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Metasocial World, Herd Mentality, and Loneliness · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

0:01
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Cure's Mind
0:04
podcast. My name is Gabriel Ellis, I'm a
0:07
psychologist, a contemporary philosopher and psychotherapist.
0:11
And today I want to take a deeper look after the
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introduction last time to the topic of loneliness, the new
0:19
loneliness, as I call it an isolation.
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New because not just because a new topic, but the extent of
0:28
perceived and lived loneliness today, which is much higher and
0:33
stronger than before. And it is due to the advance of
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social media and the extent in which people interact with
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social media. So in that sense, it's not a new
0:44
phenomenon, but it has gained a new dynamic.
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And I want to reflect on that today.
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So today I want to speak about the metasocial world that we
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interact with, for example, in social media, herd mentality and
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it's connection to loneliness. First of all, and this is kind
1:04
of a bridge to the previous episode, I want to point out how
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we generally live in a more stressful, demanding way of
1:14
life. We have a lifestyle where we
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have to more or less constantly worry or think about our income
1:23
situation. Is our job secure?
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We are expected to engage in lifelong learning.
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We have to deal with sometimes complex bureaucratic processes.
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There is a demand, a high demand on flexibility on our part, be
1:40
it in relationships or in work. At the same time, we're supposed
1:43
to self develop, to do therapy, to engage in the process of self
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realization. We have to know who we are and
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what we want. And often enough we have to deal
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with relationship issues or topic as well on a frequent
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basis. Now the amount of these issues,
2:04
enough would be enough to burden us, burden our mind, our mental
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processing with enough demands. But on top of that, it's not
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only the problems that we have there, but we are more and more
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aware of a very large amount of possibilities of how to address
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this issues. So let's say if I want to
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understand myself better of who I am as a person, then of course
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I will go online. I will check out tools or
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approaches and Internet and there I find a whole
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supermarket. Which one should I choose?
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I don't know. Let me start with mindfulness.
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Then I do a first step in mindfulness and I think is that
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the right for me? Maybe I should try something
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else. And so whenever I choose
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something, I am quite aware that I have rejected and de
2:58
prioritized other approaches and this leaves behind a certain
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insecurity if I did the right choice.
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Same with parenting. There's so many approaches to
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parenting. Same with dealing with
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communication issues at work or private life.
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And basically, pick any other complex and principally
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unsolvable topic that we're dealing with on a daily basis.
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And there you will find a myriad of possibilities of how to
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approach them. Leaving the individual who has
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to make those choices in a conundrum, not knowing if what I
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choose is the right thing. Or maybe I'm paralysed by all
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those choices and I'm not willing to take the first step,
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to book a weekend retreat or a seminar, or to switch between
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different, for example, YouTube pundits and commentators who
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educate me on a certain topic. So it's both the extent and the
3:59
range of the issues and the challenges that we're facing and
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the high awareness of the so many possibilities that can
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prove my approach wrong. This leaves us behind is
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basically insecure individuals who are quite stressed with the
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decisions, the impactful decisions that we have to make
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in our life. Of course, there are also
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positive aspects in this. I don't want to deny that to
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have a range of possibilities to choose from is of course
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advantageous, but at the same time I want to focus today on
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the negative impact that it has just to make clear how that how
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these elements in our modern daily life lead to more
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isolation and a perceived sense of loneliness.
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When it comes, for example, to relationships.
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It's always a question of who am I listening to?
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Am I still in a place where I'm doing interesting compromises in
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my relationship that benefits us both?
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Or maybe I am already exploited. The answer to this depends on
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the person that I'm talking to. It's depends on the voices that
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I'm listening to, the Instagram followers of the Instagram
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pundits that I'm listening to. So it is shifting and the lack
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of authorities in that, in that sense, the lack of common sense
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leaves me behind in a destabilized position who has to
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make up their mind and to shift their opinions again and again.
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It's not clear whether I should, when it comes, for example, to
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work or to relationships, if I should advance a more strategic
6:03
approach. Should I be more stoic and not
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worry about the things that I cannot control?
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Focus on myself? Should I be more psychological?
