The newspapers delivered to my door on Tuesday, May 7, 2024, presented me with three different articles that bore on a single theme. You would be right to guess that the theme I am talking about is one of my favorites! I haven't forgotten those articles!
In many of my blog postings, I have claimed that the translation of our life to a life lived, increasingly, "online" is undermining our integrity as human beings, and is undermining our ability to make "politics" work the way it should.
If I am right about that last assertion, that's a real problem, since "politics" is the activity by which we make decisions, collectively, about what we should do. I hope that you, my reader, will agree that it is rather urgent that we do begin making some decisions about the issues of the day - and that we take effective action based on the decisions, and "change the world." In my personal opinion, that is what we need to do if we want to continue to have a world!
Time is short, and here is what is only a very "partial list" of the issues we need to confront: (1) global warming; (2) the disintegration of political and social civility, both nationally and internationally; (3) the increasing failure of our educational system; (4) income and wealth inequality; (5) the need to provide health care and housing for all; (6) the elevation of guns and violence as a mainstay of our expected social interactions; (7) the need to create a world that is at "peace" and not, increasingly, and incessently, and insatiably at "war," with particular atatention to the increasing possibility that the world will be consumed by nuclear war. And let's not forget those "old favorites," either: (8) racial and gender discrimination.
Below is another "partial list" that provides a short catalogue of some of my past pronouncements about how "Privacy, Technology, And Freedom" are interrelated, and about how that "Technology" element is undermining our critical need for both "Privacy" and "Freedom" (and how that, then, makes it difficult to achieve the kind of changes I just listed):
As I indicated right at the start of this blog posting, on May 7, 2024, my morning newspapers delivered me three different articles bearing on the theme of "Privacy, Technology, And Freedom," all of which captured my attention. You are invited to read them all (if paywalls don't deny you access):
Let me just cite to one of these articles, the article in the San Francisco Chronicle, titled, "How To Beat 'News Fatigue' And Depression Before They Beat You." This article, published on the editorial page of the hard copy edition of the Chronicle, was an anguished cry by Nahid Fattahi, who is a marriage and family therapist.
Prior to becoming a therapist, Fattahi worked as a Marketing and Project Manager in Silicon Valley’s high-tech industry, and she reports that having that experience helped her to work with professionals facing job stress, addiction issues, and burnout — some of whom wanted to make big changes in their careers. Fattahi's column though, was about her own anguish, not the anguish felt by those she met in her professional practice. Here are some things she said:
The day I deactivated all my social media accounts is a day I will never forget. The turning point came one fateful morning when the weight of despair threatened to crush my spirit entirely. In the depths of depression, I grappled with thoughts of escape, a longing for the oblivion of eternal sleep. It was a moment of reckoning, a stark reminder of the preciousness of life and the perils of losing oneself in the darkness.
As a human rights activist, I felt the burden of the world on my shoulders since August 2021, when U.S. troops left Afghanistan. Especially since the turn that the world has taken since last Oct. 7, I realized that I knew how to talk about mental health and how to help others, but I could not do much for myself.
My journey with depression and anxiety intertwines closely with my consumption of news through social media platforms. Since August 2021, my soul has been weighed down by the tumultuous events unfolding in Afghanistan, a place forever etched in my identity as an Afghan woman. The fear and uncertainty surrounding the peace talks and the return of the Taliban cast a long shadow over my hopes for the future.
Obsessively following the news, I felt a sense of helplessness and hopelessness engulfing me with each passing day. Despite my efforts to raise awareness on Facebook and Instagram, I was met with criticism and even death threats, condemning my activism as futile or blasphemous. As a psychotherapist, guiding others through compassion fatigue, I found myself unable to heed my own advice, trapped in a cycle of anxiety and despair.
Today, as I navigate the complexities of a world in turmoil, I do so with newfound clarity and resilience. While the scars of compassion fatigue may linger, I am no longer defined by them. Instead, I am empowered by the realization that I can still make a difference, not through the endless scroll of social media, but through meaningful action and genuine human connection (emphasis added).
Many of us are enmeshed in the kind of "endless scroll" mentioned by Fattahi. We need to disconnect ourselves.
Scroll on? How About Not?
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