Thank you for the article and sharing your insights. I feel that this goes beyond social media - for me it is about the fact that we live our lives in general in a less connected way. Previously tribes and communities were more connected with each other and nature and they had an innate understanding that each individual's emotional, mental and physical wellbeing was important for the community to thrive. Therefore, it was in the communities interest that each individual was happy and connected. Because the happier we are the more happiness we can share with others. Now if we look at our societies the narrative that many of us are told is that we have to "compete" with each other or achieve in order to be accepted. This competition rather than co-operation way of being is very detrimental to humans collectively. It creates a scarcity mindset "if he has more then I have less" rather than the interconnected mindset of "if he has more, he has more to give". The disconnected way of being leads to the arising of many emotions such as fear, jealousy, greed etc. The fear stifles our self expression, it makes us scared to express happiness due to this fear of judgement etc. Of course social media is a bit like a magnifying glass, that makes this situation worse, but I don't feel that it is the innate cause.

If we can restore the interconnected way of being and change the narrative of our society one from scarcity to inter-connectedness, giving and abundance we can truly be happy within ourselves and for others.

I recommend to check out Charles Eisenstein's TED talk "A new story of the people"

With love,

Roberta