Cuando se habla de las redes sociales y de los medios de comunicación, podríamos decir en términos religiosos, que estamos hablando de la herramienta de los dioses, y lo digo muy en serio, debido a que un Estado, una institución, un partido político, o una agrupación cualquiera, que sepa manejar el discurso y la herramienta, puede crear realidades, aunque esta realidad creada o inventada, en realidad no exista, la pueden hacer real a través de los medios y las redes sociales, generando matrices de opinión y creando, dependiendo del mensaje, unos sentimientos en la sociedad, que pueden ir, desde algo bueno, como la alegría, la expectativa, la esperanza, a algo muy malo, como el miedo, la desesperanza, la apatía, entre otros.

En este punto sería muy bueno recordar a Joseph Goebbels, que tiene dos frases que se hacen emblemáticas en la realidad que actualmente vivimos, “Miente, miente, miente, que algo quedará, cuanto más grande sea una mentira, más gente la creerá.” Y “Una mentira repetida adecuadamente mil veces se convierte en una verdad.” Texto de tesis de Eduardo Vega Fernández.

Así podemos ver, como las redes sociales y los medios de comunicación se utilizan, por un lado, para generar procesos de ataque y destrucción de personas, instituciones, países, sectores sociales, y/o grupos humanos, mientras que, por otro lado, las mismas se utilizan para denunciar injusticias, para hacer procesos de información diferentes a los de los grandes medios y para apoyar luchas, cambios o procesos, en diferentes niveles.

Eso se debe, a que las redes sociales no son controlables por los gobiernos o por las grandes empresas, siendo así, todos los que usamos las redes sociales, nos convertimos en generadores de contenido, algunos contenidos son buenos y edificantes en diferentes ámbitos, mientras que otros contenidos son dañinos y destructivos.

Y esto pasa en una sociedad, donde el ‘‘Gran Hermano’’ está permanentemente presente en nuestra vida, y donde sus mensajes impactan de manera directa en nosotros y en nuestra forma de ver el mundo, donde, como individuos, estamos dependiendo de una pantalla y de lo que ella nos informe.

Y en este mundo, totalmente comunicado y lleno de diferentes mensajes, vemos constantemente a individuos cada vez más solitarios y enajenados; personas que, aun estando acompañadas por cientos de individuos, se sienten aislados y encerrados en sí mimos, manteniendo un contacto virtual y no real con el mundo que les rodea.

Ojo, este proceso de aislamiento social, de enajenación y separación de los individuos, no es un hecho casual, sino que más bien es parte de una política bien definida, que ha sido estudiada y planteada desde hace décadas. Pero este no es el punto a tratar en este texto. Pero si alguna persona está interesada en el tema, le recomiendo leer La Condición Humana de Hannah Arendt, el Reporte Lugano 1 y 2 de Susan George, Sociedad Líquida, Sociedad, Sólida y en Busca de la Política de Bauman, entre otros autores como Žižek.

Una de las frases de Bauman que habla sobre este punto, es esta del libro la Sociedad Líquida; ‘‘La “red” de relaciones humanas (“red”: el juego interminable de conectarse y desconectarse) es hoy la sede de la ambivalencia más angustiosa, lo que enfrenta a los artistas de la vida a una maraña de dilemas que causan más confusión que pistas’’.

Y en medio de toda esta maraña de cambios, noticias reales y falsas, contenido de calidad y de baja calidad, además del contenido destructivo y excluyente, que constantemente, busca adeptos a sus posturas, nos encontramos nosotros, hoy en día, somos ciudadanos globales, pero lo somos, única y exclusivamente para la recepción de mensajes, ya que para otras cosas de la vida cotidiana, nos vemos excluidos, por razones económicas, políticas, religiosas o sociales, y es así, aún siendo seguidor del mensaje del medio, lo que en el fondo produce una mayor contradicción y frustración en las personas.

Por eso, vemos altos niveles de frustración y de rabia en los individuos, que sueñan tener o poseer bienes, que no pueden adquirir, generándoles este estrés, odio a empresarios, a los patronos y los políticos.

