming into a desensitised society lacking empathy and replacing genuine human emotions with Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) images and emoticons.

Valuable human interactions are being replaced by online shares, likes, comments, and follows. Compared to face-to-face interactions, digital conversations are as cold as cyberspace, often lack depth, and nuance, and shrink the kind of complex human experiences needed to fully stimulate us and develop healthy minds to brief, simplistic, soundbites, and images.

Some people weaponise social media and remain hidden behind layers of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to spew hate, divisiveness, and even sometimes encourage violence. These [mentally and emotionally] diminutive people would not be so bold in the real world, but their cyber cloak imbues them with a false sense of bravado.

Before it’s too late, we need to reclaim social media as a tool, instead as an escape route into an alternate universe. We must prioritise real-life interactions and relationships.

Garth Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice, and author of ‘The Long and Short of Thick and Thin’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com