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Should I trust my intuition? Again, these are all examples
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for the different different approaches that people have good
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arguments for, but that that leave me in a bit of an
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ambivalent situation where I don't know what is the exactly
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right thing for me to choose good.
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So this is the general situation as it is.
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Let me come now to what I call metasocial calculations.
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With metasocial I mean that we basically deal with socially
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relevant topics even when we don't do it within real person
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interactions. And I mean with that social
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media obviously Youtubing, tik toking and so on.
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It is a well known fact already that strong interaction with
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Facebook and Instagram tend to make people more dissatisfied or
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depressed. Why?
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Because when we look at the content that fellow people that
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other people put in the net, we enter into complex social
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comparison processes, we compare ourselves with them.
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We are having in the background questions like what do I think
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about it? Do I like that?
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What would I say in this situation?
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Do I agree? Is that right?
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Is that wrong? I how would it make me feel and
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how it would it make me look if in conversations I would to
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advocate such opinions as the ones that I see online?
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Do I have to change my opinion now after seeing arguments,
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after seeing content that is put in social media?
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Or can I maintain my attitude as it is?
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But if I can maintain it, then how do I defend myself?
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How do I defend my opinion, my conviction against those of
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others? This, these are calculations,
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meta social calculations that are running in the background of
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my mind whether I know it or not.
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And that burden, my processor, if you like, it, burdens my RAM,
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my internal RAM, and sometimes leads to an overload.
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Now, some people would argue that it was basically the same
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when we back in the 80s and 90s we're watching TV.
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But I would say that there's a big difference when we're
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watching TV, it's more passive. It's not as democratic as the
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engagement and social, social media.
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When we are watching TV, we perceive the people that appear
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in TV as very far away. They are the ones on the TV.
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Of course, this is this distance is even bigger in movies.
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But even if there's a documentary, the stylized form
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the this play, the presentation suggests that I am the one at
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home. The people on TV are the ones
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that are exposed and somehow special is not as democratic As
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for example, it's streaming game, streaming Twitch, Discord,
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or if it's in social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok
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and so on. I feel myself when I'm engaging
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in those meta social processes on social media.
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I feel myself addressed as a direct interaction partner.
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I could be the one who is either creating this content.
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Certainly I'm one who can directly comment.
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If it's in live streams, I can directly interact with the
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streamer. So I'm much more addressed in a
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very democratic sense as someone who can see eye to eye with
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other participants or the content producers themselves.
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The consequence of this is that engaging with social media does
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not relax Meta. Social calculations are a burden
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from the mind. Even if I think that I'm just
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watching. So I could be on the couch and
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you know, I'm doing my thumb flipping on YouTube Shorts, on
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TikTok and so on. And if my girlfriend asked me
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what I'm doing, I would say I'm just relaxing.
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But the mind is not relaxing. Those social comparisons, those
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processes that I mentioned before, where I relate to the
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content, content that I'm watching in a very direct sense,
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as if it's approaching me, as if it's addressing me, as if I
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could have done that, if, as if I should comment on this.
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These are elaborate processes that are very intense, that are
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very complex, running in the background, and they effectively
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prohibit, they avoid me being relaxed.
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So when I engage with social media, my social battery is
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depreted, depleted. I am pretty tired from social
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interaction. I'm fatigued without having
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interacted with real people at all.
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After such a fatigue, I'm much less inclined to seek real and
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real life personal social interactions.
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So after work, I would say I'm relaxing in quotes, which means
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I'm engaging in social media. Do I want after that to go out
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and meet people, strangers, acquaintances, friends?
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I would say my clear tendency is that basically I'm already
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fatigued. My social battery is empty.
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I have done my piece, I've done my part.
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Or in other words, the background processes that have
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been engaged with social media, they have fatigued my interest
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to go out to real, on top of that real people.
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So social media is mimicking social interactions.
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It's fatiguing us in a similar way as social interactions, as
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real life social interactions do, without giving us the real
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benefit of social interactions so that those real life
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interactions become too stressful and my probability is
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reduced to engage in real life with people.
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Another aspect that I want to highlight is that the
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interaction with social media increases my expectations
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because it is so Democrat as I democraticized because it's so
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democratic. I compare myself not only to the
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attractive parts in social media.
