Social Media: The Buying and Selling of Angst, Anger & Envy

Have you ever noticed that life seems to get more hectic as you get older? Anxiety, frustration, and impatience can lead to a feeling that everything is in chaos. And, if we focus on that chaos we will plant the seeds for anxiety, frustration, and impatience. And, we will likely miss the joy and happiness and joy that surrounds us.

But, everywhere you turn there seems to be bad news:

• By the time we ring in the new year, 800,000 Americans will be dead from Covid-19. Or, said another way, 1 out of every 100 older Americans is dead from Covid. That’s equivalent to the number of lives lost in the Civil War.

• A dozen US cities are set to break their all-time murder records. The city of Brotherly Love will record over 530 murders this year. A new record.

• Gasoline prices have increased 58.1% over last year.

• And, just today, the US Department of Labor announced that inflation accelerated at its fastest clip since 1982.

• Your money has lost 6.8% of it’s purchasing power since last November. Ouch.

Yes, things are rough right now in many respects. Focusing on these leading indicators can lead us to think things are in chaos. And, that perception can cause unnecessary anxiety and frustration.

So, how do you stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive when the world seems in utter chaos? That’s the pressing question raised by John Mark Comer in his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.

Comer writes about how that chaos nearly ruined his life, damaged his personal relationships and caused a great chasm in his faith. But, Comer found a better way. By limiting his commitments and downshifting to slow the speed of his life, he dramatically improved his wellbeing and his happiness. But, more than just limiting his commitments, Comer found a bigger source of contentment.

Comer writes poetically that “the mind is the portal to the soul.” If that is true, then what we fill our time and our minds with will undoubtedly shape who we become; our character. If we fill our days with messages and images of chaos, how can we expect our minds to become anything other than a tangled mess of restlessness or, worse, angst, anger and envy?

A few weeks ago, a former Facebook Executive, Frances Haugen, testified in front of Congress as an official corporate whistleblower. U.S. law protects corporate whistleblowers who share insider information about potential corporate malfeasance. Haugen confidently told lawmakers in Washington, DC that Facebook corporate executives knew its apps (Facebook, and Instagram) were harming the mental health of some users, but particularly harming young users. Haugen testified that Facebook should be allowed to \”declare moral bankruptcy and we can figure out how to fix these things together.\” Asked to clarify what she meant by \”moral bankruptcy,\” Haugen said she envisioned a process like financial bankruptcy where there is a \”mechanism\” to \”forgive them\” and \”move forward.\” Haugen went on to clarify that Facebook’s famous algorithms aren’t just being used to spoon-feed you cat videos and ads for nose hair trimmers. Those algo’s are being used to intentionally place more inflammatory posts in your feed to facilitate angst and envy.

That’s the first time anyone from the Socials have admitted under oath that they are using algorithms to manipulate us.

Facebook has become the annoying little brother that knows all your business. And, he uses that knowledge to harass and irritate you cause…..he knows exactly which buttons to push.

It reminds me of the big Tobacco companies. It wasn’t until 1994 that the seven largest Tobacco chiefs were hauled in front of Congress. In that 1994 testimony each of the leaders affirmed under oath that they did not believe that “coffin nails” (cigarettes) were addictive. Future Tobacco Executives were forced to recant those asinine affirmations. And, that later testimony changed the way we view those “lung darts”. (By the way, last year Covid killed 500,000 Americans. Cigarettes do that every year.)

Haugen, in an interview with 60 Minutes on CBS, claimed that the social media algorithms are responsible for many of Facebook’s problems. Those problems include fueling polarization, misinformation and other toxic content. Haugen further shared that Facebook knows that if they make the algorithms safer that “people will spend less time on the site, they\’ll click on fewer ads, they\’ll make less money.\” So there you have it. The legal buying and selling of angst, anger and envy. It’s the equivalent of the Tobacco execs admitting that ”death sticks” are addictive.

