Quote: (02-01-2019 06:46 PM)SaintLaurentJake Wrote:
It’s the ultimate first world problem, I get it. I often felt detached while in a room full of my favorite people; I also felt absolutely nothing during what should have been the happiest and darkest times in my life. No single conversation or situation has led me to make this decision, so at what point do you metaphorically pull the trigger? - TLC
Social Media probably played a big part in this along with societal expectations. People are more connected than ever through the web yet loneliness and isolation is on the rise in the developed world. Many friendships and relationships seem to be artificial and only exist because one party wants to extract or acquire something out of it for self-benefit. I have had this feeling before. Indeed it is a 1st World problem because if you notice, in less developed countries friendships and relationships are forged through true connection[/align] and care for one another, something that is becoming less prevalent in each day as social media cancer grows..
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli...559961002/
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style...11781.html
I’ve just started to get plugged into the thoughts of women that are on social media, and I can tell you it’s real troubling. Women have serious complexes—asked for the opinion of a close female friend— and confirmed how cognizant they are of needing validation from social media. In many cases they’re taking hundreds of photos for the one perfect one, and they pull it down if it doesn’t achieve their goal, as dumb as that may sound to us. This goes for men as well, I started asking millennial male friends about it, and I can tell they care almost as much, the younger they are the more conscious of it they are.
It’s somewhat funny that we’ve all banded together on this forum to actually achieve a real brotherhood, friendship, whatever you want to call it. Self-censorship is so onerous in my day-to-day life, I just take it as the new normal.
Friendships definitely seem more transactional, especially once you get outside of your first social circle and have to deal with transitions of moving, school, the workplace, and so on. I can’t tell you how autistic many millennials seem to me. It is a struggle holding conversation with many. In contrast, people older than myself are much easier to engage. Recently I’ve been having beers with some men 40+ and holy shit it’s just so enjoyable to shoot the shit with them. Some of them are keenly aware of the changes that are happening: their sons are addicted to instagram, video games, or internet porn. Many are astutely directionless, and the fathers have an awareness that things are no longer the same, and your life can be decided on a split-second decision from social media or one fuck-up. Shoot man, some of these older dudes crashed multiple cars, but never got arrested, much less were prevented from getting a job.
First world problems are of a different level of magnitude than 3rd world problems, but take a look at Japan, Korea, China, etc to see how much pressure there is on people to succeed at all times, much less confirm to rigid norms/ standards of behavior. Hell, the number of suicides there are astounding. That or men shut themselves in video game cafes or the home and never come out. Something like 1/3 of Japanese younger generation are sexless.
It’s official really: facebook, instagram, et al can do no wrong. The inflection point would have came long ago, but it didn’t. This is the new normal. The only thing that could change it is some massive global conflict, civil war, or shutdown of the internet.