También, vemos comúnmente enormes grados de frustración, más que todo en las mujeres de nuestra sociedad, cuando no pueden cumplir con los cánones de belleza impuestos por la publicidad y los estereotipos de moda. Estando estos permanentemente en la pantalla de su teléfono inteligente, lo que va reforzando su frustración de manera continúa.

Esta situación de injerencia, se presenta de manera continúa en todos los ámbitos de la vida del individuo, dentro de la sociedad, hasta en las relaciones de pareja. De hecho, ahora es muy común ver a una ‘‘Pareja de novios, enamorados’’ sentados en una mesa, uno frente al otro, pero en vez de verse e interactuar, están viendo la pantalla de su celular. Y aunque no lo crean, vi a una vecina llorando, ya que terminó su relación con su novio, vía mensaje de texto.

Bauman, también habla de esto, les dejo una de frases del libro Vida de Consumo; ‘‘Uno de los efectos fundamentales de equiparar la felicidad con la compra de artículos que se espera que generen felicidad consiste en eliminar la posibilidad de que este tipo de búsqueda de la felicidad llegue algún día a su fin. […] Al no ser alcanzable el estado de felicidad estable, sólo la persecución de ese este objetivo porfiadamente huidizo puede mantener felices a los corredores que la persiguen’’.

Fuente/Source

Realmente se me hace un poco difícil, tocar este tema sin profundizar, de hecho, el mismo da para un trabajo de investigación académico, pero trataré de resumir lo más posible la idea.

Según varios autores, estamos en una sociedad enferma y sin valores, totalmente cambiante y en búsqueda de un camino que aún no consigue. Siendo así, estamos rodeados de personas afectadas por estas realidades, que no poseen un asidero de donde agarrarse y más aún, en el caso de los jóvenes, que reciben mensajes de sus padres y abuelos que son irreales, como el antes valedero mensaje de; ‘‘Estudia, gradúate, consigue un buen trabajo, ten familia y estabilidad’’.

Sin embargo; cualquier estudiante que lea las noticias, sabe que el Fondo Monetario Internacional, está hablando de que en Europa y en EE. UU., se perderá más del 40% del empleo formal a nivel profesional en los próximos cinco años, gracias a los avances de la inteligencia artificial. Por lo que ese mensaje está caduco, al igual que muchos otros en la actualidad.

Eso hace que los jóvenes tengan una realidad nada envidiable, que, por supuesto, termina llevando a las personas a la depresión y la desesperación. Y para evitar este tipo de situaciones, ellos se refugian en el mundo cibernético, en el streaming y en otras plataformas que los alejan de la realidad cotidiana, pero que finalmente los aísla y los incomunica de la relación humana verdadera.

También está el otro caso, mucho menos común en la mayoría de los jóvenes, donde se utilizan las redes de manera positiva, realizando actividades que podríamos llamar edificantes y productivas, y donde las redes funcionan, no como un ente de aislamiento, sino como un ente aglutinador y organizador.

En fin, los efectos de las redes y del uso de las plataformas en los individuos, depende en mucho de su utilización y del medio en el que se desenvuelva la persona. Ya que es bien sabido para nosotros, los casos de acoso cibernético y bullying a través de las redes sociales. Casos que se generan por venganza, por envidia, por exclusión, entre otras situaciones.

Es decir, casos que nacen por la perdida de valores y por la falta de ética, debido a que esos niños no tuvieron el seguimiento adecuado de sus familiares, y eso debido, a muchos de los factores sociales, medio tocados y nada profundizados en este texto.

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¿Qué hacer?

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Fuente/Source

Creo que lo principal que debemos hacer, es comunicarnos, valorar, respetar y sobre todo escuchar a las personas que nos rodean y con las que tenemos contacto.

Humanizar, nuestros ámbitos, empezando con unos buenos días en el ascensor y siendo cortés, amable y respetuoso con el otro.

Yo con los hijos de mi exnovia y con ella, cuando estábamos juntos, exigía una hora comunitaria, al principio, eso les fastidiaba, después la hora, se convirtió en varias horas y hasta venían los hijos de los vecinos y en ocasiones los vecinos adultos. En esa hora, no se permitían los celulares, ni las tabletas.

