social media

"Comparison is the thief of joy" - Franklin D. Roosevelt

On the 07:41, tired fingers repeat downwards movements on tired screens. Change the backdrop to a sterile, white lab and you feel part of a nineties sci-fi movie. The robotic routine repeats.

Swipe, swipe, swipe, tap tap, swipe, tap tap, swipe... 

As the train heads towards a world of screens, retinas dart momentarily away in search of a break, before being fixated back to a conveyor belt of images that appear below. To the untrained mind, the photos that rush by show no more than a display saturated with unoriginal aesthetics: bikinis, bars, beaches, boyfriends, blurrrr... the scrolling hits top gear. 

The picture I'm presenting is not one that would be sent onto the conveyor belt itself. Whilst it sounds like a dystopian mirage constructed in Charlie Brooker's imagination, this is a reality that lies much closer to home than 90% of what appears on our screens. 

Yet our brains don't agree. Whilst our exteriors represent a glassy haze, our minds are going twelve rounds. Every photo represents an opportunity for our self-esteem to compare and contrast, collating evidence by which to cripple itself. We put ourselves up against selected, filtered, edited supermodels in the most corrupt game of Top Trumps the world has ever seen. 

At the average scrolling rate of a 16-30 year old, we're losing thirty bouts a minute. But we never get out of the ring. Even when we do win, the judges in our mind tamper the scores and lift the arm of our virtual counter-parts. Our self-confidence is taking a beating but we continue to throw it straight back into the ring. 

In a 2017 survey conducted by the NHS, British teenagers and young adults voted that Instagram was the worst social media platform for their mental health. Over the last 25 years, rates of depression and anxiety have risen by 70%. The result? 91% of 16-24 year olds regularly use social media. We're experiencing a generational addiction, and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is becoming a mental nicotine. 

This modern epidemic is even coming to the attention of the busiest minds on Earth. In his recent appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, it took Elon Musk nineteen minutes (of a two hour thirty-seven minute interview) to bring up social media as one of his principal concerns for our present and future. He elaborated: 

"People (on Instagram) basically seem way better looking than they really are and way happier than they really are. So, if you look at all of these people on Instagram you might think 'man, there are all of these happy and beautiful people, and, I'm not that good looking and not that happy, so I must suck' and that's going to make people sad."

It is a simplified scenario, but one posed by one of the most intelligent humans on Planet Earth. Musk has a more educated idea about the future of humanity than 99.99% of us, so his preoccupation around social media rings louder bells than others.

"Some of the happiest people on Instagram are some of the saddest in real life".

Another 21st-century proverb, courtesy of the South African, that we ignore.

My most active period on social media came during my year abroad two years ago. During that year, I posted 77 times on Instagram, with photos depicting Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and, more importantly, a relentlessly beaming version of myself. The following year, my final at university, I posted 19 times. It was a 75% decrease in social media activity, but a far greater increase in real-life happiness.

I enjoyed my time away but it's not always easy; I've even written about it, here. In times of solitude, Instagram became a pond to fish for familiar interaction, there's no denying it. Posting a cool new picture caused the names to pop up for a millisecond-long buzz. It was a thrill, yet, just like other hurtful addictions, it was a short-term fix for a long-term issue.

We are, seemingly, powerless to the black hole of social media. It was only in 1964, thanks to Luther L. Terry, that humanity realised that smoking was bad for them. 54 years later and it is still killing six million people a year worldwide. Humans are often arrogant towards long-risk - we've all met the person who has claimed to part-take in a dangerous habit for a long-period of time and survived to tell the story - and social media is no different.

Unlike smoking, social media can be used in a non-damaging way. Its core principles are to share and connect with people. That still runs true, but we humans are fixated on eclipsing the original purpose of something to push it to its limits. Then we break and the world disconnects further into recession than it ever was originally.

To fight this, Instagram have introduced a new 'well-being' team to help with users' mental health. Its a positive start in the boardroom, but an inevitably futile effort to take-on the dominant species of brand deals, money and Kylie Jenner. One Google search for recent news from the well-being team showed no significant coverage since April, and confirmed my initial fear: it's as superficial as the content its challenging.

Whilst this social tumour mutates, the scrolling continues. Screens get bigger, phones get more accessible and users get younger. If modern culture continues, kids will be lucky to reach five years of age before they're comparing themselves to other kids. 

When Roosevelt warned humanity of comparison's evil over a century ago, the thief in question was ill-possessed. In 2018, he has all the weapons in the world.

Swipe, swipe, swipe, tap tap, swipe, tap tap, swipe...