When I was in high school and college, back in the 1980's, I don't think I even once heard the words "social anxiety". I mean it existed, but it wasn't enough of a problem that ordinary people gave it a name. Now it's everywhere, and I don't think it's limited to the millennial generation, because I've got it too, and worse than when I was younger. So where does it come from?
Yesterday, on weed, I wrote this: "Does the internet cause anxiety by normalizing a socially easier simworld?" In more words: The internet is an unprecedented global artificial world, in which social behavior has looser rules and less serious consequences than the world of modern society. If you're at a job interview, or at a party, or even just going to the store, the rules are tighter and the stakes are higher than when you're goofing off anonymously in some comment thread.
So what happens to someone who spends more time on the internet than out in society? The easier world becomes the new baseline, and what used to be the normal world now feels difficult and frightening. As the social internet grows, this happens to more and more people.
From Ran Prieur’s 057.
I think this is right on point. People are socially anxious because the consequences of being online are next to nothing, while real life has visceral intensity. There is a fantastic story written in 1909 called "The Machine stops", written by E. M. Forster, which not only predicts technological developments like the internet, which allows people to stay in their room all day long because they can get everything delivered to them, but also the inevitable collapse of that world. Incredibly prophetic considering how long ago it was written, and now more relevant than ever. One aspect described in the story is the fear of direct experience. For instance, quote:
And yet—she was frightened of the tunnel: she had not seen it since her last child was born. It curved—but not quite as she remembered; it was brilliant—but not quite as brilliant as a lecturer had suggested. Vashti was seized with the terrors of direct experience. She shrank back into the room, and the wall closed up again.I think it's fair to say that Forster also predicted the fear of direct experience, which manifests itself as social anxiety, amongst other things. Direct experience is scary because it pokes the bubble of safety and control that the ego wants to live within. But the problem with safety is that the more desperately you cling for it, the less safe you feel.
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2024-08-25