Guest post by @VictoriaBetton
How kind are you in social media spaces? And do you have an online ecosystem where it’s ok to pop up the odd tweet about the emotional pain that we all experience at one time or another? And if it isn’t then is it the kind of ecosystem that ultimately bolsters or undermines your wellbeing?
Erving Goffman (1922-1982) was an eminent social theorist who had interesting stuff to say about how we present ourselves in social situations. He described our social interactions as a series of performances – we are all actors trying to control the impression others have of us in order to avoid embarrassment and shame. Extending the performance metaphor, he describes our front-stage and back-stage performances – those we are prepared to show to our wider networks and those we keep hidden away. He also wrote about Stigma (1961) in which he explored how people manage impressions of themselves when they carry ‘marks’ which mean they don’t conform to approved standards of behaviour or appearance. So how does this play out in your Twitter ecosystem – the people who you follow and who follow you?
Social media enthusiasts tend to emphasise the way in which platforms like Twitter connect us and strengthen our social ties. Cynics tend to emphasise the tendency for us to manage our identity in ways which are overly positive and can alienate us from others. The truth, in my view, is somewhere in-between. But I wonder about the extent to which we can we be truly connected if we only choose to share and engage with certain (socially acceptable) aspects of ourselves and others? It’s our behaviour that counts, whatever the space.
So when someone in our timeline tweets that we are having a bad day, or are unhappy, or perhaps even that they feel that they can’t go on, what are they hoping for and how does Twitter respond? How kind are we? Do we respond and say something nice or do we just pretend we didn’t notice – perhaps out of embarrassment or even disgust (it reminds us of our own vulnerability) or because we’re not quite sure what to do and are worried we’ll get out of our depth (what’s the worst that can happen?). As an experiment I just tweeted ‘I’ve got a big bad miserable headache’ (which is true FYI) – not the biggest share in the world but even that felt uncomfortable! Not one single person responded. But when I tweeted about my pottery lesson success then I got tons of interaction. Perhaps we only want to hear the good stuff.
I think the reactions we get probably depend on the online ecosystem we have created around ourselves. I happen to follow a lot of people who use Twitter as a source of support and connectedness to other people with similar mental health diagnoses and they routinely tweet about how they are feeling and are quick to offer support each other. Check out #BPDChat on a Sunday night at 9pm to see people with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder sharing learning and supporting each other on a different related topic each week. It fits the social norm of that ecosystem because that is what it was set up to do. It is routinely kind and generous and affirmative.
As an NHS employee I also follow a lot of health people on Twitter who utilise social networking in a predominantly professional capacity. In this particular ecosystem I notice a lot more front-stage performance – talking about the meeting we have just been to, the event we have just attended, or the person we have just met. None of this is wrong. It’s just a different ecosystem for a different purpose. I don’t notice many of us talking about our down days, when things are hard or when we fail at something. If we did, would we be transgressing a cultural norm of our ecosystem? I think this is not dissimilar to our physical work environments where we know it probably isn’t okay to talk about being sad or down – people might judge us or think we’re not capable.
I also follow a lot of arts and creative industries people on Twitter and recently @CultureVultures and I ended up in a beautifully unexpected conversation with @Iamcreative about sharing vulnerability online. Helen told us that she found Twitter ‘like shouting into a void at my lowest’ and her sense that, since she shared her mental health crisis publically, she has noticed her followers ‘much less responsive to my tweets’.
I suspect that the arts community is not dissimilar to the health community (or any other professional community for that matter) where Twitter, if we admit it, is about self-promotion and networking as much as it is about connectedness. An unspoken social rule in that ecosystem was transgressed. And everyone kept quiet.
But can we have real connectedness if we continuously hold up a front-stage mask to the ecosystem we create around ourselves? Does it diminish us to only represent particular aspects of ourselves? And what are the risks if we share our down moments? One thing I do know is that the risks are a lot less if more of us do it. I don’t mean a constant share of emotions, I just mean an honest balance and a roundedness to who we are. On a very personal note – when my brother was killed in a car crash seven years ago I was really struck by those people in my social and work circles who avoided ever talking to me about it, even though I knew that they were aware of it. And I massively appreciated the people who did – especially people I hardly knew – how brave and how generous. I realised I had also been guilty of avoiding difficult conversations and I’m much better at it now as a result of that experience.