I suspect that future generations will look back on us and laugh at how much time we spent on things that are so inconsequential and meaningless. Likely in the same way that our generation laughs at prior generations for glamorizing the use of lung darts. It begs the question of whether Facebook is the new smoking?

Even before the internet was fueling polarization and peddling toxic content, there was plenty of noise and confusion in the world to distract people. But not everyone fell for it.

Some of the greatest figures in history refused to fill their minds with that noise and confusion. Instead, they embraced stillness. Sir Winston Churchill, enjoyed laying bricks and painting at his Chartwell estate. In the meantime he saved us from speaking German and celebrating Hitler’s birthday every April. Mister Rogers daily routine began at 5 a.m. with prayer, reflection and Bible reading. Each morning he prayed for his family and friends by name. Anne Frank used her time to quietly journal and left the world a timeless glimpse of appalling history.

Comer asks the profound question, “Do you ever catch yourself with the sneaking suspicion that you’ll wake up on your deathbed with this nagging sense that somehow, in all the chaos, you missed the most important things in life?” I do. And, I wrote about this in 2020 in a piece called Top Five Regrets of the Dying . (I seem to refer back to that article a lot.) Turns out that the amalgam of regrets can be summarized. The dying regret that they missed out on being happier by spending time with their friends and family rather than wasting time on more trivial pursuits, such as Television or Social Media. How trivial those pursuits must look from their vantage point?

It reminds me of another article I wrote entitled Why Friendships in America are Dying. Our friendships are dying because you cannot nurture friendships solely through Facebook and Instagram.

Lack of Introspection

The way we comport our lives today is anything but still or introspective. It’s the antithesis of still and introspective. I doubt that my grandchildren will revisit any of my pithy Tweets after I am pushing up daisies.

In his recent book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr writes, “the internet is designed to be an interruption system, a machine geared to dividing attention.” We willingly allow the division of our attention. We allow the fragmentation of our thoughts. Carr writes that we allow these things “in return for the wealth of compelling or at least diverting information we receive.” I can relate. It seems that we rarely have undivided attention anymore. That we are always plugged in. That we are always fragmented in thought. At least some portion of our mindshare is consumed by what we are missing when we aren’t constantly receiving “information”. It’s become almost pathological. At the slightest mili-second of a pause in the action (elevator, bathroom, television commercial, etc,) we reach for our phones. Some people even reach for their phones in traffic at red lights.

Simplify Everything

According to John Mark Comer, “the solution for an over-busy life is not more time. The solution is to slow down and simplify our lives around what really matters.”

Maybe that’s the impetus for the growth of apps like HeadspaceandCalm. These free apps promote their ability to help you-do nothing. Literally nothing. Their meditation modules offer calming sounds and voices that allow users to disconnect from the noisy world for a few minutes each day. The Calm app has been downloaded over 100 million times. Seriously, who couldn’t use 15 minutes of peace & quiet every day?

Taking time away is healthy. It helps us remember who we are. It helps us reconnect with our own interests and hobbies. It helps us rekindle relationships. It helps us stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive.

The Red Zone

Now that the pandemic is drawing to a close (sans Omicron, maybe), it’s time to do a reset.

As Artis Whitman once wrote, It’s time to “look forward to the beauty of the next moment, the next hour, the promise of a good meal, sleep, a book, a movie, the likelihood that tonight the stars will shine and tomorrow the sun will shine. Sink roots into the present until the strength grows to think about tomorrow.” Or, you can pull out your phone and argue with a total stranger on Twitter. Which one seems like a more mentally and spiritually healthy way to spend Christmas? It’s up to you, my friend. Uncle Eddie is coming, either way.

If you liked this story, please forward it to someone you care about. Particularly if they spend too much time embracing the world’s chaos.

How about you? Are you tired of the manufactured chaos? Looking for a way to find more peace and contentment in your life? Leave me a comment or a question below. I guarantee you will hear back from me. Maybe we can find some peace and contentment together.

Merry Christmas.

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