SARA SAINI, ROME,ITALY
How much can our lives be affected by the influence of social media? What margin of freedom do we have left, how far can we remain ourselves? It is true, social media began as one more tool for freedom of expression, for self-assertion, with the intention of sharing the best part of us. But “best” from what point of view? They should have increased the possibility of having relationships with a wider range of people, even people far from each other, from the most different parts of the world, who might never have known each other in person. All of this could have been positive, but unfortunately it often happens that the relationships created on social media are not so stable and true. It is as if that relationship is built in another dimension, which is inevitably devoid of all those feelings shared in a real relationship. There is always a veil beyond the screen, a margin beyond which we may not show ourselves to the other person; it is as if our souls struggle to come to light on social media, and this is important for us to realize how much true and more fully real relationships between people can be worth, without shielding ideas, thoughts, passions and flaws.
Communicating through social media can be easier, faster, but goes beyond the possibility of fully expressing ourselves. We end up feeling judged by the whole world, and by eliminating any real opinion of our own, we mold ourselves to homogenized, massified ideas. In bringing everyone more or less the same contents we feel safe, we save ourselves from the judgment of others. Yet not only we can’t experience the beauty of knowing and loving ourselves and others, but we also escape from the responsibility to act in a valid and useful way for society. Nowadays there is always someone who avoids taking the responsibility of speaking or making a decision;
a banal but effective example could be group chats, very large and apparently consistent groups where, however, no one (at least if you don't already know each other well in person), is ever willing to speak, perhaps when faced with a question whose resolution it's not immediate (immediate like fingers typing any message without thinking twice). In the face of such messages, one prefers to justify himself with a generic: "someone else will answer before me".
This last example is one of the many red flags of an inability to truly relate to others, which is one of the most valuable resources we have for living, but why? Out of fear perhaps, fear of being ourselves, of showing our identity, our value, our essence. But where does this fear come from? Even this could be based on the use of social media. Its major cause is judgment.
In fact, seeing other people's lives constantly exposed online, sometimes not even in their effective reality but often deliberately exaggerated and masked by fiction, pushes us to judge every minimal action or behavior, prompts one to dwell on the particular, on the futile, to magnify the minimal, to leave out the substance, the content, to limit any perspective.
But probably a judgment makes more noise than a compliment, looking at the surface is easier than dwelling on the real depth of an individual, on the feelings of a person. A person, yes, all people whose new attitude to judgment reveals a society of dissatisfied people, who would have no need of it if they looked inside and finally recognized their own essence, an essence capable of truly loving, beautiful, wonderful, without the need of unhealthy exteriorities and above all, very boundless.