What I’ve learnt is that when a ‘I’m feeling rubbish’ type tweet pops up in my timeline then it’s been put out there for a reason – a thoughtful response isn’t just kind to that individual, it shows your mutual ecosystem that its okay to connect about this sort of stuff as well as the ‘hey look at me’ type content.. Imagine shouting out ‘I feel rubbish’ to people around you and being ignored.
In @Iamcreative’s words: ‘In showing kindness, people only need to acknowledge that someone exists. They don’t have to fix or save that person. It’s about waving to someone and smiling, not about launching a lifeboat’. And the more we connect in this way then the more we’ll disrupt those social norms that stop us connecting both offline and online in proper real human ways. So my challenge to you, and to me, is to show each other we can create a kind ecosystem around ourselves and others.
Victoria Betton works for @LeedsandYorkPFT is undertaking a PhD on mental health and social media at the University of Leeds. You can follow her on Twitter @VictoriaBetton and Facebook as Digital Mental Health. Her blog is www.digitalmentalhealth.co.uk
I love this post and wholeheartedly agree. I know that personally, even though I do often tweet on down days, that I try to resist doing it too much, for fear of rejection, of people getting voted of me ‘moaning’.
I do wonder as well though that we don’t see a lot of it is maybe that those who do share more do so on a (possibly separate) protected account? Just a thought, though I do appreciate that you probably follow people with protected accounts too!
Thank you for the food for thought, especially regarding difficult conversations. I think I often shy away from them through not knowing what to say, but I will try to be more aware in the future.
Thanks Victoria
This post is one close to my heart as I spend a lot of my time in both a work/pleasure capacity on social media platforms.
Whilst the brevity of a tweet is also it’s creative challenge, it’s really hard to gauge nuance at times. Or if you dip in and dip out challenging to see the ‘whole’ person, rather than the one tweet you just happened upon as it floated past in your stream
As the people who follow my stream have increased over the last 4 years I have become more self aware of a role and responsibility, I’m more inclined to direct message if I see somebody is putting it out there they need a hug or recognition, or help. Mostly because I’m not sure I’d want to draw too much attention. In some instances the person I barely know may not follow me back, in which case I check the most recent day or two of their tweets for clues as to how serious their tweet is, and does it require intervention of some description. I might even search against their ID to see if somebody else has responded to them. This was certainly the case when I came across somebody on a Sunday saying they were having ‘suicidal thoughts’
I do think we all have a duty of care to each other, to reflect and not react, even if people say hurtful things about us or directly to us. The draft folder has become my safety net, where I get rid of my impulse to kick back and rest on it for a bit.
I think as times get tougher and the noise on social media platforms turns cacophonous about our challenging issues, we can collectively vibrate, a mood develops. Sometimes that feels really oppressive and you can see people becoming distressed.
Overall I do think we need to find a balance between honesty, self disclosure and find the right tone of inquiry. I’d rather be a 3D person (performance or otherwise) where I can be myself rather than a facsimile. The bit I censor is the sharp tongue! Well most of the time! Pretty sure that doesn’t translate too well
I think Helen is right when she says acknowledgement is what’s required. Feel free to tickle me with a favourite if you don’t wish to interact. And in return I’ll try and articulate if what I need is more than a hug and a tickle.
If you need me to help you, you’ll find that a direct message will do the trick. If I don’t follow you it’s most likely because I haven’t got around to it yet. Say hello!
I’m really interested where this takes us as time goes on, will we see interesting ‘mental health first aiders’ on Twitter? I think @IamCreative pointed to a course, not sure it applied to digital interventions thought. I also follow @ClaireOT and enjoy the exchanges she has with health professionals about the blurring of work responsibilities.
I’d love a guide on the best ways a ‘bystander’ can help those in distress. Other than being there and chatting. is there anything else you can do if somebody puts it out there that they are feeling isolated and depressed?
In fact I’d love to arrange one of our cultural conversations on Kindness and Compassion in a social age. Who’d be up for some open, cross sector, learning together?
Thanks for this very thoughtful blog, Victoria. I think addressing this issue is important for several reasons
1) we’re all human “performers” but we’re also the writers and directors of the performances. So if we want to co-create a kinder, more honest and congruent space for people to share their thoughts and feelings, we have to take on and share the responsibility to create the environment needed to encourage it.
