Sweet. Loved the zoom dissociation concept especially due to my definition of friendship being “consistent, mutual, shared positive emotion”. The “shared” part is the physical proximity to others part. So to apply your model to pairs and peer groups -friends- which are the sources and mediators of love itself in our lives… what I get from your article is that digital media directly causes us to feel unloved and to be unloving and unlovable. Taken extreme it can literally kill love in the world. Think of the Harvard study on happiness as it applies to the above. Friends are everything. They are love, which is the capacity to make others happy.
I case can be made how oxytocin (physical touch), a bonding chemical, outweighs digital interactions. I prefer serendipitous(ly) running into friends in the real world and catching up with what’s happening in our lives, then giving them a “hug” or “handshake” when we depart.
I really enjoyed this article, and since I started limiting my time on the internet, I can observe this in some close people in my life.
Can someone confirm if there's talks about adding "Internet Addiction" into the DSM-5 as a personalty disorder? Is a personality disorder caused by Internet Addiction, or does a preexisting personality disorder gravitate towards Internet Addiction?
I remember trying to delete my Facebook account that it felt like going thru withdrawal symptoms of anxiety and mild depression from FOMO (fear of missing out), and Facebook policy about keeping your account open for a couple weeks after initially deleting my account just in case I changed my mind, compelled me to reactivate my account on a couple occasions before I finally pulled the plug. That was over six years ago and my overall mood has improved since I deleted my social media accounts and I have no desire to rejoin Meta's platforms. I have an older brother that's deeply involved in both Facebook and offline gaming, and he seems more "jittery" in person and a majority of the time has a low-level depression with occasional spikes of euphoria (I am guessing because he is getting positive reinforcement from a girl he has limerence for on Facebook). When trying to engage with him in person, he seems fragmented, and his depressive state makes me feel like I have to walk on eggshells around him (which for me is a red flag that I am dealing with a Cluster B personality disorder) so not to trigger a rage outburst (he always had periods of explosive rages before the internet came online). Since I am contact with him daily as my roommate, I now have to use the "low-contact" rule and it seems his online persona is more important to him than his day-to-day contacts out in the real world.
hallo. rather than leave an outrageously long comment here, I read your piece and it is generous, and warm, and I think it will provide a really clear entry point for some who work in this field the space to actually start entering it.
as for me, and not in a “you caused this” way, I hadn't been reading much writing through the lens of clinical psychology for some time, despite going through periods of obsessively doing so, this has unleashed a very, very big piece that I wrote today, in seven hours (which will click when you understand my POV haha), and I would absolutely love for you to read it as where yours is a clinician point of view, mine is as patient. I'm extremely interested as to what you'll think.
it is about how I think, how I survive, and how digital space has always made more sense to me than the frameworks we were handed.
The digital world was meant to be a “training ground”, not the actual landscape.
But what kind of map do you use for a landscape that is rapidly shifting? :
To maintain a level of adaptability to the new public cyber-square, while also remaining consistent to oneself, is an crazy modern-day balancing act. One that would be made more difficult if one didn’t have the best upbringing, or knew only of dysfunction.
Your reference to ego-states was cool. I am seeing this more and more online as well as to an alarming degree in the younger generation. One should not need an external reference point to “come back to oneself”. Not to this degree. The outsourcing of psychological interiority and internal workings to external loci of control (algorithms in this case) is terrifying.
In addition, there were a couple items that stood out to me:
“immersion in the ego state”
Really liked this phrase. You’re supposed to “dip your toes” in the ego-state tide-pool, not make it your ocean.
“This creates what we could call a "social media behavior bias," in which performance of a stilted ego state or “slice” results in social approval, which is one of the most powerful reinforcers known.”
I noticed this as far back as the “PUA” community. It’s gotten more endemic and even shallower now in society, if that’s even possible. A LACK of virtue is toxic, perhaps more than the presence of willful malice is.
“Authenticity is an afterthought or even a detriment to digital identity success”
Good observation.
As far as the Persona and attendant sub-personalities go, the lyrics to Sting's Shape of My Heart came to my mind:
Sweet. Loved the zoom dissociation concept especially due to my definition of friendship being “consistent, mutual, shared positive emotion”. The “shared” part is the physical proximity to others part. So to apply your model to pairs and peer groups -friends- which are the sources and mediators of love itself in our lives… what I get from your article is that digital media directly causes us to feel unloved and to be unloving and unlovable. Taken extreme it can literally kill love in the world. Think of the Harvard study on happiness as it applies to the above. Friends are everything. They are love, which is the capacity to make others happy.
