Recently, a real tragedy broke out on Instagram: during the celebration of the birthday of a famous blogger, an accident occurred that claimed the lives of three guests of the birthday girl. This situation was commented on by psychologist Elena Shpundra.
Two days ago, a terrible story happened in which three people died. A well-known blogger (and I am not ironic with the word “famous”, she has more than a million followers in her subscribers) decided to celebrate her birthday with family and friends.
The company gathered in the sauna. The husband of the birthday girl (according to other sources, one of her friends) poured 25 kilograms of dry ice into the pool to create a beautiful steam effect. And, although the video shows that the guests were in protective suits and masks, three people jumped into the pool. Two of them died on the spot. The third, the husband of this very blogger, died later, in the hospital.
What happens next?
A stream from intensive care, in which the birthday girl, not forgetting to connect Instagram masks to the video, informs subscribers that her husband has died. After that, she creates another account on Instagram, in which she writes “to share the latest news of my tragedy.
And in this account today there are already 20 publications in which she, the late husband, their two common children. Yesterday, an announcement flashed on YouTube that this blogger would soon present her story in Malakhov’s show.
Let me remind you that only two days have passed since the incident.
Three deaths. Two children without a father. Widowhood before reaching thirty. Another one or two families have lost their breadwinners. Unfortunately, I do not know if the other two victims had children. A new account, twenty publications, a bunch of stories, Malakhov’s show.
But I am not writing about this story in order to condemn the blogger, to moralize about how one should grieve or make fun of stupidity, they say, it is a shame for a pharmacist not to know the basics of chemistry.
For me, this story has become a vivid example of the phenomena that have developed in a society with a craze for social networks.
A phenomenon in which we have ceased to experience emotions and feelings. We are too busy presenting the events of our lives on social networks, choosing a color, grabbing the brightest frame, editing a video, writing an accompanying text – we are so focused on how to show that we have completely stopped thinking about what we are really experiencing, how to deal with what is happening.
And perhaps the touch of grief is so painful for this blogger at the moment that she prefers to run away from it in a demonstration, not to be inside, but to talk about what happened, outside. But she has two children, and how does this avoidance affect motherhood?
Instagram has long given rise to such a movement as insta-moms. These are women who have either already given birth or are in the process of demolition, who show the world all the stages of both childbearing and motherhood.
Just before the new year, one of these insta-mums broadcast their birth lives in a home pool. Of course, some insta-mums debunk myths about pregnancy, show real, not retouched motherhood, remove the image of ideality, which literally hangs on us not gloss, but social networks. But the rest quite support the beautiful picture for themselves, choosing family looks, shooting only pleasant moments in stories, using filters and photo editors to hide their stretch marks and wrinkles.
But even in those women who show real motherhood, that is, they carry a certain social mission, we see two points that worry me very much as a psychologist:
- the child becomes part of the mother’s game , but no one asks him if he wants to play it.
Does he want to be photographed always and everywhere, does he like these identical suits, is he ready for some hairy uncle to look at his photo in panties or even without. And even if the child does not yet know about pedophiles, the mother must. But, nevertheless, he exposes his naked photos, that is, he sexualizes and generally objectifies the child with his own hands.
- the child contacts the mother through the smartphone camera , because the mother looks at the child through her in search of the best frame or moment.
That is, we have an early deprivation of contact, when it seems to be with mom, she is physically nearby, but is more present for the army of subscribers than for a single baby.
Most recently, Ashley Graham, the famous plus-size model, gave birth. She became just a mother who honestly shows the wrong side of motherhood – weight gain, stretch marks, huge heavy breasts that need to be pumped.
But she had a frame on Instagram in which she was forced to change her son’s diaper right on the floor in the store, among the shelves, just laying a blanket on the floor. It cute frame at first glance. Again, socially useful. He says that even in prosperous America, not everywhere there is a restroom with baby changing tables.
