I have a friend who works in marketing. He makes his living online with tools like blogs, videos, and social media. Ok, nothing too strange there, but he also refuses to have his own social media accounts. He’s trying to ward off digital anxiety.
Digital anxiety? Huh?
Social media = digital violence?
“Facebook to me is like a digital mugging. Every time I engage I feel like I’m getting robbed or beat up,” he told me. “I don’t need that in my life.”
My friend’s not alone.
An increasing number of people express anxiety over their online engagements.
One study, published this year, found a rise in depression and anxiety, especially among teens and young adults, could be linked to social media use.
Not emotionally fulfilling
“Spending time on social media tends not to be in real time,” psychologist Jean Twenge, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University and lead author on that study, told National Public Radio. “You’re not having a real time conversation with someone—usually you’re not seeing their face and you can’t give them a hug; it’s just not as emotionally fulfilling as seeing someone in person.”
The more young people use social media the less time they are spending interacting in real life with their friends and families, the less time they’re spending outside, and the less time they are spending creating.
Social media is consumptive. It turns us into consumers. Yet happiness comes from being creative.
Couple this with the ever-polarized political and social divide that spills into every newscast and many conversations (online or in person), and it’s no wonder that the state of the world is making us all a bit crazy.
Digital anxiety and digital addiction make it worse.
Finding sanity despite your digital anxiety
Finding your sanity in this insane world is an ongoing challenge.
Raising awareness, separating fact from fiction, and understanding how fake news permeates our lives are three of the goals of the creators of the Architects for a New Paradigm Series taking place here in Ashland, Oregon on December 14, 2019.
I’ll be giving a talk and participating in a panel discussion that will offer real solutions to find sanity in this crazy-making world.
Click here to sign up:
https://anpconference.com/anp-architects-of-the-new-paradigm-conference-2019-Ashland-or/
Psychopathy is negatively impacting our lives
Here’s more about the event from the organizers, who state a phenomenon of “psychopathy” is impacting our lives in negative ways that most of us experience, but rarely recognize.
We’re all hypnotized by corporations, politicians, and institutions that put profits over people.
In fact, an increasing number of people suffer series psychological pathologies and a complete lack of conscience.
We’re exposed far more often to predatory and manipulative tactics these people employ than people realize.
If you’ve known more than 25 people in your life, you’ve known a psychopath. So says psychologist Lori Lorenz, who’s also speaking at the conference.
Solutions-oriented information
Jordan Pease is the owner of the Rogue Valley Metaphysical Library. Pease tells me this will be a solutions-oriented, blinders-off, down-the-rabbit-hole conference. The goal: to teach people about psychopathy, sociopathy, and narcissism, in addition to fake news.
If you come you’ll have a chance to engage with cutting-edge thought leaders and expand your understanding, empower yourself and your community, and learn to avoid the pervasive and pernicious influences that increasingly challenge us.
Here’s to a sane, healthy, happy year to come.
Hope to see you there.
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