Juliana Moves

I’ve been thinking a lot about the challenge of being an informed citizen and protecting my mental health. Not too long ago I began reading an article about how being constantly exposed to coverage of a traumatic event via social media may actually cause more trauma to the viewer than to someone who actually witnessed the event firsthand. I can’t say I was surprised. 

I’ve thought a lot about the way we absolutely know that social media is bad for our mental and physical health, and yet I come back to Instagram every day hungry for the 15 minutes I’ve allotted myself. 

It’s also maddening to consider that social media and news platforms will almost always promote the negative, angry, painful content that we have become addicted to. It’s a depressing self-fulfilling prophecy. 

I want to stay informed and not live under a rock. I genuinely believe that is our duty as active, participating members of this society. But I don’t want all the information I read and consume to be deflating and discouraging, even if that does seem to be the state of the world these days. I don’t want every conversation to be a doom and gloom spiral about the state of politics or our democracy, even if a downward spiral seems to be the direction of things.

I like the idea that despair is not a strategy, and I agree that hope is an appropriate response to many things. I think there is a fine line between finding community and validation in your concerns, either online or in person, and only holding space for negativity. I wonder what the long term implications of this focus will be.

I’ve heard the concern of “will we ever come back from this?” in reference to the state of our democracy, and I worry about that as well. But I think “this” also means our own reactions and mental well-being in the world. We are a resilient species, us human beings, but resilience takes effort and often a conscious decision to keep going, to keep trying. Are we doing that these days? I’m not sure.

But I want to do it. I want to not feel cut down by the state of the world 24/7/365. I want to keep holding on to the hope that people can be inherently good and that human beings have not come this far to only come this far. In years past, I would worry that some would consider me naive or juvenile for the death grip I have on hope, and now? I don’t care. Even if I am proven wrong again and again, at least I’ve made the decision to keep persisting. 

Can you say the same? Or are you just getting by? I do that too, often – make no mistake. But if I can center the belief that we will climb out of this negative pit that we’re all in, then I know I am at least on the right track.

Love,

JN