I think this might play a really big role. I’m a teenager and I and all the people I knew during school were very political. At parties people would occasionally talk about politics, in school talking about politics was very common, people occasionally went to demonstrations together, during the EU Parlament election we had a school wide election to see how our school would have voted. Basically I think 95% of students, starting at about age 14, had some sort of Idea about politics most probably had one party they preferred.
We were probably most concerned about climate change, inequality and Trump, Erdogan, Putin all that kind of stuff.
The young people that I know that are depressed are almost all very left wing and basically think capitalism and climate change will kill everyone exept the very rich. But I don’t know if they are depressed because of that (and my sample size is very small).
I think it might be better to think of it this way. The increase in social media usage has changed people’s cognition to a large extend that they are not aware of that exist not only just in politics but everything that has taken root in the collective consciousness. If only 20-30% of any individual’s cognition is focused on the collective topics/consciousness before social media, then I’d say now it’s flipped to 70-80%. We no longer have much free time and free thinking to ourselves these days.
Metric: given an average day in the waking life of a person, how many hours is spent on topics of the collective consciousness, and the rest on things that aren’t part of the zeitgeist?
I’ve noticed this change not just in people whom I don’t know but also in people I’ve known since growing up. They used to be different. The popularization of the zeitgeist has drawn those people in. They are tempted to participate, yet they are fully unaware of how participation has gradually changed their own cognitive habits. I was unaware for a long time, but when I decided that I probably need a break from all this stuff, I started looking for trends and started comparing how life was 10-20 years ago.
What you spend time thinking about is subtly robbing you of time and opportunity to think about something else. What that something else is requires your own volition to explore and find out for yourself, instead of being pulled in all directions by the collective.
The power of the human collective has never been stronger. This trend is led by celebrities and figureheads whom themselves are deeply entrenched in the collective consciousness more than most other participants. The sense of power they are experiencing is mesmerizing, thus leading to a form of addiction.
It’s both the technology itself and the convenience of participation. These two trends are reflective of the social model that came before: an increase in the public participation in everything that’s larger than the life of an individual. There are cultural tendencies that shift out much this trend has permeated different societies, yet the overarching trend is there regardless of the degree of effect.
I think we have past the point of productive participation into territories of counterproductive participation. Most of the topics lack objectivity, thus inducing the chaotic nature of the collective consciousness and participation. It’s always worth considering the following two points when you consciously decide whether to participate and how much time you want to spend on any given topic.
Is my participation productive for the collective? Does it bring something new? Does the collective need my voice to be heard?
Is my participation productive for myself, the individual? Do I learn something new? Do I need to learn this new thing? Do I need my voice to be heard?
There is a lot of depth regarding the role of ego in questioning whether participation is worthwhile. I’m not going to discuss it here. Maybe some other time if the opportunity presents itself.
I think this might play a really big role. I’m a teenager and I and all the people I knew during school were very political. At parties people would occasionally talk about politics, in school talking about politics was very common, people occasionally went to demonstrations together, during the EU Parlament election we had a school wide election to see how our school would have voted. Basically I think 95% of students, starting at about age 14, had some sort of Idea about politics most probably had one party they preferred.
We were probably most concerned about climate change, inequality and Trump, Erdogan, Putin all that kind of stuff.
The young people that I know that are depressed are almost all very left wing and basically think capitalism and climate change will kill everyone exept the very rich. But I don’t know if they are depressed because of that (and my sample size is very small).
I think it might be better to think of it this way. The increase in social media usage has changed people’s cognition to a large extend that they are not aware of that exist not only just in politics but everything that has taken root in the collective consciousness. If only 20-30% of any individual’s cognition is focused on the collective topics/consciousness before social media, then I’d say now it’s flipped to 70-80%. We no longer have much free time and free thinking to ourselves these days.
I’ve noticed this change not just in people whom I don’t know but also in people I’ve known since growing up. They used to be different. The popularization of the zeitgeist has drawn those people in. They are tempted to participate, yet they are fully unaware of how participation has gradually changed their own cognitive habits. I was unaware for a long time, but when I decided that I probably need a break from all this stuff, I started looking for trends and started comparing how life was 10-20 years ago.
What you spend time thinking about is subtly robbing you of time and opportunity to think about something else. What that something else is requires your own volition to explore and find out for yourself, instead of being pulled in all directions by the collective.
The power of the human collective has never been stronger. This trend is led by celebrities and figureheads whom themselves are deeply entrenched in the collective consciousness more than most other participants. The sense of power they are experiencing is mesmerizing, thus leading to a form of addiction.
It’s both the technology itself and the convenience of participation. These two trends are reflective of the social model that came before: an increase in the public participation in everything that’s larger than the life of an individual. There are cultural tendencies that shift out much this trend has permeated different societies, yet the overarching trend is there regardless of the degree of effect.
I think we have past the point of productive participation into territories of counterproductive participation. Most of the topics lack objectivity, thus inducing the chaotic nature of the collective consciousness and participation. It’s always worth considering the following two points when you consciously decide whether to participate and how much time you want to spend on any given topic.
Is my participation productive for the collective? Does it bring something new? Does the collective need my voice to be heard?
Is my participation productive for myself, the individual? Do I learn something new? Do I need to learn this new thing? Do I need my voice to be heard?
There is a lot of depth regarding the role of ego in questioning whether participation is worthwhile. I’m not going to discuss it here. Maybe some other time if the opportunity presents itself.