Negative mindset and Social Media

We are inundated.

Overwhelmed with bad news, social media arguments, watching drama unfold online between people, negative comparisons, and more.

Memes shared that are designed to elicit an emotional response, outrage clickbait which does the same, your local news posting stories on Facebook feeds that are solely for the purpose to generate comments from angry readers to increase their online readership and subsequent ad revenue.

Is it any wonder why suicide rates are rising in conjunction with depression and anxiety? (link) (link)

If you are active on social media, what you share is cannon fodder for the world. Your pictures, your life, what you post, what you read and share, everything.

The same goes for everyone else, and it can be magnified with people reposting things for the purpose of mocking someone else to their echo chamber. You see it often with nutrition, diet, lifestyle, someone’s status, and the list goes on.

The negative inundation is profound and deadly

It has been proven the more you are exposed to negativity the more harmful it is for your mental state and health. (link) I am confident most of us are aware of this trend but we continually set ourselves up for constant exposure.

Why?

I have a few theories.

1. Your own life is lacking in something so you look for the negative in others’ to compensate for your perceived loss
2. You are attracted to personal drama as entertainment 
3. You don’t have enough positive in your own life and you are drawn to negative experiences as a sort of coping mechanism 
4. You are miserable and misery attracts misery
5. You are just an asshole

This is a difficult cycle to break as the world around us rewards bad news with constant exposure while the good is buried behind the sensational headlines and shares.

Ignoring the bad is impossible but finding ways to absorb the negative takes some work.

It can be as easy as avoiding social media arguments, drama, shitposts, and Facebook groups which are filled with negative type posts. It could be not reading the comments on an inflammatory clickbait article. It could be unfollowing or unfriending people who make a habit out of posting things designed to elicit a negative reaction.

It can be reading a negative news story and avoid falling down the rabbit hole of finding similar stories from other news sources which hammer your brain over and over again. It can be deliberately avoiding triggering news stories if the subject will put you into a deep negative state.

This is all a choice, you owe nobody anything. You are allowed to be as informed as you want to be, you are allowed to delete and unfollow people you don’t want to be exposed to, you are allowed to protect your own psyche from excessive negativity if it means it helps your mental health.

It’s the same choice you make when you value your physical health by training and eating correctly. Whereas the act of physical change takes physical effort, the act of mental change isn’t always a tangible experience. You can’t touch it, lift it into submission or eat it to a leaner body. The effects of positive mental change can be subtle to others but profound for you.

In the 21st century we can opt-in to a network that will allow you to have your entire life broadcast to the world, and the price to pay for that can be heavy in terms of mental well-being.

If that price becomes too expensive, consider a trade in and get back to what make you feel like… you.

You are the captain of your fate, both physically and mentally. Steer it wisely.

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