But someone is standing next to Ashley and taking this cute shot. No matter the husband or assistant. But this man doesn’t bend over to help. Doesn’t hold the baby. He does not think that this is a force majeure situation in which the qualitative participation of everyone is needed, but he takes out his phone and takes pictures.
This is what became our usual reaction to force majeure – not to help, not to call the relevant services, not to save, not to be saved, but to get the phone and take pictures. Or stream video.
On the same Instagram, Ashley has another frame where she is breastfeeding her baby. Everything is also very cute and naturalistic. In addition to the moment that while Ashley is feeding the baby, she herself is looking through the phone feed, and someone nearby again catches a good shot.
You can object to me that mothers on maternity leave are so twitchy and busy that you can carve out a minute for yourself, surf on the same phone while the baby is sleeping or eating. But, I know that the child reads the first information about himself in his mother’s eyes.
Mom is a mirror for the first couple of years in a baby’s life, in which he learns to find and recognize himself. But mother’s eyes are always busy with the phone. Or they look at the child through the phone in search of a frame or making a story.
And this is just my hypothesis, but I think that such an increase in the number of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is due precisely to this – contact deprivation associated with mom’s hobby for social networks because autism is precisely a contact disease. Children with ASD are very intelligent, but they do not understand at all what emotions are and how they work in human relationships. Their contact is so dotted, pinpoint, and purely on an important issue that interests them. They perceive others as objects of application of their interest or need, more as a function, but not as living people.
On the other hand, the number of people with anthropomorphism is increasing in the world, when you humanize something that is not human. For example, you treat animals and plants as people, and this attitude is very clearly seen in animal rights activists, many of whom say “I love animals and hate people.”
It’s not bad or good, it’s there. We have become too dangerous, difficult, hurting, unbearable not only for each other but also for ourselves. Therefore, we choose a smartphone to remove excessive sensitivity.
Of course, no one will turn off the phone now and even I am writing this article for the network. But not so long ago, I read a study that says that soon a personalized service in which a person is served by another person and does it personally, and not online, will become wildly expensive and in demand. Because more and more options, although available online and convenient, have taken away from a life that warmth and sense of value for another, which was possible in personal communication.
PSYCHOLOGIST COMMENTS: SOCIAL MEDIA AND GRIEF LIVE
Two days ago, a terrible story happened in which three people died. A well-known blogger (and I am not ironic with the word “famous”, she has more than a million followers in her subscribers) decided to celebrate her birthday with family and friends.
The company gathered in the sauna. The husband of the birthday girl (according to other sources, one of her friends) poured 25 kilograms of dry ice into the pool to create a beautiful steam effect. And, although the video shows that the guests were in protective suits and masks, three people jumped into the pool. Two of them died on the spot. The third, the husband of this very blogger, died later, in the hospital.
What happens next?
A stream from intensive care, in which the birthday girl, not forgetting to connect Instagram masks to the video, informs subscribers that her husband has died. After that, she creates another account on Instagram, in which she writes “to share the latest news of my tragedy.
And in this account today there are already 20 publications in which she, the late husband, their two common children. Yesterday, an announcement flashed on YouTube that this blogger would soon present her story in Malakhov’s show.
Let me remind you that only two days have passed since the incident.
Three deaths. Two children without a father. Widowhood before reaching thirty. Another one or two families have lost their breadwinners. Unfortunately, I do not know if the other two victims had children. A new account, twenty publications, a bunch of stories, Malakhov’s show.
But I am not writing about this story in order to condemn the blogger, to moralize about how one should grieve or make fun of stupidity, they say, it is a shame for a pharmacist not to know the basics of chemistry.
For me, this story has become a vivid example of the phenomena that have developed in a society with a craze for social networks.
A phenomenon in which we have ceased to experience emotions and feelings. We are too busy presenting the events of our lives on social networks, choosing a color, grabbing the brightest frame, editing a video, writing an accompanying text – we are so focused on how to show that we have completely stopped thinking about what we are really experiencing, how to deal with what is happening.