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If I see, you know, the food videos and pictures, the selfies
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that people take, the special landscapes where they are, the
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cities where they are, these are actually nice things to see.
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And when I compare myself to them, to these nice content, I
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will get a little bit more dissatisfied and depressed about
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my life. Why is that so bland?
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Why are people enjoying themselves in Venice with those
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great burgers and all of that? And I'm just sitting here on my
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couch and not having these things.
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So not only am I engaging with kind of beautiful, interesting
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content, I'm engaging also with negative interesting content.
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When I watch social media posts, I have this kind of media diet.
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I start to ask myself if I am comparable to the problems that
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I see there on the screen. Do I also have adult ADHD?
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Where am I traumatized? Should I take antidepressants?
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Should I get some Botox? Some fillers?
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Have I been emotionally exploited in a relationship
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before? Are there red flags in my
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current relationship or in my dating that I should pay
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attention to? These are questions that I ask
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myself more and more. And from my clinical experience,
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these are questions that people come into therapy now.
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They have had the social media diet, they have absorbed those
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perspectives about trauma, about emotional exploitation, about
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red flags and so on. And it bothers them and they
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don't know quite what to make of it.
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Or they have made-up their mind that they also are like that.
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They have identified themselves with this content and it has
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contributed to a problematic perspective on themselves and on
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others. And this is what they bring into
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therapy as well, additionally to the issues that they're
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struggling with anyway. So social media has practically
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opened up new criteria that can that I can perceive as
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problematic, both about other people, potential contacts,
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potential friends, partners, dating, and myself.
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So as a result, our demands and expectations change the demands
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and expectations on ourselves, which can make me depressed.
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I should enjoy more, I should go to places, I should be more fun
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and so on. And the expectations of others,
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I become more picky. I want them to have less red
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flags. I want them to match me in a
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certain way. I want them to have attitudes
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and convictions that match mine. I become more picky with others,
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more selective. I deem less people as worthy of
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being my true friends. And there is a direct link to a
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sense of isolation and to a sense of loneliness.
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Another point that comes into the picture, and these are all
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puzzle pieces that we'll put together in the end, is mass
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psychology, and in particular the psychology of swarms and
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herds in general. Knowing where society is headed,
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where my group, my reference group, my peer group is headed
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is important for our survival. We don't want to stand out too
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much. We don't want to be an outsider.
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Outsiders have traditionally and in the animal realm, a smaller
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chance for survival. They get less support, maybe
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they're excluded and by exclusion they might be exposed
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to the difficulties, vagaries and problems of life that we
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face when we have no support group, when we cannot count on
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the services of society and the protection of people.
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The protection mechanisms that I'm placed either economically
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or through police and so on, to be excluded is felt like a death
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sentence psychologically and in real, in real life.
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In reality, if I don't have the money to back it up and to buy
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all this support, it is in fact something that is, that can make
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life really difficult. Now, what is interesting here
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when we look at the research that has been done on swarms and
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herds, when the entertainment business picked up the need to
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simulate, for example, in animations or as in computer
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graphics. When we have movies and we want,
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for example, like in Gladiator, we see those bird swarms of
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birds flying around Rome, ancient Rome, when we need to
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make those simulations, the question is, how do we simulate
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this? We, we don't want to basically
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paint each bird again and again on every frame.
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We, it's much more elegant to have a formula, an algorithm,
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and this algorithm needs to predict the movement of the
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swarm so that it looks lateral at the beginning.
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What they did was to have an algorithm where each individual
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bird, so to speak, each individual subject in the
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simulation had an understanding of the whole swarm and that when
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the majority of the swarm moved direction that the individual
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would follow. This proved to be very
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ineffective and it led to wrong calculations.
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It did not look natural. What proved much more lean and
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much more elegant, much more effectful and naturally looking.
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Our simulations where the individual, let's say bird is
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not looking at the whole group, but is it when it's looking at
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its neighbors, the direct neighbors.
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So when a simulated bird looks at it's, let's say 5-6 neighbors
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and two or three of them make a certain movement to the left,
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the individual bird, so to speak, a simulated one.