I case can be made how oxytocin (physical touch), a bonding chemical, outweighs digital interactions. I prefer serendipitous(ly) running into friends in the real world and catching up with what’s happening in our lives, then giving them a “hug” or “handshake” when we depart.
I think of oxytocin and chemicals being like hardware. I’m far more interested in the software of the emotions, love and friendship…
I really enjoyed this article, and since I started limiting my time on the internet, I can observe this in some close people in my life.
Can someone confirm if there's talks about adding "Internet Addiction" into the DSM-5 as a personalty disorder? Is a personality disorder caused by Internet Addiction, or does a preexisting personality disorder gravitate towards Internet Addiction?
https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.2007.07101556
and
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28005417/
I remember trying to delete my Facebook account that it felt like going thru withdrawal symptoms of anxiety and mild depression from FOMO (fear of missing out), and Facebook policy about keeping your account open for a couple weeks after initially deleting my account just in case I changed my mind, compelled me to reactivate my account on a couple occasions before I finally pulled the plug. That was over six years ago and my overall mood has improved since I deleted my social media accounts and I have no desire to rejoin Meta's platforms. I have an older brother that's deeply involved in both Facebook and offline gaming, and he seems more "jittery" in person and a majority of the time has a low-level depression with occasional spikes of euphoria (I am guessing because he is getting positive reinforcement from a girl he has limerence for on Facebook). When trying to engage with him in person, he seems fragmented, and his depressive state makes me feel like I have to walk on eggshells around him (which for me is a red flag that I am dealing with a Cluster B personality disorder) so not to trigger a rage outburst (he always had periods of explosive rages before the internet came online). Since I am contact with him daily as my roommate, I now have to use the "low-contact" rule and it seems his online persona is more important to him than his day-to-day contacts out in the real world.
hallo. rather than leave an outrageously long comment here, I read your piece and it is generous, and warm, and I think it will provide a really clear entry point for some who work in this field the space to actually start entering it.
as for me, and not in a “you caused this” way, I hadn't been reading much writing through the lens of clinical psychology for some time, despite going through periods of obsessively doing so, this has unleashed a very, very big piece that I wrote today, in seven hours (which will click when you understand my POV haha), and I would absolutely love for you to read it as where yours is a clinician point of view, mine is as patient. I'm extremely interested as to what you'll think.
it is about how I think, how I survive, and how digital space has always made more sense to me than the frameworks we were handed.
two parts:
part 1
https://ellastening.substack.com/p/part-1-this-is-my-survival-document
part 2
https://ellastening.substack.com/p/part-2-this-is-my-survival-document
no obligation to respond or engage, but if you do read it—
you’ll understand the internet and probably your patients, more than most people ever have.
thanks for guiding me to your piece, I'm thoroughly glad to have read it.
e x
The digital world was meant to be a “training ground”, not the actual landscape.
But what kind of map do you use for a landscape that is rapidly shifting? :
To maintain a level of adaptability to the new public cyber-square, while also remaining consistent to oneself, is an crazy modern-day balancing act. One that would be made more difficult if one didn’t have the best upbringing, or knew only of dysfunction.
Your reference to ego-states was cool. I am seeing this more and more online as well as to an alarming degree in the younger generation. One should not need an external reference point to “come back to oneself”. Not to this degree. The outsourcing of psychological interiority and internal workings to external loci of control (algorithms in this case) is terrifying.
In addition, there were a couple items that stood out to me:
“immersion in the ego state”
Really liked this phrase. You’re supposed to “dip your toes” in the ego-state tide-pool, not make it your ocean.
“This creates what we could call a "social media behavior bias," in which performance of a stilted ego state or “slice” results in social approval, which is one of the most powerful reinforcers known.”
I noticed this as far back as the “PUA” community. It’s gotten more endemic and even shallower now in society, if that’s even possible. A LACK of virtue is toxic, perhaps more than the presence of willful malice is.
“Authenticity is an afterthought or even a detriment to digital identity success”
Good observation.
As far as the Persona and attendant sub-personalities go, the lyrics to Sting's Shape of My Heart came to my mind:
"I'm not a man of too many faces
The mask I wear is one."