Gareth O'Callaghan: Why did they film me while I prayed for my life after car crash?
Our lives, and more worryingly the lives of our children, are becoming deeply affected and driven by a compulsive need to check social media status and notifications and to have posts and comments liked, shared, and commented on by others. Which in turn, can lead to a mental illness identified as social media anxiety disorder.
“I have not tried to restrict social media for my kids, which might have been a mistake,” Elon Musk said while addressing the World Government Summit in Dubai last February. The owner of the social media giant X, formerly Twitter, went on to say that he thinks his children are now programmed by websites like Reddit and YouTube.
Our lives are now becoming deeply affected by a relatively new form of mental illness, unmatched in its capacity to destroy even the strongest minds. As time passes, it’s affecting us more and more with its ability to threaten lives. Its name is social media anxiety disorder.
It’s driven by a compulsive need to check status and notifications, and to have posts and comments liked, shared, and commented on by others. Eventually, it becomes an all-consuming obsession, which in turn leads to a deep-rooted sense of inadequacy about your life or your appearance.
We don’t really give any thought to its negative effects on our lives until it has gone too far. It’s even worse than general anxiety, or reactive depression, even though these illnesses are part and parcel of the disastrous consequences this mind warp wields.
For so many it’s no longer just a hobby; it has turned into a personality disorder.
Its dangers come in many shapes and disguises. Most of the time we’re not even aware of where it’s taking us, and there’s something both cunning and damning about what it can ultimately lead to.
What causes it is coercive persuasion, by which frequent users of social media sites begin to change their beliefs, ideas, attitudes, and behaviours, as a result of targeted psychological pressure, undue influence, threats, anxiety, intimidation, and stress. Coercive persuasion is also known as mind control.
Children have died around the world, and others have ended up brain-dead having attempted the so-called Blackout Challenge. This lethal game, also known as the pass-out challenge and the fainting game, dares participants to choke themselves, all while filming themselves. It’s now circulating again on TikTok, and it’s having the same tragic results.
Another more recent internet challenge is ‘chroming’, which involves inhaling toxic substances such as deodorants and hairsprays to create a temporary high.
The recent death of a Clare schoolgirl is believed to be as a result of chroming.
Some will argue this type of behaviour is not linked to mental illness, perhaps because they don’t want to believe that they may be suffering themselves, but evidence shows it is.
Any child who sees a useful purpose, or entertainment, in choking themselves until they pass out needs support, and fast. This child is begging to be accepted by other children their own age who see them as an easy target to bully and isolate.
A confused child will often resort to any means if they’re attempting to be welcomed into a group of their peers. It’s the peers, the bullies, who are exerting coercive persuasion. It’s both sad and sadistic, and it’s what social media is doing to our children.
Following a car crash last March that left me with life-threatening injuries, I was immobilised on a stretcher after being removed from the wreckage, using an inflated under-blanket to prevent my injuries from worsening.
I remember lying on the stretcher, feeling a soft rain on my face, while praying I would live. The traffic was gridlocked as a result of the crash, and a double-decker bus had stopped alongside where the emergency vehicles were parked. It was at that point that I noticed a large number of passengers on the upper floor with their phones pressed against the windows. Each of them was videoing me.
Why?
It’s a question I still ask myself seven months later. Why? Was it to satisfy their own sick needs for some sort of dopamine rush? Was it so they could tell their friends they had posted exclusive footage online of a car crash victim? If that’s not a deranged mind, then what am I missing?
Anyone who takes pleasure from witnessing pain or violence is suffering from a serious personality disorder called perversion, causing a split personality which removes any feelings of guilt from the individual making the video. It’s clear from the popularity of violent videos on social media that perversion is thriving.
When Facebook was launched in 2004, its purpose was — I kid you not — to provide a male subscribers’ platform for rating the attractiveness of female college students. It’s now the world’s third most-visited social media site. It has a dark side, but it also has a lot of positives going for it: More missing children in America are located alive because of Facebook followers.
Some say it’s user-friendly when compared to its more sinister competitors, appealing to an older following. Twitter/X is more unforgiving. As a doctor said to me recently, reading a lot of its content is like wading through sewage, a forum for free-flowing hate. However, Facebook is not as tame as many of its fans might like to believe.
In his book, , Max Fischer quotes Facebook’s own researchers who say, “our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness...to gain user attention and increase time on the platform.” Divisiveness is another word for conflict.
Algorithms don’t care if a site’s content makes you feel suicidal, or exploited.
The algorithm’s only priority is to get us to spend more time engaging. More engagement leads to more divisiveness. We are lured away from who we are as a result of the brain’s attraction to conflict until we are no longer who we once were. Coercive persuasion can be both sublime and sinister.
If followers are drawn to violence, the website’s algorithms will pair them with a steady stream of even more violent material. It can connect you to material you weren’t even searching for in the first place; that’s because it has identified traits you mightn’t even remember you disclosed in previous online searches.
A user eventually becomes focused on divisiveness, the more they engage with other like-minded users. For many, it’s a part of themselves they daren’t live outwardly in their public lives, but they can engage it freely and anonymously online.
Most users aren’t aware of how the experience of engaging in social media purposely shapes their experiences. Once we become psychologically invested in other people’s divisiveness, then how we think, behave, and relate to people generally is changed.
Twitter/X is known as ‘the anger factory’, if for no other reason than it offers a platform for rage and hate speech. Since the pandemic, it has become the preferred go-to for the conspiracy theorist who uses coercive persuasion to draw in followers.
Then you have the rage of frustrated entitlement, shaming of others, men who relentlessly threaten women with rape and murder, and those who post racist videos of refugees. Hate speech is rampant among every age group, and it needs to be outlawed.
Many people have become unaffected by the growing amount of online video footage of car crashes, muggings, and homophobic assaults; but yet the same people are convulsed with anger by a stranger who stands outside a school taking pictures of children. In reality, there is no difference. Both are intrusive and objectionable at the highest level.
Social media is to blame for today’s exaggerated pattern of thought that’s not based on facts. People are no longer just being polarised for their beliefs and values; they are also finding themselves caught up in a bottleneck of fear caused by coercive persuasion, and a rising level of hate speech aimed at them whether they are for or against whatever they are posting online.
Social media is becoming a gutter for indoctrination and coercive persuasion directed towards all ages and all creeds. When you’re 12 years old, scared, and vulnerable, who do you turn to for help? How can a parent who’s trapped in the social media minefield help his or her child? That child is in mortal danger.
When you’re a young child being coerced into a challenge that can kill, it’s not death you see as the ultimate threat, it’s the acceptance by your peers that becomes the ultimate goal. As parents and guardians, it’s our duty to explain to our children the tragic futility of both the threat and the goal before the bullies claim another young life.
Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers summed it up: “If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.”