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We'll assume that this is a representation of the whole
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group. Of the whole swarm, and so it
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will adjust its movement as well.
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Even though it has no idea how the whole big group is moving,
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it will infer. It will assume that the movement
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of its immediate neighbors is a correct estimate of how the huge
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group, the peer group is moving, and it moves accordingly.
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OK, and there you see already a possible connection to humans as
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human beings. Of course, it's also important
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for us how society and quote things.
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We don't want to stand out, we don't want to be left alone.
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We don't want society, our relevant group to think that we
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are crazy, that we are inappropriate, that we are not
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worth of love and so on. We want in a certain sense to
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fit in regardless of what some people say, that they don't care
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about it psychologically. Of course they care.
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They have no other way of doing it.
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So mass psychology, social psychology is crucial for us,
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it's very important for us, and it's equally fundamentally
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important what kind of calculations we do as part of
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the herd, as part of the swarm. And I suggest that we take this
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parallel from the animal realm and what I told you about
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computer simulations and apply it to herself as well.
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When we look at our immediate neighbors and we see them moving
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in a certain way, I think that we cannot help to assume that a
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much bigger group of our relevant neighbors, that the
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society is moving in a certain direction.
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And here the phenomenon of echo chambers becomes very
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problematic. I think I described it in the
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last episode, if you're not familiar with the term echo
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chamber, it means that through the interaction with social
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media, with YouTube and so on, that the algorithms that
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calculate what we should see next base our base their
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recommendations on what we have seen before.
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And so kind of my diet, my media diet becomes more and more
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uniform. I see more and more of the same
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that I have digested in the past.
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And so people become and wrapped in a bubble, in an echo chamber
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where their thoughts, their interests, their convictions,
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their hobbies, the inclinations are reflected in the media that
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is suggested to them by the social media platforms and by
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their algorithms. This is called an echo chamber.
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The most divided society in the West that we know is that has
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been researched is the US. So people there live very much
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in social media echo chambers so that people who are liberal, for
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example, will mostly find attitudes that reflect their
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owns their own ones. When people are conservative,
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Trumpists and so on, they will find social media content that
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again reflect their own opinion. They will not find content that
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will make them empathetic to the other side.
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These are the echo chambers now. The echo chambers when I
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interact less within with real people in in the flesh, if they
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cease to be my immediate neighbors, so to speak.
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And here think of the swarm and herd psychology.
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If my immediate neighbors become the ones that I interact with in
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metasocial processes, on social media, on YouTube, Tiktok,
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Instagram, then I will get a warped.
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I will get biased, a wrong, a misled understanding of where
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the group is moving, where the group is heading.
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It will be polarized. It will be falsified.
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My perception of reality of what society is will be wrong because
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I don't get a realistic depiction of society on social
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media, but one that is advantageous for the social
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media platform because they want me to click, they want me to
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watch the ads, right? And so I will get a completely
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warped and changed and wrong perspective on what society is.
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If I face it online, I don't exactly in what way it is wrong,
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but for sure I will interact much more with people that think
25:15
like me. I will villainize people,
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attitudes, convictions that are kind of adequate to the group at
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the echo chamber that I belong to.
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And this is in stock difference to what I would see if I were to
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talk to 100 random people. I would not see this kind of
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clear division, this clear contrast as I see it on social
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media. So putting all this puzzle
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pieces together, let's start again from a psychological
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perspective and then we'll wrap it up.
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For which aspects do we desire the most recognition for the
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ones that we have already? When I have been told that I am
26:06
smart 100 times, do I look for the next person to tell me that
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I'm smart? No, basically, I'm, I'm full of
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this. I'm, it's become part of my
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identity, part of my conviction of myself, that I'm attractive,
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that I'm smart. I'm beautiful, I'm
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compassionate, I'm logical, emotional, whatever it is.
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I have got this recognition already.
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I'm not looking for the next one.
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What I'm desiring, which, which needs a desire recognition for,
26:43
are the ones that has, that don't have been recognized, that
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don't have been seen, right. And where I am, am I rejected,
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Where am I not seen? Typically in aspects that are
27:01
less compatible with society. Freud in his 1930 book
27:07
Civilization and Its Discontents, he basically
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reduced it to aspects that are connected with aggression.
