How many times have you sat on your phone scrolling through social media looking at someone\u2019s posts and thinking to yourself \u201cwow I wish I was doing that\u201d or \u201cthey look so happy\u201d or \u201cI wish I was out having fun like them instead of sitting in my room by myself on a Saturday night\u201d? If you answered, never, congratulations! You are a superhuman! Unfortunately the sad reality is that for most of us, comparing ourselves to others on social media isn\u2019t even a conscious choice at this point. Our generation has been born into a world where everything is shared and I don\u2019t think we realize the extent to which this affects our emotions. <\/p>\n
Take happiness for example. For starters, what is happiness? Solomon tells us that happiness is not an emotion but instead is a kind of \u201cmeta-emotion, an ongoing summary evaluative judgment about our being in the world\u201d(Solomon, 265). He argues that reflection is a key part to happiness and that it depends on the moments where \u201cone gets a glimpse of our lives as a whole, or at least, of some substantial portion of our lives from the necessarily limited perspective of our current life experience\u201d(Solomon, 266). I agree completely with this claim that happiness isn\u2019t about a feeling but about how we feel about our own lives and our accomplishments. That being said, this is already much, MUCH easier said than done, but what Solomon doesn\u2019t account for is the evolution of technology and how it makes it that much harder to master this skill. In this day and age, everything is posted online, and I mean everything. Let me paint you a picture.You just found out you got a 93 on that accounting test you\u2019ve been grinding your ass for. You feel great. You feel proud of yourself and don\u2019t feel any remorse for missing that big party on Friday because it paid off. You get home, sit on the couch and open your phone to see that one of your classmates posted that they not only got a 96, but they also got that internship they applied for, AND they went to the party on Friday. Immediately, you start to think to yourself \u201cHow?\u201d \u201cThey are so much better than me\u201d, \u201cI missed the party to study and still did worse than them\u201d. Granted you can\u2019t blame these thoughts only on social media because they did come from you. But regardless, being exposed to thousands of people\u2019s successes is not always the best thing for the mind. It can also work in the reverse. Many people compare their social media to other people\u2019s and put others down in their heads which is also not a healthy thing to do. Let it be noted that my claim here is not that social media is the sole cause for mental health issues amongst young adults and teens, but it adds an extra layer of difficulty that our parents and therapists simply don\u2019t understand. As much as they might say they do, the reality is that they don\u2019t because they weren\u2019t born into it and don\u2019t understand how much social organization revolves around the internet. I think the biggest challenge that comes with social media and why it affects our happiness is because it is the biggest supporter of the monsters we call envy and jealousy. Solomon says the following about envy: \u201cThe immediate focus of envy isn\u2019t oneself, who does in fact suffer, but another person or other people, who may not know they are being envied at all, and some specific particular feature, possession, or benefit.\u201d(Solomon 101). It makes sense that social media is the biggest fuel for envy because that\u2019s where people go to show off that exact particular feature, possession, or benefit. Let\u2019s talk about women for example. As hard as it is to admit, we are constantly comparing our physical features to the women we see online, and imagine how hard it is to be constantly seeing all the unrealistically beautiful models and influencers online while dealing with our own body insecurities. How can you not be envious? Again, I\u2019m not blaming social media for creating the feeling of envy because that comes from our own insecurities and our own problems that we need to work through. I\u2019m merely saying that it adds another layer of difficulty in a way that has never been experienced by previous generations. Yes, you might argue that previous generations had magazines and commercials to feel envious about. But think about the extent to which we are on our phones and on social media. I believe that it doesn\u2019t even compare. Let’s talk about jealousy now. I think this one is the most affected emotion by social media because it\u2019s all about ego. Solomon tells us that jealousy differs from envy because jealousy is the fear of loss. But there is one specific aspect of jealousy that Solomon talks about that I think is very relevant here: honor. \u201cIn other words, there is also a fourth party to jealousy, and that is the anonymous \u2018other\u2019 of society, public opinion\u2026It is not just a matter of loss but of humiliation, loss of honor.\u201d (Solomon, 107). The best example I can think of for this is a breakup. Breaking up with someone you love is already one of the most emotionally painful things you can go through on its own. But in this day and age, when you break up with someone you can\u2019t help but think about what other people are going to say about it. Not only are you worrying about yourself, you\u2019re worrying about what people might think when they stalk your instagram and see that you removed all your posts together. Or what they might think if they see your ex posting with someone new a mere few weeks after your breakup. Or worse. The pain you\u2019ll feel when you open your snapchat to see that your ex posted a picture with their new significant other at YOUR special spot. <\/p>\n
So, in conclusion, what solution do I propose moving forwards? None. I don\u2019t have a solution for this dilemma because I\u2019m living it and trying to figure it out for myself, and don\u2019t get me wrong I think social media has tons of benefits and again, we can\u2019t blame it for our emotions and our insecurities. I just think that moving forwards philosophers need to take into account the modern world we live in because it\u2019s very easy to focus on your own life when it’s the only one you\u2019re exposed to. But the reality of our lives is that we\u2019re not exposed to just our own lives. We\u2019re exposed to the lives of our friends, family, acquaintances, and the millions of other people on social media that we don\u2019t even know yet still compare ourselves too. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How many times have you sat on your phone scrolling through social media looking at someone\u2019s posts and thinking to yourself \u201cwow I wish I was doing that\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog1"],"splot_meta":{"author":"Anonymous","license":"","source":"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=i&url=httpsahseeit.comqa53171parents-after-taking-away-their-childs-phone-meme&psig=AOvVaw1JJL6KxAztrQy604gB_EFE&ust=1664216324153000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAwQjRxqFwoTCPCx1aXHsPoCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAH"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallegft.sites.wfu.edu\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}