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CAUTION: INGREDIENTS ARE KNOWN TO BE POISONOUS AND MAY RESULT IN SEVERE PSYCHOSIS, MENTAL BREAKDOWNS AND IRRATIONAL BEHAVIOR.
Something I never thought was going to be an issue, not in a few hundred years at least. Yet here we are, at the precipice of the beginning of the fall.
One might wonder how we got here, how things... devolved so quickly. Let's rewind the clock.
March 21st, 2006. San Francisco, California...
Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass embarked on the journey towards a new invention in the realm of social media. Something that would revolutionize the way we communicate, across the globe. This endeavor known as... Twitter.
Within 2 years, the world would see for the first time exactly how powerful this new platform would be. Lending a hand in landing the election of (now former) President Barack Obama. Who had outclassed his rival John McCain with 4x the amount of Myspace followers and nearly 20x the Twitter followers. Twitter had already become a giant to be reckoned with.
In September of 2013, Twitter went public and has grown to one of the top used media sites around the globe. With influence in nearly every area, politics, gaming, movies, TV, commercialism, activism, and so forth. As of today, Twitter has some 330 million active users acrossed the planet.
Yet, that's not the whole story. Let's take a look in another direction. Let's rewind the clocks again.
October 6th, 2010 San Francisco, California
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger had invented their own new form of social media platform. Initially used as a photo sharing service, Instagram started it's humble beginnings.
To date, 50.8% of Instagram users identify as female. The other 49.2% identify as male. Instagram quickly became a safe place for people to make their lives seem more happy, go lucky, than they actually were.
Often inspiring young women and men into dangerous diets, acts and ideologies. This quickly became a rampant issue as people began to suffer from social media depression. Not being able to live up to those idealized lives they had put out for the world to see. Often times life was much more mundane behind the cameras, sometimes... dark.
You may be wondering what Twitter and Instagram have to do with any of the original topic. We're getting there, I promise. Though I will ask that you stick with me just a bit longer. It'll become clear, soon enough.
Let's rewind the clocks one last time.
January 1st, 2013, earth.
Between 2009 and 2012, 7.6% of Americans (age 12 and over) had suffered from depression.
3% of Americans (age 12 and over) had experienced severe depression
By 2013, 8.1% of Americans had experienced depression. A .5% increase within a year.
As an added note: women were twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression in comparison to men at this time. Couldn't have any correlation with the rise of social media usage, could it? Between 2013 and 2016, these stats remained largely the same with a notable slight spike in depression in women.
Let's keep going.
By 2018, 11 million Americans had suffered from at least 1 major depressive episode with severe impairment (4.5% of the US population)
That's 1.5% in the span of 5 years. Do you see what I'm getting at yet? We haven't even dug into the recent pandemic yet and the numbers, they get worse... much, much worse.
In a twist of irony, depression rates had largely stayed the same between 2008-2012. But something happened in 2013 that caused a shift.
Could it be, that the answer has always been right in front of us?
"Have you been feeling more depressed lately? As it turns out, your social media habits may be to blame. Not only is it harmful to our mental health, but it's also harmful to our physical health. All of the sitting around we do while we're on the computer and our phones can lead to serious health problems later on in life. Experts have called sitting "the new smoking."
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) warns parents against their children using social media. Between the cruelty of online bullies and the inadequacy kids feel when comparing themselves to their peers, social media can do a number on their psyches. However, social media isn't so great for adults either. "Social media depression" is a real thing that affects many people, young and old." - BetterHelp
"By some estimates, roughly 4 billion1 people across the world use networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, prompting mental health experts to investigate if the enormous popularity of social media plays a role in depression.
Research suggests that people who limit their time on social media tend to be happier than those who don’t. Studies also indicate that social media may trigger an array of negative emotions in users that contribute to or worsen their depression symptoms." - VeryWellMinded
With this newly found general consensus that social media usage can and does impact mental health and can even lead to depression, what does this all have to do with the Great Filter?
As I'm sure you know, there's a toxic side to all of this. People who use social media solely for the purpose to incite rage, anger, hatred and even... violence.
These kinds of people have become the voices that are most frequently listened to, because they're the loudest. You could think of it like a giant hive mind.
And if you look at it from a psychological perspective, there's really only one conclusion. The end. Maybe not now, maybe not in the next 5 years, but at some point down the line if our news agencies, government officials and public figures don't stop listening to the ever changing demands of these vocal few... perhaps I'm going over your head.
Let's make this more personal.
I want you to stop and think for a moment, have you ever felt depressed? Do you know what it's like to sit there, listening to the same thoughts of hopelessness and worthlessness? On repeat, just over and over again.
Could you imagine how you'd feel if your own brain was constantly reminding you of exactly how worthless you really are? Every time you wake up, every time you go to sleep, every time you think about doing something, every time you eat, every single regret, every moment wasted, and it all just compounds faster and faster and spins out of control into this never ending cycle of self defeat. How would you feel? How long would it take before you started to think about suicide?
Now I want you to take that perspective, place it on how we've treated these issues. The people who matter, who are in charge, listening to these damning voices, constantly shifting blame and shame and only demanding violence and retribution.
And if you can understand what I'm trying to show you, what does it look like? Where do you think this honestly goes?
Because I know...
I see nothing but crows.
This only stops if we consciously make it stop. Be kind to each other, love one another as you would yourself, as you would your children. Be compassionate and caring and have a genuine concern because this threat is equally if not even more genuine.
If we cannot come to some middle grounds of existence, if this divide keeps pushing us all further apart, then how could we ever possibly even fathom breaking through this Great Filter? The answer is that we can't, there's only one way through and it's either going to be the vast majority of us who make it, or no one will. I love you all, please take care of yourselves and each other.
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Maybe depression became a popular diagnosis and treatment in 2013 as well. I visited my doctor that year and for the first time, she suggested depression after only speaking with me for a few moments. All I was doing was sharing my concerns with her. I was going through a lot. Was I sad? Sure. But depressed? No. I knew the sadness would go away. It is, after all, just an emotion.
I enjoyed reading this though. The biggest surprise was at the end. Are you familiar with Jerry Springer? He said "take care of yourselves and each other" at the end of every show. It was always such a surprise after people threw chairs and screamed and cried and devastated each other on his show.
ReplyYes, lol! I'm very familiar with Springer. Although I honestly hadn't thought about that show in a very long time. My sentiment is sincere.
Has depression become a "popular" diagnosis? No. Depression isn't particularly difficult to diagnose, although if you encountered anyone, professional or otherwise, who would state you had it based on a few moments of interaction... I wouldn't trust them. If we were to turn back the clocks to that date, I would've suggested you get a second opinion.
While depression itself is a main point, I would like to take the time to just clarify. The type of depression I'm talking about doesn't have to do with just one person.
It's these individuals who scream the loudest, who get the most attention and if you pay attention to their actions, they strongly mirror the some kind of issues someone with depression would have.
Ranging from rage, regret, guilt, supremacy often mixed with extremely low sense of self. The ways these people act mirror the same kinds of thoughts a depressed person might have and giving those perspectives all that attention isn't going to do anyone any good.
That was the overall point.
I'm glad you enjoyed the read and thank you for your comment.
Reply