Navigating the Social Media Maze: From Anxiety to Empowerment
#29 Son of a Viet Kieu | How My Digital Detox and Self-Discovery Led to Healthier Social Media Habits and a Kinder Online World
Hey! I am so grateful to have you back at my blog. Your subscription means the world to me. ❤️ In order to get to know you better, here is a question for you: “What would be a good habit in order to use Social Media safely?” 😊
Now jumping into today’s blog:
We hear it all the time. Social media is making us more anxious, stressed and depressed. Especially teenagers are often not aware of the down side of Social Media.
All those things, I experienced as a teenager as well - mainly because I compared myself with the perfect life of strangers. Even though my logical side told me that there is absolutely no one to compare myself to, it still had an effect on my mental health and how I perceived myself.
Feeling like a loser, I tried to follow those foot steps of random people, that appeared as “successful”. Financial Freedom was one of the main points that occupied most of my mental energy.
By not knowing how to use Social Media properly, I consumed toxic content, that would miss-guide me.
Luckily, I had a long break of technology and reconnected to nature during my stay in New Zealand. The life as a backpacker extremely slowed down my pace and it was a wonderful restart for my brain. Enjoying the nature and connecting with real people from all around the world, helped me to overcome those nagging thoughts and focus on my self and my self-development journey.
By knowing my self-worth, I am finally able to use Social Media in a much more healthier and sustainable way.
How Social Media fuels Hate
After 7 years of being an educator and also create educational content on Social Media platforms, I realized a change of the content.
I already knew, that people were portraying their perfect life on social media - because of many different reasons.
But slowly but surely, I realized that the voices in the online world got more and more extreme. People start to hate each other for having different opinions and clash, even though they don’t even really know each other - making the digital world a worse place to stay in.
Just recently, I watched a video of “Kurzgesagt”, that explained this phenomenon. If you want to watch the video, I will link it here.
Here a short summary of what I have learned:
Problem:
People are increasingly divided and hostile towards each other, with many believing political violence is justified.
Why it Happens:
Contrary to popular belief, social media filter bubbles aren't the main culprit. Instead, the constant exposure to differing opinions online without the familiar social glue that real-life interactions provide exacerbates divisions.
Our brains, evolved for small, cooperative tribal living, are overwhelmed by the scale and nature of online disagreement. This leads to "social sorting," where people are categorized into opposing teams, amplifying anger and polarization.
What to Do Now:
Self-examine why you believe certain things and whether you dismiss or accept information based on its source.
Adapt to the information age by finding models that align with our brain's tolerance, such as smaller online communities similar to pre-social media internet (bulletin boards, forums, blogs).
Use tools like Ground News to compare different perspectives and understand media biases, promoting critical thinking and media literacy.
How does it effect my own life?
After this video, I learned that people are overwhelmed by all the information and different opinions on the net. Sometimes it pressures me to take a side or have an opinion on a topic that I really don’t understand.
The most recent news was the war at Gaza. I personally are not informed enough to have a certain opinion. And by reading information online, I am sure that I will be even misinformed, because I am not able to spend enough time on it and do proper research.
Even though, it does not have an immediate impact on my private life, I do feel guilty for not having an opinion or inform myself.
I am suddenly being pushed into an open space to debate, even though I have no knowledge or expertise in this field.
How do I deal with it?
Even though, I am not actively looking for those topic, but Social Media is extremely good in spreading information, regardless if you want or not.
In order to avoid feeling guilty for not making the world a better place in every field, I just focus on the people around me with the skills and knowledge that I have. On a daily basis, I try my best to live my purpose and help others to see their value and spread kindness and positivity.
I realized that focusing on my small community by uplifting my small tribe is the most sustainable way to reduce hate and spread love.
#mydailylearning
By consciously leaving the open space (like TikTok or Facebook), I try to connect with people with the same interests and exchange value in a smaller community (like sharing my blogs with the Blogger community on Substack).
This does not only allow me to be surrounded by like minded people with similar interests, but also protect me to get dragged into a fight about something that I don’t understand.
By knowing my own strengths and weaknesses, I decide which discussions I want to take part in and which ones I better leave to experts that know their crafts.
By respecting each other interests and boundaries, and finding our own tribe, we can create a beautiful online world, that truly connects us.
Thanks for reading to the end and I wish you an awesome day full of kindness and positivity. See you next Sunday morning for a new blog of #sonofavietkieu. 🥰
Bài viết thuộc thử thách Viết Đều và Hay của Writing On The Net Alumni. #wotn #vietdeuvahay
Yo this is such a great post, can tell from your critical writing combined with hilarious memes on the side (laughed a bit too hard 🤣). As someone who used to work in social media related position and who deeply feel the bad sides of it, I gotta send a huge agreement to your post and definitely am loving the part where you constantly remind yourself about your purpose and how you can navigate it thru how you use social media 🫶🏻 thanks for the friendly reminder as always!!
Very good writing Thomas 👏 I really like how you presented your ideas on why social media separates people having different interests. Also, I share the same guilt with Gaza problem as well 😝
Nice memes as well ahh 👌👌