The alarming increase in mental health problems nowadays raises a critical question: “Beyond the specific issues afflicting particular people, are there overall societal factors that contribute to this trend?”

Generally speaking, people suffer mental health problems when their perception of reality diverges significantly from reality. In today’s world, are there any major factors that distort our perception of reality? One factor is technology such as social media. Sociological studies show that increased social media usage, especially among teenagers, has been associated with increased depression. Without getting into the technicalities of how exactly this might be happening, let’s consider a common, and common sense, scenario: suppose girls browse images of women with model-like figures and lament that their bodies are nowhere as attractive. Or suppose boys browse similar images and lament that they will never get anyone that good-looking. Both lamentations are based on a double distortion of reality. First, people don’t have to compete in real-life with digital images; most real people don’t look like those images — even those models themselves usually don’t look as attractive as their digitally made-up images. Second, looking like models or having someone who looks like that doesn’t guarantee happiness – attractive people and their partners have their own problems, as even a cursory look at their personal lives reveals. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (18.39) states that illusion and insanity are associated with ignorant definitions of happiness.  

Does this analysis mean that social media or technology cause mental health problems? Not exactly; it’s an example to highlight how today’s society exposes us to forces that distort our perception of reality — the onus is on us to protect ourselves from those forces.

One-sentence summary:

As our society increasingly exposes us to forces that distort our conception of reality, it makes us all more vulnerable to mental health problems. 

Think it over:

  • How does social media distort our conception of reality?
  • What are the forces that distort your conception of reality?
  • How can you protect yourself from those forces?

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18.39: And that happiness which is blind to self-realization, which is delusion from beginning to end and which arises from sleep, laziness and illusion is said to be of the nature of ignorance.

To know more about this verse, please click on the image