Instagram, or how to be happily toxic

Imagine un lugar en el que cualquier sentimiento que no sea la felicidad estuviera prohibido. Al inicio quizás podría pensar que ese lugar utópico sería muy bueno. Pero diversos estudios y expertos han llegado justo a la conclusión contraria. La imposición del pensamiento positivo como única solución a los problemas desterrando las emociones negativas se conoce como “positividad tóxica” (toxic positivity, en inglés) y, según un artículo académico publicado en mayo por la National Education Association (NEA) de EE UU, puede convertir dichas emociones negativas en más poderosas. ¿Por qué? Porque cuando una persona no puede sentirse optimista y se siente obligado a ello, tiende a sentir que está fallando.

Faced with positive thinking, which focuses on the benefits of having an optimistic perspective to problems, this toxic attitude requires the positivity of people regardless of the challenges that are faced, which potentially silences their emotions and dissuades them to seek support Social.Social networks, with profiles that project perfect lives, contribute to that attitude, by making the rest of the users who have to be happy and maintain a balanced and successful life all the time.And especially Instagram, where "perfect" bodies and faces converge, fashion clothes and trend products, the best landscapes and vacations that everyone thinks they want, has become the ideal breeding ground for this toxicity.

The Internet businessman Kalev Leetaru already warned in an article published in 2019 in Forbes, in which he wrote that “a growing body of research and argument suggests that being saturated with such perfect images in which each scene represents life inHis best moment can make people less happy when they compare their images staged with their own lives ”.Leetraru pointed out that it is ironic that in a digital world "full of hatred and horrors", Instagram is frequently criticized "for being too positive, happy and edifying".And studies show that I was not entirely wrong.

According to the American Association of Psychiatry, it is less likely that people who feel pressured to smile in the face of adversity seek medical and psychiatric support when it comes to their mental health, because “they can feel isolated or ashamedof seeking help because the stigma deter a person from looking for a treatment ”.And if we go further, according to a study by the University of East London published in the International Journal of Wellbeing, a positive bias could make people who experience abuse “underestimize their gravity and remain in their relationships”."Optimism, hope and forgive.

Instagram, how have we get here?

"We see a toxic positivity on social networks when people who share content on life challenges obtain as the only answers too positive comments that ignore that person could feel annoying, tired, worried," he explains in an ABC Everyday Brock articleBastian, researcher at the Faculty of Psychological Sciences of the University of Melbourne and that has focused his work on the impact that the search for happiness can have on our well -being.“But in other ways, the experience of toxic positivity may not be a publication, a comment or a series of specific comments, but rather a feeling that seizes the user little by little as it consumes more content of people who shareOnly the best and most exciting moments of their lives ”Underline Bastian.

In conversation with...Dee Bleakley - Motivation 3 Truths and A Lie Is Onnesday, 7th July at 9 AM -9.30am. Join… https://t.CO/CY1M8EMGI

— UoA Business School Wed Jun 16 08:29:35 +0000 2021

Naturally, users who share great content, only exhibit a cut of their reality and, unintentionally, transmit to their followers that pressure that everything always has to be special and brilliant.There is no place in the feed for sad faces, failures and anxiety.But just because one does not want to prove them, the negative feelings do not disappear.According to German psychologist Doris Röschmann, consulted by the DPA agency, "the consequences [of hiding and burying negative feelings] can be insomnia or even depressions" in addition that "not being sincere with the same, in the long run, can affect the systemImmune ".

“A growing research body suggests that this emphasis on unattainable perfection actually has a harmful effect on our mental health.That instead of being inspired by an endless flow of happy images, we begin to compare our own real lives with the false and chosen moments of others.That instead of feeling empowered by the achievements and fate of a few lucky ones, we feel depressed in our own state, ”Leetaru clarifies in Forbes.

But what can be done?Is toxicity and hatred also needed in the networks to be able to participate fully in the digital world?Is Instagram and your eternal happiness a sentence for the suffering of its users?

Balance and consciousness

“Not everyone wants to share their struggles on social networks, and that's fine.But it is good to remember when I am consuming it, ”explains Bastian A Abc Everyday."Healthy positivity is to leave space for negative emotions and feel comfortable with them, because the best way to be happy is to rely on those awkward experiences, since if we avoid them, they get worse," says the expert.

There are ways to avoid toxic positivity.Some strategies recommended by the expert clinical psychologist on this subject, Jacquelyn Johnson, in Medical News Today, include practices such as identifying and appointing emotions instead of trying to avoid them, talk to people of trust about them - including negative feelings - recognize thenegative emotions as something normal and important of human experience and seek support in a therapist.

Instagram, meanwhile, seem to have already taken certain measures related to the subject.Above all, through the I like (Likes, in English).The social network has made public the tool that allows you to remove the reactions counter with the intention of improving the mental health of its users.Multiple studies, such as the Social Media Studio Use and ITS Impact on Relationships and Emotions published by the Brigham Young University or Social Social Networking and Addiction published by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, have triedyounger generations - like centennials and millennials - that use these applications are experiencing negative effects on mental health that their roots have in the "toxic ecosystem" of networks of networks.

Could a network full of "happiness" to succeed and make us happy?For Leetraru, Instagram's experience suggests that even a platform that enhances the “happy first” type content will only make us look for the sadness we feel."In summary, through the pink lens of the happy sites first, we only see brief moments of happiness staged instead of the reality of the total life experiences that surround those moments, comparing all our life with these brief moments," he details the expert.

Maybe everything converges in a reality that we all live, but that we usually disguise: not everything is always great.What is exhibited on social networks is just a part - not always true - of reality.

You can follow El País Technology on Facebook and Twitter or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.