The coronavirus pandemic has led many of us to spend our lives on virtual generation platforms, with teams like Zoom, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter, all experiencing strong expansion as a giant component of the world’s population becomes ingested.
At the same time, rates of depression and other intellectual fitness disorders have soared in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. In July, a study through Mental Health America found that “loneliness and isolation” are cited as the maximum cause of depression and anxiety in the United States (in 74% and 65% of cases, respectively).
These two trends are linked. As more and more people become isolated at home, more and more virtual platforms are seeing an increase in the number of users and customers. Many of us may seek to melt our emotions of loneliness, isolation and anxiety through Internet migration, however, this migration apparently does not do a very smart task to maintain our collective sanity. While that might be evident, it turns out that virtual generation and social media are rarely a suitable replacement for genuine life.
By “real life,” I mean human contact and face-to-face socialization, which has been demonstrated in studies that pose a dramatic threat of depression. In a 2015 exam widely cited in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Oregon Health studies
Interestingly, the same article revealed that phone or email contact had virtually no effect on the degrees of depression. Its authors wrote: “Phone contact is the maximum non-unusual mode of social contact, but rates of depressive symptoms remained static in other degrees of telephone contact and variable rates of depressive symptoms through written or emailed contact grades save you conclusions from drawn conclusions about this. They have an effect. “
These findings were corroborated through the coronavirus pandemic.
In the UK, figures published in mid-August through the Office of National Statistics revealed that depression rates had “almost doubled” the pandemic. 19. 2% of British adults reported moderate or severe depression in June, compared to 9. 7% before any blockade was imposed (between July 2019 and March 2020).
In the United States, a survey conducted in August through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that “the prevalence of symptoms of anxiety disorder is approximately 3 times higher” in June than in the last quarter of 2019, with 8. 1% of U. S. adults at 25. 5%. More worryingly, symptoms of depression were approximately 4 times higher than reported at the time of the 2019 quarter, from 6. 5% to 24. 3%.
These alarming spikes in intellectual fitness disorders have occurred in the context of the increasing use of social media and other virtual platforms. Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, Facebook reached a record 3 billion active users per month at the end of April (in its circle of platform relatives), while Twitter also reported a sharp 34% increase in the number of active users at the time of the 2020 quarter.
More of us are on social media and other virtual platforms as we look at the spread or contraction of coronavirus. However, judging by recent spikes in depression and anxiety, our use of social media reacts little or nothing to our deep desire for significant human beings. face-to-face touch.
Certainly, you can go too far to wait for Facebook, Twitter or any other platform to combat the mental effects of a global pandemic. Many of us would possibly fear for our work, for our homes and for our lives, so it would possibly be so. Being unrealistic to think that a social network or anything else on the Internet can help resolve such concerns.
Don’t forget, though, that the Mental Health America study cited above found that “loneliness and isolation” were by far the most important in recent spikes in depression and anxiety. It is not unemployment or the coronavirus itself that causes most of us to fall, yet our inability to socialize and have meaningful contact with others.
In other words, Facebook and Twitter don’t help us socialize or have meaningful contact with others, that’s what knowledge suggests. The “connection” presented through such platforms does not update the connection in person, while previous studies have warned that common use of Facebook would possibly even lead to symptoms of depression and anxiety.
If social media and virtual platforms can’t help much when other people revel in significant “loneliness and isolation,” then a vital question arises: what are they for?
Well, they’re obviously the best for advertising. And they help politicians spread propaganda. Other than that, I let you decide.
I am a Generation Journalist based in London with many years of experience in the coverage of emerging technologies and how they are further transforming the global economy and society.
I am a generation journalist based in London with many years of experience in the emerging technologies box and how they are turning the global economy and society at large, in particular, into emerging technology boxes such as synthetic intelligence, truth and augmented truth, internet of things, cryptocurrencies, big data, quantum computing, cloud computing , as well as anything that promises to alter the way other people live and work. Over the years, I have explored the implications of that generation for Wired, TechCrunch, The Verge, The Daily Dot, The Sun, VentureBeat, ComputerWeekly and TechRadar, among others. And since my writing considers the broader implications of the generation, I am also no stranger to the coverage of political and social issues.