This happened to me for some time. I wonder if you’ve ever felt the same.
I had more than a dozen unread messages on WhatsApp, two important channels in Slack that required my attention and an email inbox that felt more like an ex-girlfriend- we’d parted ways long back.
Yet, I found myself religiously checking my Twitter notifications, as if they contained the secret to success. Whenever I’d pick up my phone, my fingers would automatically go on cognitive override and open the app.
It’s as if Leonardo De Caprio came to me in my sleep and incepted some vague idea that I urgently needed to put out to the world in 280 characters.
At first, I tried to build an argument for why that was the case from a product lens. I told myself a lot of things - there’s a high noise to signal ratio on platforms like WhatsApp and Email. Twitter is a social media platform whereas the others are mere messaging platforms. Twitter, unlike the anachronistic email gives you greater control on the kind of content you want to consume. Nobody in my circle uses Facebook. Instagram seemed to be either for the visually appealing or those with visually appealing experiences to share (What was I going to post? My dark circles or the scenic pictures of smog from New Delhi?).
Hence, Twitter became my choice for daily exercises in ego and anxiety.
But then, my bubble burst.
And if yours hasn’t– it’s time.
Read this out loud with me (maybe even twice) - TWITTER IS JUST AN EXERCISE IN COLLECTIVE HALLUCINATION.
It has nothing to do with the “influence” you wield in real life. The 100 extra followers you gained after several threads, controversial tweets and award worthy virtue signalling does not mean you made a hundred new friends in real life. Rapidly iterating your stance on issues basis the trending opinion and calling it “unpopular opinion” does not mean you’ve grown an appetite to think and reflect. Tagging Vijay Shekhar Sharma to complain about a Paytm payment that did not go through does not mean you’ll get your money back.
Also, don’t you think running a promotional campaign for people to follow your handle is a bit of an overkill? It will definitely pump your ego but unnecessarily deflate your wallet.
Don’t misunderstand me – Twitter is not all bad. There’s A LOT of good. It’s been great for my professional success and I’ve become friends with some amazing people whom I otherwise would not have met. It helped me find a tribe, when I felt loneliest. More importantly, I found something I’m passionate about.
However, it is important to recognize, identify and segregate the good and the bad - for your own mental health if nothing else. Hence, this blog post.
The biggest problem it poses is one that is common to all social media tools - the forced quantification of self-worth. Such quantification usually works by the number of likes, retweets and followers you tend to get and whether or not you have a blue tick next to your name – quite symbolic of a blue blood tag for the libertarian 21st century, right?
And it’s not your fault for doing that. We’re wired that way.
As per Social comparison theory which was proposed by the psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, there is an innate drive within individuals to gain accurate self-evaluations. As humans we achieve this by either comparing upwards or downwards.
In his theory, Festinger provided nine key hypotheses. Here are a few of them as per Wikipedia.
First, he stated that humans have a basic drive to evaluate their opinions and abilities and that people evaluate themselves through objective, non-social means (Hypothesis I).
Second, Festinger stated that if objective, non-social means were not available, that people evaluate their opinions and abilities by making comparisons to other people (Hypothesis II).
Next, he hypothesized that the tendency to compare oneself to another person decreases as the difference between their opinions and abilities becomes more divergent. In other words, if someone is much different from you, you are less likely to compare yourself to that person (Hypothesis III).
Notice the emphasis on “non-social means” in the second hypothesis above?
Personally - I interpret non-social means for self-evaluation as answers to the questions, “How satisfied am I with my performance?”; “Did I achieve what I set out to do?”; “Did this make me and those around me happy?”
It could be completely different for you. I only mention these non-social means to juxtapose them against the modern social means of comparisons we’ve devised for ourselves. We’ve become so entrenched with maintaining manicured public perceptions, especially young kids these days, that it’s safe to say that the human race has collectively become the world’s biggest PR agency altogether.
Its not as if you can avoid it. In fact, some level of comparison, both upwards and downwards, is bound to happen. Sometimes it’s even healthy. However, left unchecked it can become a mental boombox of anxiety and ego.
Save yourself from it! You’re not worse off than anyone else. You’re not better than anyone else.
TWITTER IS JUST AN EXERCISE IN COLLECTIVE HALLUCINATION.
Happy weekend guys, spread the cheer! Stay positive. 😃
Yours truly,