ILoveLife
MyPTSD Pro
I have a deep burning question for a long long time, not directly related to trauma.
I find, after finishing trauma treatment and being on the "finding my won and own normality", that returning to social life is not like it was 7 years ago.
What are healthy virtual interactions in social networks for each of us? Or how to build a healthy online presence?
I think in a way, we all get dragged into behaving a certain way online. Particularly for us, who have connections (for a long time, or more recently) to mental health-related forums online, which widely differ from social networks, I get a sense we have (in general, not everyone) a more healthy way of interacting with each other online, particularly because we are anonymous to each other and that's different. But to those of us who have the guts to dive into social media, I wonder if there are actually healthy ways of having an online presence.
I see two main issues of not having an online social media presence.
1) if you don't have an online presence, for most people you know you're maybe alive or not.
2) if you spend enough time without social media, you lose most contacts of social life, particularly if you live in a place where you don't know that many people.
And I see four main issues of actually having an online social media presence:
1) You get bombarded with opinions, ads, and content you have no interest in; plus disinformation, fake news, and in general a sense of gloom and doom that can lead people straight to Paranoia Ville...
2) People, in general, have very few healthy relationships online, mostly consisting of barely any interactions of likes and the occasional comment (if at all)
3) if you don't have friends, and if you're just browsing through life meeting strangers all the time, you may get really depressed about it all.
and 4) There's a constant running comparison (particularly on Instagram) about what is normal life and what are the lives of others which may seem perfect but most often are studio and photoshop designed.
One of my main worries about this doesn't really concern me exactly, because I've lived without social media for a long time and was very happy about it. But I saw on Instagram little kids (maybe 7 or 8 years old) trying to behave like Instagram influencers, with sexy dancing and whatnot, and that's actually a profession now being an influencer, I get baffled about it all.
Millions and millions of people subscribe to these things and I wonder, is there a healthy way of having an online presence -- or the healthy way is not having one at all?
Looking forward to your input.
I find, after finishing trauma treatment and being on the "finding my won and own normality", that returning to social life is not like it was 7 years ago.
What are healthy virtual interactions in social networks for each of us? Or how to build a healthy online presence?
I think in a way, we all get dragged into behaving a certain way online. Particularly for us, who have connections (for a long time, or more recently) to mental health-related forums online, which widely differ from social networks, I get a sense we have (in general, not everyone) a more healthy way of interacting with each other online, particularly because we are anonymous to each other and that's different. But to those of us who have the guts to dive into social media, I wonder if there are actually healthy ways of having an online presence.
I see two main issues of not having an online social media presence.
1) if you don't have an online presence, for most people you know you're maybe alive or not.
2) if you spend enough time without social media, you lose most contacts of social life, particularly if you live in a place where you don't know that many people.
And I see four main issues of actually having an online social media presence:
1) You get bombarded with opinions, ads, and content you have no interest in; plus disinformation, fake news, and in general a sense of gloom and doom that can lead people straight to Paranoia Ville...
2) People, in general, have very few healthy relationships online, mostly consisting of barely any interactions of likes and the occasional comment (if at all)
3) if you don't have friends, and if you're just browsing through life meeting strangers all the time, you may get really depressed about it all.
and 4) There's a constant running comparison (particularly on Instagram) about what is normal life and what are the lives of others which may seem perfect but most often are studio and photoshop designed.
One of my main worries about this doesn't really concern me exactly, because I've lived without social media for a long time and was very happy about it. But I saw on Instagram little kids (maybe 7 or 8 years old) trying to behave like Instagram influencers, with sexy dancing and whatnot, and that's actually a profession now being an influencer, I get baffled about it all.
Millions and millions of people subscribe to these things and I wonder, is there a healthy way of having an online presence -- or the healthy way is not having one at all?
Looking forward to your input.