When engaged with virtual media – whether watching a movie or show, spending hours on YouTube, or scrolling mindlessly through TikTok – are you able to see through the illusions of film or the caricature of social media presence to acknowledge the person you see on your screen is a real human living their own lives, having their own thoughts, dealing with their own struggles same as you? Can you acknowledge that to them, you are the unknowable person on the other side of the screen? Or do you only see your screen?
With how widespread and interwoven phones and the internet and social media has become in our society, we interact with just as many if not more people online than we do in real life, and I believe this has depersonalized what community should be. The most evident result of this depersonalization is the amount of hateful, argumentative, judgmental comments in just about any comment section on any social media platform.
What makes people feel justified in harassing people online if not for the fact there is a screen and, quite often, thousands of miles between the person viewing and the person posting? All the viewer sees of the person is what is there on their screen. Somehow, those few minutes become that person’s entire personality and blueprint of that person’s life for the viewer. They feel the ability, and somehow the right, to make quick judgements about that person’s character and morals from just a snippet of their life they decided to share on the internet. How could that possibly be seen as fair? How has posting anything online turned into an invitation to be criticized and harassed instead of being seen as the invitation for community that it actually is? Why is attacking the first instinct for some people?
I suppose it was always there. Humanity has always had its nasty side. But the prevalence seems to be growing exponentially, especially amongst the younger generations who grew up with immediate access to all of these different forms of social media. Our instantaneous access to thousands of voices shouting into the void that is the internet has disconnected us to true communities. People seem less real to us when we view so many of them through screens.
People talk about the “loneliness epidemic” and wonder where it came from. Just look at the comment sections. There it is. Arguments instead of intellectual discussions. Hate speech instead of simple disagreement of beliefs. It’s easy to type and post as opposed to shouting into someone’s face. As long as that barrier exists, I fear the hate will never go away.
For All Story Lovers! 