Is Your Newsfeed Sabotaging Your Mental Health?

My childhood best friend died earlier this year at 29. She died a horrible death. She suffered.

There is nowhere to put this pain. Memories of her continuously spew into my thought stream.

Anna.

Her death notice arrived in my notifications, sandwiched between a photo of someone’s lunch and an offer to meet singles in my area.

I hadn’t spoken to Anna in over ten years. She only existed to me in a tiny, digital form—as inconsequential to my life as possible. Which is fine (most people are easier to deal with like that, anyway). But what happens when, as a result of lurking in the background of someone’s life, you become aware of something that actually emotionally destablises you?

Other facts I have learned through social media in the past two months:

1. My ex-best friend (another one) divorced her partner of ten years.

2. My ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend tried to kill herself.

3. Taylor Swift.

Most of the people I interact with online don’t actually exist to me. They’re either figments of the past, like Anna, or people I have a morbid curiosity about. I don’t stalk people on the Internet for fun (it’s too easy now), and in any case, I don’t have to—the Internet stalks them for me, classifying them under “suggested friends” or “people you may know”. Whether you are actually friends and whether you actually know them stopped being a relevant conversation in 2008. This is the future and nobody cares.

Or do they?

Mental illness—what it is, what it looks like and what we can do to help—has become a thing, thanks to the collective emotional fallout of Robin Williams’ suicide. And as big media tries to respond, we are starting to learn some basic facts. Lots of people are depressed. They are normal people—just like you and … well, not me, I’m a bit odd. The point is it’s an everyday problem. (Apparently this is news to some people. [Yes, I find it hard to believe too.])

But “mental health” isn’t just a concern for the mentally ill. Mental health is just like physical health—it requires constant attention, lest you become bananas.

Mental health, not to get too technical, is all the stuff inside your head—feelings, memories, flashbacks—which dictates how you feel. And I have found, ever since merging my consciousness with the Internet’s (read: fully embracing social media), I have been totally unequipped to deal with emotions I now experience as a result of witnessing major, traumatic life events of people that I used to know.

When my ex-best friend posted her divorce notice on Facebook (which, for the record, was so tenderly written, it nearly brought me to tears), I felt like a bite had been taken out of my stomach. What does one do with those feelings? I can’t go to my ex-best friend and say, “Sorry, I know we haven’t spoken in since I turned up to your house drunk in the middle of the day and made you cry—and that was two years ago—but I’m really devastated you’ve broken up with your partner and it’s made me sad in ways I didn’t know were possible”?

No, because:

1. We’re not friends any more,

2. She’s not responsible for the pain her divorce causes me, and,

3. It would just be weird.

And why would it be weird? Because it’s the Internet and—like everyone else—I’m just lurking in the background of your life.

This may sound fine on paper, but the reality is that I’m now subject to emotional content I would not otherwise encounter. I am a witness to personal tragedy, delivered by an indifferent medium that weighs everything with the same importance, and I’m left without an outlet to deal with it.

Could it be that our ability to communicate has outstripped our ability to deal with our emotions? Probably.

So what’s a human to do? Obviously, I’m not going to shut down all my social media accounts in case someone else gets a divorce I’m not ready to hear about—that would be extreme. And anyway, social media isn’t really the problem.

I am.

It’s not the Internet’s fault that I indulge in emotionally unhealthy activity online. YouTube is never going to come up with an alert that says, “Hey badkitty1984, this is the tenth documentary you’ve watched about the Jonestown massacre in a row—STOP NOW BEFORE YOU GO INSANE AND, BY THE WAY, YOU NEED TO BATHE.” (Although that would be nice.)

No. The only person who is in charge of what I feed my brain with is me. And whatever I feed my brain determines my mental health—it’s that simple. Filling up on emotionally irresponsible content may seem fun at the time, but it has consequences. Existential consequences. And I wouldn’t recommend it.

Here’s what I would recommend:

1. Showing up in the lives of people you really know and care about.

2. Talking to the people in your neighbourhood, and doing things together.

3. Taylor Swift.

Mental health is everyone’s personal and collective concern. Social media is a boon for humanity, with the potential to achieve social change so monumental, it is beyond the scope of anything I can personally imagine. But it is also a strange dimension, where nothing is really real, and it can leave you emotionally stranded if you’re not careful. Always remember that you’re the gatekeeper of your own mind (even though that sounds insane and like I need to watch less Ghostbusters—or more, I can never remember which).

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