Social Media : eliminating the unsocial

 

 Social Media : eliminating the unsocial

The solution to radicalistion  lies not in breaking digital bonds but in building family bonds.

 

 

For last several decades, women’s lib and women empowerment have dominated media space as well as political narratives. Its polar opposites – movement for injustice against men and misogyny - were part of my blog in Dec 2024.  But now with large discussions around the eye-opening Netflix film Adolescence, this subject now needs a deeper analysis.

 

The film Adolescence illustrates the core of the incel movement - which lies in the 80:20 phenomenon ( incel  :  involuntary celibate ). 80% of the young girls like 20% of the young men. As a result, 80% young men are being forced to live without a female partner. To express their angst, these young men look out for other like-minded people. And the digital world, with its immense capabilities in building communities, provides the right platform for these unpresented to speak up. The angst of like-minded, when powered by influencers, breeds radicalisation, which can even lead to crime.

 

The simplistic solution to this problem is to demand a ban on websites/influencers, restrict digital access to young ones etc.  But we also know that none of them is implementable. Digital world is like flowing water – you try to block it, it will find another path. The solution to the inseparable digital world lies in identifying the attributes within digital world that make digital world toxic and then safeguarding the society from these toxins. 

 

To identify the toxins, let us first observe and analyse the non-toxic era….. i.e. the non-digital world. Forty years back, when there was no mobile, no internet, no social media, the 80:20 phenomenon probably did not apply. However,  we also did not have the ideal 50:50 world (50% of the women liking 50% of the males). It was probably 65:35 or 60:40. So, there is something in the digital world that has skewed it to 80:20.  

 

The key characteristics of the digital world are glorification and validation. Social media algorithms and the influencers glorify certain kinds of behaviors, attributes, choices and icons. And the validation-seeking digital users, in order to receive more likes and shares, align their choices along these glorified choices, thus eclipsing individual choices. Essentially, what is glorified by influencers becomes the dominant.  

 

And what would be easy for influencers to glorify ? …something that is uncommon. So, for young girls, attributes like handsomeness of males, their strong built, their networth are the attributes easy to be glorified. Now, in the digital world, since majority of the young girls are seeking validation, they would want to be seen with some possessing these attributes. Hence, the 80:20 phenomenon. Choices and preferences thus get driven not by one’s own emotions, but by the behavior of others. This is clearly a result of poor Emotional Intelligence. 

 

One may then ask that in the non-digital world why were the choices not controlled by others? In those days, the interactions of young ones were with parents, cousins, mama, chacha, bhua, masi, school friends, mohalla friends et la…. And all these interactions were on a one-to-one basis. These interactions built strong emotional bonds. These bonds became natural de-stresser for the young,  these bonds were a source of feedback and also built empathy among the young. All these resulted in a better understanding of one’s own emotions and thus a higher emotional Intelligence – resulting in choices being driven by one’s own emotions and not under influence of the outside world.

 

In today’s world, with a very limited emotional bonds at home and around, the platforms for the young ones to share their thoughts remains only in the digital world.  By venting out their angst on such platforms, young men find an emotional solace. This emotional solace is now not available at home, as it was in the past. Continued presence on such toxic platforms leads to radicalisation. 

 

The cure against radicalistion, therefore, lies not in breaking digital bonds but in building family bonds, in providing right atmosphere at home where young kids can build emotional connect and express their inner thoughts, receive feedback and thus develop empathy. Also, parents need to learn that emojis cannot replace human touch and the oft-repeated “quality time” cannot be a substitute for “quantity time”.  Building bonds and emotions need a required amount of time. And that extra time will have to come from parents because, today we don’t have the luxury of cousins and grannies.

 

This journey is neither about justice for women against men or men against, it is about justice for humans against humans

 

 

 

- Deepesh Salgia

Author, Producer, CEO