social mediation

Perhaps you've heard of the research detailing how Facebook can cause depression.

Now, I'm not trying to be tech-alarmist here.  Any form of social interaction can result in depression.  Facebook just enables us to have thousands of minor interactions per day at a faster rate than was ever feasibly possible before.  I don't just mean active interactions -- I'm including just glancing at someone's status update.

The gist of the research is that people with low self-esteem, when forced to constantly compare themselves to others, suffer undue levels of social stress.  This stress, unchecked, can eventually develop into anxiety and depression.  This occurs primarily because people tend to share more of the good things in their lives on Facebook and other social networking platforms, so users are generally bombarded with how great their friends' and acquaintances lives are (seem to be).  Whereas users are all too aware of the problems in their own lives, even in spite of the cheerful facades they maintain on social media, and wind up assuming everybody else is doing better than they are.

That isn't a problem for people like me, who have high self-esteem, and know that how great we are is a fact for the record, irrespective of what's going on in ours and others' lives.  We just post all the good stuff about our lives, deal with the bad stuff quietly, and make everyone else miserable thereby!

But there is a flip side to this dastardly equation.  All those happy people you see out there?  They're all suffering somehow.  Everybody on your friends list, at some point, feels as if their lives are spinning out of control.  Everyone is looking for a way to keep it together for one more day.

Remember that, the next time you talk to somebody who seems to be doing great.  We're all under a tremendous amount of stress.  We all carry in our hearts a bevy of regrets, shames, anxieties, and creeping uncertainties.  Most of us, I hope, have found our own ways to cope with these, but they're still present.  Remember that, and let it be the source of a little more kindness in your day.