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The individual, you see it when you know, when you have
27:17
children, when you see them young children in everyday life,
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they have to learn painfully slowly that they are not to act
27:26
out their aggressive impulses. It takes time for them to learn.
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This is called socialization. So within us there are
27:38
aggressive needs, aggressive desired, that are controlled by
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society. Society has no interest in US
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acting out on our aggression. This would this would exceed the
27:51
possibilities of any society. It will lead to chaos, anarchy,
27:55
and so on. It bursts the limitations,
28:00
exceeds the limitations of what society can handle.
28:02
So society, and this is Freud's argument, but for the sake of
28:06
simplicity, let's go with it. Society is interested in
28:10
controlling the aggression of individuals.
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So this is an aspect that individuals are inherently
28:19
feeling a lack of recognition for.
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So when I meet in real life with people, they're not very much
28:28
interested in my suppressed aggressions.
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They want things to be peaceful, basically agreeable, compatible.
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So with those repressed aggressions, I'm entering the
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social media realm. Yes, it's nice to have, you
28:50
know, the content that is somewhat interesting,
28:53
documentaries, all that. But what tickles my nerves, what
28:57
really gets me engaged, what excites me, is the dangerous
29:02
content on the Internet, on social media.
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When people express freely something that corresponds to my
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suppressed desires and needs for aggression, sexuality, kinks,
29:18
deviant social attitudes, unacceptable convictions.
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Then I am heard, Then I'm seen and compared to the things were
29:27
recognized already, compared to the aspects that are bland and
29:33
common sense art and so on. This one really excites me.
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This invites me to identify with those voices, with these
29:43
contents, because it listens to me.
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It recognizes me in a way where I have not been recognized
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before, where I'm missing recognition and strong opinions,
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controversial opinions, controversial when I go out in
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real life, but in my echo chamber, in my social media
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realm, that's fine. And it invites me in anonymous
30:11
comments and content that I provide, it invites me to also
30:17
express these suppressed emotions, those aggressions,
30:23
those otherwise unacceptable opinions and convictions.
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It invites me to do that. Finally, there's a space where I
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can do that. Because on the street, at work,
30:33
in my relationship, no, people want harmony there.
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More or less, they don't want to press something that could
30:43
exceed the limitations of our social contract.
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We have done this in the past before those repressed
30:53
aggressions, those repressed desires and needs.
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There was always a space for this.
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Where was it? It was well, first of all, in
31:02
books. And of course, there were so
31:04
very trustful conversations with a few people.
31:06
But leaving those aside, it was never in the big society.
31:11
It was in books, it was in movies.
31:15
Then came computer games. That became more interesting
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because in books and watching movies, I'm passive.
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I'm not so much involved as an individual.
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I cannot identify so much with it, like it doesn't allow me,
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doesn't want me to bring it out. I'm supposed to perceive, to
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read, to watch. In computer games, it becomes
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interactive. I can kill and slash the
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monsters for example. I can do sexual acts in the
31:46
computer game that otherwise would not be acceptable.
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Well, and after computer games we have social media.
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And as long as I can express those views without facing real
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life consequences in my life, when I can express aggressive,
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demeaning, polarizing views on the Internet and I still can go
32:15
to the supermarket and get my food, I'm still keeping my job,
32:20
I will do it. And so this is a new dimension,
32:26
a new dimension of resonating with, picking up, expanding on
32:31
suppressed emotions, aggressions, ideas, thoughts,
32:36
convictions that now have a completely new way of
32:42
manifesting themselves in a quasi, in a meta social realm
32:50
that comes with the promise of anonymity of not real
32:58
consequences. But of course, as we have seen
33:03
now in the recent years, of course it has consequences.
33:06
It has consequences for the whole society.
33:12
So this leads to political trouble, to polarization, to
33:17
more aggression in the real social realm because, and here
33:22
we start to tie the knots together, to put the puzzle
33:26
pieces together. I'm going on social media.
33:30
I understand what is acceptable. I understand for where society
33:35
is going based on the behaviour of my immediate neighbors, Swarm
33:41
theory, herd theory, mass psychology, group psychology.