Se hacían juegos de mesa, cocinábamos juntos, jugábamos mímica, creábamos cuentos entre los cuatro y hacíamos actividades, donde participáramos juntos y en familia. Por último, el ejercicio comunitario, que iba desde salir a caminar, hasta subir al Ávila o ir a la playa, pero todo en comunidad.

Esto le dio a los niños mucha estabilidad emocional, al igual que a nosotros, los adultos, y los niños aprendieron, que nada es más importante que la relación humana, que el juego entre amigos en persona y con expresiones de cariño verdaderas.

Creo, eso es lo que tocaría hacer, humanizar, darle valor a las personas, enseñar a los niños y los jóvenes a dar el justo valor a las cosas y sobre todo escuchar y dar atención, dar valores e impulsar la ética personal. Simplemente con escuchar y atender a una persona, podemos lograr grandes cambios en ella.

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La atención médica:

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Hay casos donde ya hay procesos de depresión grave, intentos de suicidio y situaciones graves de salud como la anorexia, el consumo de drogas y alcohol, entre otras condiciones que se presentan, en esas condiciones, considero que lo mejor es ir a un psiquiatra, ya que ese tipo de situaciones, requieren tratamiento con medicamentos.

En casos en que apenas se comienza a ver el cambio en las personas, sean estás, niños, adolescentes o adultos, creo que el proceso de intervención se debe realizar conversando, acompañando y con el apoyo de un psicólogo. Pero, yo no iniciaría, jamás, llevando a una persona que esté iniciando un proceso de este tipo a un psiquiatra para que la medique.

Pero, todo depende de la realidad del caso que presente la persona.

Para terminar, les invitaría a leer a los autores aquí nombrados y otros, para que vean y entiendan la profundidad de este tema y sus consecuencias, que nos afectan en lo familiar, lo social, lo cultural, lo económico y lo religioso. En fin, afecta, todo lo referente a nuestra convivencia social, por lo que es importante conocer bien dicho tema.

Mis mejores deseos, disculpen lo largo y lo posiblemente disperso de las ideas.

Gracias por leerme.

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To Read in English

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Fuente/Source

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Social Networks, Health and Social Coexistence. Seventh Day Initiative. ESP/EN.

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Greetings

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First of all, thank you to the fellow members of the @Holos&Lotus community. In this case, I should start with a ''Mea culpa'', since in the years I have been in #Hive and being a follower of the community and having several acquaintances in it, I think this will be the second time I write in this brotherhood of writers and readers, and I do it by an invitation made by fellow @emiliorios, to participate in the Seventh Day initiative, which talks about Social Networks and Health.

Culminating with this greeting, I want to say that I hope to be able to give an opinion without jumping to an academic position and without making an epistle out of it. That being so, let's go to the topic, hoping that the same is to your liking, and if you have any doubt, about what I write, I ask you to leave it in the comments, and I will gladly answer you.

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Introduction:

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Talking about issues such as mental health and social networks, generates a very interesting discussion process, which I hope will allow the participants in this initiative, to expose different views on a very complex problem that is very studied and, at the same time, very silenced by the big media and media corporations.

In fact, when we talk about social networks and the media, we are talking about tools that, when well managed, can and effectively be elements of social control and, in turn, are the creators of the social imaginary, of a society that, without realizing it, is losing all the pillars of support, while these bases are being recreated, destroyed and created again at such a speed, that often people lose awareness of it.

Bauman puts it this way: "What used to be a project for "life" has now become an attribute of the moment. Once designed, the future is no longer "forever", but needs to be continuously assembled and disassembled. Each of these two seemingly contradictory operations is of equal importance and tends to be absorbed in equal measure." Book Liquid Society.

It is so shocking, the level of cultural, economic and social changes with which we live continuously, that institutions that felt stony, such as the Catholic Church, are in crisis today because they cannot adapt to the speed of social and cultural changes, which are generated in society and that are driven through the media and very strongly through social networks.

