There are ample studies pointing out the fact that the more time we spend on social media, the worse we start feeling about ourselves. In fact, an internal Metta memo states that those who ditched the platform reported better emotional wellbeing just within a week. I am sure, if not all, many of us are trying to bring down their screen time and get off social media.
On the other hand, social media has become sort of a ‘necessity’.
No matter in which space you are – B2B, B2C, solopreneur or a musician – you are forced to put yourself out there and leverage social media.
Businesses and enterprises gave up much earlier to this pressure but the artist community – especially the seniors and the purists – were quite reluctant. But they are also joining the wagon.
Just the other day, one of my colleagues was sharing, even an old-fashioned institute like Madras Music Academy is now asking for links of social media handles of the artists applying for their youth festival. Is Madras Music Academy also looking at number of followers and viral reels as a selection criteria in the festival? But the Academy is not alone. Most of the prime venues and festivals go by social media credentials and numbers.
Till a certain point, many musicians believed that if your hardcore skill is top-notch, you don’t need the social media certificates. Not anymore. Many senior musicians are getting insecure about getting defeated in this race of likes and followers and are hiring content creators to make reels and do paid promotions on social media.
Well the point of discussion of this article is not whether you should be on social media or not. It’s not even how to use it. It’s much more straightforward – why spending time on social media affects our mental wellbeing negatively?
After reading, contemplating, debating with many others, and observing myself and others, I have come to the conclusion that as long as we have a divided ego or consciousness, we are prone to suffering. This is not a discovery; for me, it’s a realization which comes and goes.
Our ego has two inherent tendencies. The first one is deriving as much pleasure from the world as possible.
The second one is deriving pain from the pleasure of others – especially those who are similar to us in some manner.
The ego will look for all the possible avenues to maximize its pleasure. We feel an uncontrollable flux of pleasure running inside when we are praised – for our actions, thoughts or even our bodies. In fact, most of the teens on social media put out content which lays out their possessions, including their bodies. Another Metta memo highlights that teenagers on their platforms start feeling negatively about their bodies and this brings us to the second point. Ego does not demand just pleasure. It demands more pleasure than those who are like us. And social media is so vast that there’s always going to be someone better than you at something!
This brings me back to old-style family gatherings.
Imagine a gathering of a large family – with many siblings and their children. As a kid, I always liked these gatherings because I was always praised – praised for being good at singing, being first in my class, winning debate competitions and so on. It was a small world, where I was best at a thing or two and that brought immense pleasure as a child. Similarly, every member of the family had a thing or two to feel good about. Similarly, just like their victories, everyone knew everyone’s defeats also. Somebody got transferred to a place they did not like and somebody fractured their ankle and so on. In such gatherings, you always felt that everyone is just like you. Some defeats and some victories – just like you.
Social media has twisted the whole playground.
No matter how well you do, you will always encounter someone doing better than you. The worst part is, you only see their victories. You start feeling you are the only one with a pile of defeats in life and you feel as if everyone is better than you and you are moving backwards. I (and all of us) know so many leaders, entrepreneurs, development sector pioneers who are doing unmatched work at unbelievable scale and still feel they are not doing enough and are on the verge of becoming redundant!
Remember, the older systems like family get-togethers or even in-person get-togethers of friends and family were not perfect. They also made some members feel insecure and worthless. The point is, the extent and frequency of the negativity was controllable. You would always find one or two members if not more who sympathized with you and consoled you.
With social media, there is no control to how bad you can feel and no cap on how often you will feel it.
I feel, in the older days, living with our egos and their tendencies was manageable. Today and now onwards, it’s going to be more and more difficult.
The urge to keep deriving more and more pleasure and glorification along with the feeling of futility which comes from the success of others is going to make living our lives unbearable. If we do not sort it out, we will either hurt ourselves or hurt others. No wonder, incidents in both these categories are rising at an astonishing speed. It’s high time we quit either one of them – either our ego or social media.
Is quitting social media really a solution?
तृण नाही तेथे पडिला दावाग्नी
जाय तो विजोनि, आपसया.
If a ball of fire falls on the land without grass, it will inevitably extinguish. – Sant Tukaram.
Our ego is like the grass and external triggers are like the fire. Quitting social media can help to the extent of cutting down the triggers. But remember, triggers do not come only from social media. They can come from reading a book or talking to a friend also. But, social media is designed to trigger us. Till the time we have plenty of grass and are working on chopping it down, it will help to cut our exposure to fire and hence, quitting social media will help.
But it’s not the final solution to this problem. The final solution is getting rid of the grass.
Getting rid of the grass
From Buddha to Kabir to Krishnamurti, everyone has been talking about getting rid of the grass and it looks like it’s more difficult than we can imagine. How does one get rid of this false centre of ‘me’ which each one of us is carrying and nurturing within?
After trying out many things, I have finally come to the conclusion that we cannot get rid of the grass because we are the grass. We don’t have ego, we are ego. Whatever we do to get rid of it in fact strengthens it. What one can do, is become aware of this whole mechanism by endless observation. We do not need to cut the grass. We just need to see that we are the grass and how everything that we do, in some way strengthens our own ego. This realization derives the grass from any nourishment and soon, it dries and withers away.
Saints and sages have been warning against the perils of our ego for ages. We are in the age where the weight of our ego has become unbearable and so has become the pain it brings. The social media algorithms are getting better at bringing the worst out of us. We can be happy only if the worst of us – our fragmented ego – dissolves.
About the Author
Mandar Karanjkar is a student of life and music. He is a disciple of late Pt. Vijay Sardeshmukh and is currently learning from Pt. Vivek Joshi. Mandar is a co-founder of Baithak Foundation – www.baithak.org a not for profit taking traditional Indian music and dance to 8000+ children in government schools. Mandar is also a speaker, an author and a communications consultant.
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