Are we gradually metamorphosing into brainwashed entities probing social networks to find a place where we can belong? Are we now the new breed of social networking junkies too blinded by our addiction that we are unable to see the intangible threads of silk wrapping us into the “web”? How and when did our lives start revolving around who did what, where and when and with whom? And how are we becoming more miserable, by the day, when we focus our lives around other people’s successes, relationships, status feeds and latest photo albums?
Allow me to point you towards the direction of the hidden truth that I’ve been unveiling through my latest research endeavor!
Do you remember the LooneyTunes character: Elmer Fudd? Well I certainly do! What reminds me of him most, apart from his inability to pronounce the letter “r”, is his obsession with Bugs Bunny! How he ran around all day, stalking him and getting into so much trouble just to catch him and yet he never did and his entire trauma was futile!
Come to think of it now, social networking could be exactly the same in certain aspects!
Whether we spend hours using our social network platform as an excuse to tail gossip stories about those we know or just as a path to find solutions to emotional or even physical insecurities, social networking seems to be crawling into our minds trying to steer us into believing that it might be the only hope left for many of us!
I believe otherwise: I think it is the cause rather than the cure! Here is why…
One of the “Great Ways to Make Yourself Absolutely Miserable” is through comparing everything you do to the lives and achievements of others and feeling bad about yourself for how happier, more successful and better looking they are than you. Social networking gladly offers you that option!
Within the same line of thought, allow me to ask you a couple of questions, and please feel free to share your answers or just ponder upon them: How easy is it now to stalk your ex boyfriend or girlfriend using Facebook for example? Wasn’t breaking up in “the good old days” more convenient? I mean seriously, a few calls here and there, a message every once in a while but that was mainly it! Now, with all the access you can have to every single detail of other people’s private lives, you are cursed with having the power to snoop around your ex’s profile, see his new pictures with the cute girl he’s been dating and you have all the excuses you need to make “getting over him” a mission impossible!
But that’s not just it!
I have recently finished reading a very disturbing article entitled: “Facebook can ruin your life. And so can MySpace and Bebo”. In this article you are able to see how, in addition to the usual daily miseries brought on by social networking, social networking can also cause you to lose your job, taint your reputation through imprisonment or even, in some extreme cases, sign your death sentence all in the name of “staying connected”!
To sum up my argument, I must admit that I believe that the social networking brainwashing cycle is endless and that there are numerous other discrete examples out there if we only look closer!
But I’ll leave you with something to think about: Is social network platform hypnotization the new clinical therapy or is it the new decade’s plague?
