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If Mental Health is the Wound, Social Media is the Salt

If Mental Health is the Wound, Social Media is the Salt

One silver lining of social media is that it's showing self-aware people what it means to be addicted and in an abusive relationship. We're all addicted to our devices, and the majority of time we spend on them, they're hurting us.

Yes, there's cute videos of puppies, and uplifting stories, and nice quotes/captions from handsome bearded rappers, but that's a thin slice compared to a giant pie of trash that impacts our focus, self-worth, priorities, and self-pity. But still we return, addicted to those rare, unexpected moments of wonderful; just like having an abusive partner.

I'm hoping this encourages a level of compassion towards people who are caught in these abusive situations, and struggle with addiction of any variety. Social media has shown us that none of us are immune to this, so we shouldn't judge others who are in these challenging spots.

Social media impacts our mood, our body image, our faith in people, our victim mentality, our quality of sleep, and it reduces our thinking towards complex ideas as black/white. Social media increases our anxieties about everything, and makes us feel like every problem in the world is OUR problem. It encourages us to be around people who think/believe/vote/live just like us, and does little to have us go beyond our comfort zones to evolve.

I'm not lost on the apparent contradiction of critiquing social media ON social media, but where else would this message go? We can pretend we're bigger than the impact of these platforms by carefully choosing who we follow, or we can all just be honest and admit we're addicted to this trash, and the dopamine drops the phone gives us, and admit that we have to rely on more than discipline and will power to distance ourselves from it. The less time we spend on social media, the better we'll feel, even if it means you'll see my work less.

I started a text service, where we can be connected without anyone having to dive into social media.
You can text me at 917-636-4159
Everyone else sign up at HUMBLETHEPOET.COM/MORNINGS and my msgs will go to your inbox
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