And perhaps the touch of grief is so painful for this blogger at the moment that she prefers to run away from it in a demonstration, not to be inside, but to talk about what happened, outside. But she has two children, and how does this avoidance affect motherhood?
Instagram has long given rise to such a movement as insta-moms. These are women who have either already given birth or are in the process of demolition, who show the world all the stages of both childbearing and motherhood.
Just before the new year, one of these insta-mums broadcast their birth lives in a home pool. Of course, some insta-mums debunk myths about pregnancy, show real, not retouched motherhood, remove the image of ideality, which literally hangs on us not gloss, but social networks. But the rest quite support the beautiful picture for themselves, choosing family looks, shooting only pleasant moments in stories, using filters and photo editors to hide their stretch marks and wrinkles.
But even in those women who show real motherhood, that is, they carry a certain social mission, we see two points that worry me very much as a psychologist:
Does he want to be photographed always and everywhere, does he like these identical suits, is he ready for some hairy uncle to look at his photo in panties or even without. And even if the child does not yet know about pedophiles, the mother must. But, nevertheless, he exposes his naked photos, that is, he sexualizes and generally objectifies the child with his own hands.
That is, we have an early deprivation of contact, when it seems to be with mom, she is physically nearby, but is more present for the army of subscribers than for a single baby.
Most recently, Ashley Graham, the famous plus-size model, gave birth. She became just a mother who honestly shows the wrong side of motherhood – weight gain, stretch marks, huge heavy breasts that need to be pumped.
But she had a frame on Instagram in which she was forced to change her son’s diaper right on the floor in the store, among the shelves, just laying a blanket on the floor. It cute frame at first glance. Again, socially useful. He says that even in prosperous America, not everywhere there is a restroom with baby changing tables.
But someone is standing next to Ashley and taking this cute shot. No matter the husband or assistant. But this man doesn’t bend over to help. Doesn’t hold the baby. He does not think that this is a force majeure situation in which the qualitative participation of everyone is needed, but he takes out his phone and takes pictures.
This is what became our usual reaction to force majeure – not to help, not to call the relevant services, not to save, not to be saved, but to get the phone and take pictures. Or stream video.
On the same Instagram, Ashley has another frame where she is breastfeeding her baby. Everything is also very cute and naturalistic. In addition to the moment that while Ashley is feeding the baby, she herself is looking through the phone feed, and someone nearby again catches a good shot.
You can object to me that mothers on maternity leave are so twitchy and busy that you can carve out a minute for yourself, surf on the same phone while the baby is sleeping or eating. But, I know that the child reads the first information about himself in his mother’s eyes.
Mom is a mirror for the first couple of years in a baby’s life, in which he learns to find and recognize himself. But mother’s eyes are always busy with the phone. Or they look at the child through the phone in search of a frame or making a story.
And this is just my hypothesis, but I think that such an increase in the number of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is due precisely to this – contact deprivation associated with mom’s hobby for social networks because autism is precisely a contact disease. Children with ASD are very intelligent, but they do not understand at all what emotions are and how they work in human relationships. Their contact is so dotted, pinpoint, and purely on an important issue that interests them. They perceive others as objects of application of their interest or need, more as a function, but not as living people.
On the other hand, the number of people with anthropomorphism is increasing in the world, when you humanize something that is not human. For example, you treat animals and plants as people, and this attitude is very clearly seen in animal rights activists, many of whom say “I love animals and hate people.”
It’s not bad or good, it’s there. We have become too dangerous, difficult, hurting, unbearable not only for each other but also for ourselves. Therefore, we choose a smartphone to remove excessive sensitivity.
Of course, no one will turn off the phone now and even I am writing this article for the network. But not so long ago, I read a study that says that soon a personalized service in which a person is served by another person and does it personally, and not online, will become wildly expensive and in demand. Because more and more options, although available online and convenient, have taken away from a life that warmth and sense of value for another, which was possible in personal communication.