Reply to Why do grown women post photos of social events?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Those reasons and probably several others.

It's pathetic. Whatever. [/quote]

[b]+1 and it seems like most people have woken up and realized how stupid it is.[/b] [/quote]

I have noticed this too. It's great. [/quote]

Imagine being so miserable and pathetic that a picture of your friends having a good time bothers you this much. Are you jealous? [/quote]

DP. It is perfectly normal to feel jealous or left out when presented with a photo of people from your community having fun together. It need not be a particularly intense feeling and most people move on from it easily, but it's a normal and human response because humans are social creatures whose security is dependent on belonging in a community. A photo like that is likely to prompt a temporary (and primal) fear that the individual may not be securely part of the group. Most people will remember that, actually, they are securely part of the community via other means and move on.  But that initial pang of jealousy or, more accurately, fear, is pretty common and normal. If someone cannot move on, it may be because they do not have secure belonging in a community, in which case their fear is real and understandable, not something to be criticized and derided.

The greater question is what compels people to post such photos to public feeds? I believe it is related to the same fear. People post these photos as a way of asserting their belonging in the community. They may be particularly compelled to post photos that show them in high status settings or with high status people, as a self-protective way of showing how embedded they are. In this case, posting the photo is actually done, on some level, to provoke jealous and fear from people who may be further from the inside, high status parts of the community. Thus the feeling of jealous/fear that many people feel when seeing these photos is actually the intended effect the poster hopes it to have.

Your choice of the words "miserable" and "pathetic" -- exclusionary words that emphasize the low and outsider status of the person to whom you are talking -- indicate that this is a behavior you participate in and that it is very much about asserting your belonging over that of others when you do so.[/quote]

Oh boy, that is a whole lot of BS. I am not the one who posted this thread or wondering why other people socialize and feel the need to share they are having a good time. I don't share almost anything on facebook but if I see a collage of photos from one of my friends enjoying herself and having a good time, my first thought is NOT "what is wrong with her." Quite the opposite. I think, "hey, good for her. She looks happy." If you feel jealous and excluded, then you need to work on that. Work on being a better friend, colleague, person instead of expecting the world to be miserable WITH you.[/quote]

I wasn't describing my personal experience. I'm explaining why it is common for people to feel left out or jealous when they see photos like this. Essentially I'm explaining why social media often has a negative impact on some people. And the people who are least socially connected are most vulnerable, because their exposure to social media is most likely to most accurately reflect their real experience of isolation and exclusion. It can also feel humiliating for them because it publicizes their outsider status. Without social media, people might vaguely be aware that one family is never included in neighborhood get togethers, or that some high school seniors aren't included in end of year parties. But with social media, the people who are on the fringes of groups or rarely or never included in social outings have a visual representation of their exclusion. It can be very painful and fear inducing.

Loneliness, isolation, and lacking a sense of belonging are some of the most critical mental health problems in our society. Many of the broader problems we have right now can be traced to people who feel this way.

So I am trying to encourage those of you who don't feel this way to be less defensive about how you use social media and instead think about why it might be very difficult or harmful for people who lack the social connectedness you enjoy. And rather than say derisively to someone in this position "you sound jealous" or "work on being a better friend," to consider that there may be small things we can all do to ease some of the negative impacts. For instance, instead of posting photos of an outing with friends to a social media account where it will be seen by many people who are not part of your inner circle of friends, you could instead simply text those photos to the friends who were there. That is what I do. I seek to make any public social media account I have inclusive and friendly, rather than contributing to a culture where I advertise my own social bonds in a way that could trigger people who lack similar bonds.

I would also look inward and ask yourself why you feel comfortable using the language you do to defend your own behavior, language that is clearly intended to make the recipient feel bad about their social position, lack of friends or familial connections, etc. Calling people miserable and jealous as an insult is strange because if someone is miserable, that is something to be concerned about, not thrown as an epithet. If someone is jealous of the social bonds other people have, they are likely lonely and in need of more society, and that should not be thrown at them as an insult. If you are fortunate enough to have life full of connection and inclusion, I do not understand why you would be hostile to someone who doesn't have that. [/quote]

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