Hi everyone. These last few weeks have been warming, vulnerable and alive-feeling for me, in parallel with the beautiful spring weather. I want to share with you a Substack essay I read yesterday that felt like a timely reminder. It’s on a favorite topic of mine, social media and how it affects the way we think.
The research the author references, from Yale University Press, shares that social media—and all screen time where we’re being marketed to—accelerates our innate human malleability to group pressures.
“Less than one-third of individuals are able to resist conformity pressures” in simple tasks. They “need not [even] be oppressive.”
I am continually amazed by how much and often I personally am influenced. After drastically decreasing my use of Instagram the last six months, I have been floored by how much less superficial and black-and-white my thinking has become than when I was an avid user.
The research shares that—of course—taking time to know YOU, your values, your own priorities, is the antidote to the persuasive stories we’re fed:
“Plato cautioned that storytellers rule the world. Tomorrow’s citizens will need to evaluate the storytellers’ tales on social media with great care.”
And that’s why I have been pondering another problem, one I actually want to put to you for your insights. As I have started to express myself more, I have gotten confused about advice-giving and judgment-rendering. Every marketer in the world (and their mother) is giving untailored, blanket advice on how to live. I notice myself feeling drawn to give advice in my newsletter—live like this, not like that! You will be happier! But we are all in different places at different moments in our lives, with wildly different things that will help us.
Here’s my question. How can one share their thoughts responsibly? Especially since we are all so susceptible to outside views—how can we do our best to support people not to take our advice if it’s not a fit? Is that our responsibility at all?
Advice can’t be all bad. The great writers gave plenty of it. Here’s some from Ernest Hemingway.
But it’s interesting that while it (like the above) often feels inspiring, it can also make you feel trapped inside a certain way of doing things. Advice seems to always contain judgment—this is better than that. So, should we add caveats to the advice we give? Is there a way to share things that can help, while making sure people know the advice-giver is not the sole authority—they are? Any thoughts you’d like to share with me on this…I will devour.
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Main point: Social media trains us to care about certain things more than others (not unlike brainwashing). Spending dedicated time getting to know ourselves offline, away from the eyes of others, is the only way to immunize ourselves against relentless marketing and life advice that can end up having an outsize effect on us—like in
The Odyssey, when Odysseus’ crew mistakenly opened up the bag Aeolus had gifted the hero containing all the world’s wind and blew their ship thousands of miles off course.
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In the last few weeks I signed my first paid contract as a Self Employed Person, helping out a startup! Grateful for the opportunity and excited to share what I’ve got in the works creatively, hopefully very soon, if all goes well.
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I’m Alisha. I like to write, take
on big challenges and figure
out hard stuff. Check out my website for more about me: alishaaf.com |