As I commented above, this topic has been very much studied, and in space, the works in this area are very well known, including those of sociologists and philosophers such as Zygmunt Bauman, Slavoj Žižek, Pierre Bourdieu. Although he did not touch the subject directly, since he was before his time, we can also talk about Hannah Arendt.

And finally, not to extend too much, we also have novelists like Aldous Huxley with ''Brave New World'' and George Orwell with ''1984'', who touch the theme of cultural change and social control, under two tonics that will be very common to us today, which are fear through the Totalitarian State and control through consumption, entertainment and loss of values, leading both conditions to individuals who make up society, to the alienation of what happens and happens in their environment.

Now, I imagine that the reader will say, If we are talking about social networks and mental health, why this introduction, going through sociologists, philosophers and novelists. Well, the reason is very simple: everything we are living as a society—the place where we arrive and the possible places where we are going—has already been visualized and then studied, which gives us, the possibility of being able to give an opinion on this interesting situation, with some basis; in fact, I had the opportunity to delve into it in my master's degree and later in professional practice.

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Social Networks:

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Fuente/Source

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When we talk about social networks and the media, we could say in religious terms, that we are talking about the tool of the gods, and I am very serious, because a state, an institution, a political party, or any grouping, that knows how to handle the discourse and the tool, can create realities. Even if this created or invented reality does not really exist, they can make it real through the media and social networks, generating matrices of opinion and creating, depending on the message, feelings in society, which can range from something good, such as joy, expectation, and hope, to something very bad, such as fear, hopelessness, and apathy, among others.

At this point, it would be very good to remember Joseph Goebbels, who has two phrases that become emblematic of the reality in which we currently live: "Lie, lie, lie, lie, that something will remain; the bigger a lie, the more people will believe it." And "A lie adequately repeated a thousand times becomes a truth." Thesis text by Eduardo Vega Fernández.

Thus, we can see, how social networks and the media are used, on the one hand, to generate processes of attack and destruction of people, institutions, countries, social sectors, and/or human groups, while, on the other hand, they are used to denouncing injustices, to make information processes different from those of the mainstream media and to support struggles, changes or processes, at different levels.

This is due to the fact that social networks are not controlled by governments or large companies. Being so, all of us who use social networks, we become content generators; some content is good and edifying in different areas, while other content is harmful and destructive.

And this happens in a society where ''Big Brother'' is permanently present in our lives, and where his messages have a direct impact on us and our way of seeing the world, where, as individuals, we are dependent on a screen and what it informs us.

And in this world, fully communicated and full of different messages, we constantly see individuals becoming more and more lonely and alienated—people who, even when accompanied by hundreds of individuals, feel isolated and closed in on themselves, maintaining virtual and not real contact with the world around them.

This process of social isolation, alienation and separation of individuals is not a coincidence, but rather part of a well-defined policy that has been studied and proposed for decades. But this is not the point of this text. But if anyone is interested in the subject, I recommend reading Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition, Susan George's Lugano Report 1 and 2, Bauman's Liquid Society, Society, Solid and in Search of Politics, among other authors such as Žižek.

One of Bauman's phrases that speaks to this point is this one from the book The Liquid Society: ''The "network" of human relationships ("network": the endless game of connecting and disconnecting) is today the seat of the most distressing ambivalence, which confronts the artists of life with a tangle of dilemmas that cause more confusion than clues''.

And in the midst of all this tangle of changes, real and fake news, quality and low quality content, as well as destructive and exclusionary content, which constantly seeks followers to their positions, we find ourselves, today, but we are so, We are global citizens today, but we are only and exclusively for the reception of messages, since for other things of daily life, we are excluded, for economic, political, religious or social reasons, and this is so, even being a follower of the message of the media, which in the end produces a greater contradiction and frustration in people.

Therefore, we see high levels of frustration and anger in individuals, who dream of having or owning goods that they cannot acquire, generating this stress and hatred of employers, bosses and politicians.

Also, we commonly see enormous degrees of frustration, especially in the women of our society, when they cannot comply with the canons of beauty imposed by advertising and fashion stereotypes. These stereotypes are permanently on the screen of their smartphones, which reinforces their frustration continuously.