33:47
And if my immediate neighbors are not the real people in real
33:50
life, they are fake. My real new members, neighbors
33:57
are the ones that I am online with my warped perception of
34:02
reality. This is my new reality.
34:07
These are the people that I agree with.
34:09
These are the people that resonate with me.
34:12
They acknowledge, they recognize my needs.
34:15
We have that in common. This is my group.
34:20
OK? What does it have to do with
34:22
loneliness when I now go out and I meet people in real life?
34:30
In real life, our interaction is governed by what Floyd has
34:35
described, for example, by the suppression of aggression, by
34:39
the suppression of risky needs, risky desires.
34:45
So what I feel, what I perceive when I go outside and meet real
34:50
people is that it's kind of bland.
34:53
Maybe it's boring, a lot of chitchat, small talk.
35:01
What I know from the interaction with social media is that there
35:04
is a level of feeling, of being recognized in a much more true
35:10
way. And so when I go out and meet
35:14
people, I feel bored, I feel disconnected, I feel lonely.
35:21
I feel less inclined to see them again, or for a long time.
35:25
I keep it to a minimum. So I disapprove of them.
35:32
I like them less. I don't subscribe to their
35:38
ideas. I don't like how they express
35:41
themselves. It's clumsy.
35:44
Maybe they're not listening enough to me.
35:47
I'm not really interested to listen enough to them.
35:53
Generally there's less recognition and that is why I
35:59
become picky about dating partners.
36:02
This is why I get picky about assessing and evaluating my
36:08
relationship. It is not as real as I have
36:13
learned it can be, of course, in an unreal sense in social media.
36:22
And This is why in general, real contacts in real life are now
36:28
less satisfying. They pale in comparison.
36:32
So I spent more time on social media.
36:34
It's more satisfying. Those meta social processes on
36:39
social media deplete additionally my social battery,
36:44
which makes me less inclined, which makes me fatigued with the
36:47
idea of going out to see real people.
36:50
When I do push myself and go out to see real people, I find them
36:54
bland and boring and I feel isolated.
36:59
And so this is a reinforcing circle of frustration, of
37:05
boredom, of perceiving people as fake, as not real.
37:15
Social media excites me. People are bored, boring,
37:23
uninterested, uninteresting, and this is basically a cluster F.
37:33
This is, you know, a combination of such disadvantages, qualities
37:40
about how social media is structured that it leads to us
37:45
feeling disconnected from real life, leading psychologically to
37:50
a very unhealthy sense of isolation, a sense of
37:55
loneliness. And we cannot connect to real
37:57
people and we find solace in the content contact to people
38:03
online. This is, I think the problem
38:07
that we've been facing. This is, I think, a more
38:11
complete picture to understand why this is such a change and
38:19
has been a change in the past years with a sense of perceived
38:23
loneliness is increased so much and as the society and for
38:30
legislation, for example, this is a challenge that we seriously
38:34
have to address because there is the danger of the civil
38:39
contract, the implicit base on what our societies are founded
38:44
on. There is a chance that we'll
38:47
lose this more and more psychologically.
38:51
We have to deal with the consequences for mental health,
38:56
for connection, for purpose. People do not know what they're
39:03
doing. They have not chosen the price
39:05
that they pay when they engage a lot in social media.
39:10
And I think as educators, it is our responsibility to let them
39:15
know how much they are sacrificing.
39:20
This is it for today. In the next episode, I want to
39:23
focus on more philosophical foundations and deep
39:28
psychological foundations that describe why we are so
39:32
interested in the social realm at home.
39:35
Why is it so important to us? The argument of that I brought
39:40
up in the beginning that we, this is our need for survival.
39:45
It's not sufficient. There is something deeply
39:48
ingrained in the mechanisms of the mind that makes it extremely
39:52
interested and susceptible to social cues, the social
39:57
situation. And this belongs to our
40:00
understanding of the big picture, why it has so dramatic
40:05
consequences when our social perception goes wrong, as I
40:08
described today. And so I would like to invite
40:11
you next time. To go into the death of our mind
40:16
in that sense. If you have questions, let me
40:19
know in the comments below. I hope you found it interesting
40:22
and I'll see you next time. Goodbye.