This situation of interference, is presented continuously in all areas of the life of the individual, within society, and even in relationships. In fact, it is now very common to see a ''Couple in love'' sitting at a table, facing each other, but instead of seeing each other and interacting, they are looking at the screen of their cell phone. And believe it or not, I saw a neighbor crying, as she ended her relationship with her boyfriend, via text message.

Bauman, also talks about this. I leave you with one of the sentences from the book Consumer Life: ''One of the fundamental effects of equating happiness with the purchase of items that are expected to generate happiness consists in eliminating the possibility that this type of pursuit of happiness will one day come to an end. [...] Since the stable state of happiness is not attainable, only the pursuit of this stubbornly elusive goal can keep the runners in pursuit of it happy''.

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On mental health.

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Fuente/Source

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It is really difficult for me to touch this subject without going into it in depth; in fact, it could be the subject of an academic research paper, but I will try to summarize the idea as much as possible.

According to several authors, we are in a sick society without values, totally changing and in search of a way that still does not exist. This being so, we are surrounded by people affected by these realities, who do not have a handle to hold on to and even more, in the case of young people, who receive messages from their parents and grandparents that are unrealistic, such as the once valid message of; ''Study, graduate, get a good job, have a family, and have stability''.

However, any student who reads the news knows that the International Monetary Fund is talking about the fact that in Europe and the U.S., more than 40% of formal professional employment will be lost in the next five years, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence. So that message is outdated, as are many others today.

That makes young people have an unenviable reality, which, of course, ends up leading people to depression and despair. And to avoid this type of situation, they take refuge in the cyber world, in streaming and other platforms that take them away from everyday reality, but ultimately isolate them and cut them off from real human relationships.

There is also the other case, much less common among the majority of young people, where networks are used positively, carrying out activities that we could call edifying and productive, and where networks function, not as an isolating entity, but as a unifying and organizing entity.

In short, the effects of the networks and the use of platforms on individuals depend a lot on their use and the environment in which the person develops. Since it is well known to us, there are cases of cyberbullying and bullying through social networks. Cases that are generated by revenge, envy, and exclusion, among other situations.

That is, cases that are born of the loss of values and lack of ethics, because these children did not have the proper monitoring of their families, and that due to many of the social factors, half touched and nothing deepened in this text.

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What to do?

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Fuente/Source

I believe that the main thing we should do is communicate, value, respect, and, above all, listen to the people around us and with whom we have contact.

Humanize our environments, starting with a good morning in the elevator and being polite, kind and respectful with others.

I, with my ex-girlfriend's children and with her, when we were together, demanded a community hour. At first, that annoyed them, then the hour, became several hours, and even came the children of neighbors and sometimes adult neighbors. In that hour, cell phones and tablets were not allowed.

We played board games, cooked together, played mime, created stories among the four of us, and did activities where we participated together as a family. Finally, there was the community exercise, which ranged from going for a walk, to climbing the Avila or going to the beach, all in the community.

This gave the children a lot of emotional stability, as well as us adults, and the children learned that nothing is more important than the human relationship, than playing with friends in person and with true expressions of affection.

I think that is what we should do: humanize, give value to people, teach children and young people to give the right value to things and above all, listen and pay attention, give values and promote personal ethics. Simply by listening and attending to a person, we can achieve great changes in them.

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Medical attention:

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There are cases where there are already processes of severe depression, suicide attempts and serious health situations such as anorexia and drug and alcohol consumption, among other conditions that arise. In those conditions, I consider it best to go to a psychiatrist, since these types of situations, require treatment with medication.

In cases in which a change is just beginning to be seen in people, whether they are children, adolescents or adults, I believe that the intervention process should be done by talking, accompanying and with the support of a psychologist. But, I would never start by taking a person who is initiating a process of this type to a psychiatrist to be medicated.

But, it all depends on the reality of the case presented by the person.

In conclusion, I would invite you to read the authors mentioned here and others, so that you can see and understand the depth of this subject and its consequences, which affect us in the family, social, cultural, economic and religious spheres. In short, it affects everything related to our social coexistence, so it is important to know this topic well.

My best wishes; sorry for the long and possibly scattered ideas.

Thank you for reading.

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