2) there are far more people out there experiencing stress, unhappiness, or anxiety than will ever get treatment. Partly, this is good- we don’t want to pathologies the human experience which does include grief, anxiety, fear etc. however, by intervening and saying “it’s okay” to express feelings, we’re taking positive steps to co-create better mental health and wellness for us all.
3) the channel people use to communicate their distress will be the one they choose to: not the one that is convenient for mental health services, primary care workers, family or friends. People and services who are concerned with offering support might like to think about how that would look on different channels, and maybe start to explore how to offer some support? I would suggest a DM from a member of staff rather than an organisation would humanise the intervention. Organisations might be seen as intrusive if they DM to ask someone how they are.
4) “if I was trying to get to there, I wouldn’t start from here” is the old Irish saying. however, we are here, each one of us. Perhaps the most important take-away is to understand that we can influence our direct circle- to risk sending the headachy Tweet: to respond to someone who we know has a tough thing to do: to find out if a person has the support they need: to risk offering to be a sounding board for someone. It takes courage to change the way we approach social interaction (or is it just me?) but Twitter is our stage, and all the Tweeps merely players….
And yes, Emma, I enjoy our online interactions hugely! I would be happy to put together some “Mental Health Twop Tips”, perhaps Victoria might like to be involved, too? I’m happy to host them on my blog- but it would be good to make them available in several places- what do you think?
Interesting stuff! Its great to see this sort of thing discussed. And I admire people like Victoria and Helen who shine a light on the subject.
I think we are only just beginning to understand the more subtle aspects of online interaction and how they effect us, especially in relationship to mental health.
So many questions….What parts of ourselves we choose to share, and what parts we choose not to? How often we share and with who?
What parts do we want shared with us, and what parts do we not want people to share with us? And when and how?
The never ending “performance” opportunities, the never ending participation as “audience”.
And the impacts.
Seems like fascinating and important PHD material to me.
When using social media we have to always remember that however comfortable we get online, we have a different relationship with everyone we know. Therefore, it is impossible to communicate with all of them at once “satisfactorily”. The curse of broadcast media. I think in our role as audience we learn to take an “average” of what people share, as we know everything shared can’t be tailored specifically to us. But is this average taking part of the problem?
To understand how we behave online, I always go back to the twitter as a country pub analogy…
If I was in a country pub, feeling down and possibly suffering with mental health issues, what would I do?
1) I may sit alone, nurse a drink. I would probably find the conversations I’m hearing around me frustrating and irrelevant.
2) I may ask a good friend or confident to join me for a drink, and share my problems with them one to one.
3) I may act like nothing was wrong, be sociable, appear merry, and hope the scintillating conversation would raise my spirits or bring clarity.
4) I may keep coming back, acting like nothing was wrong, in the hope of meeting a random stranger, a kindred spirit, a guardian angel, an inspiration.
5) I may keep coming back, act like nothing was wrong. One day I see a poster for group mental health therapy/learning/sharing event. When I’m ready, I go to that.
6) I may stand at the bar and broadcast my troubles to everyone. And leave the people in the pub to decide how to respond.
The problem with 6 is that eopthe ple in the pub are not used to this sort of scenario. They don’t know how to respond. And regardless of stigma, and shame and all the rest of it, it is undeniably a complicated social exchange.
If this did happen in a country pub, I would expect a small group of well meaning locals/friends/family would nominate themselves as “comforters” or “confidants”, swam around and most likely launch lifeboats like it was the great flood!
The rest of the people in the pub are left with a number of questions which determine how they act, and this is the problem on Twitter:
– What is my relationship to this person relative to everyone else in the pub? I don’t know?
– What is this person relationship to me relative to everyone else in the pub? I don’t know?
– Did the person really want to share their problems with “me”, or was the share aimed at another section of the pub/audience?
– Did the person share this bit of themselves with me by necessity because the tool they used is indiscriminate like that?
– Am I in the right frame of mind to respond?
– Is this the right time or place to respond?
– How have other people responded? I don’t know?
– Was this a cry for help or a cry for a smile and acknowledgement, or was it not a cry at all?
– Could I make things worse?
The list goes on…..
It seems so complicated, a mine field, and its easy to see why people end up not acting. The freeze, and move on.
But what this post has made clear to me is that it’s not actually that complicated. If you see a hand that needs holding, hold it, and give it a gentle squeeze, and avoid the need to launch a lifeboat!
Sharing AND acknowledging mental health issues publicly will undoubtedly help change attitudes for the better, and hopefully help someone get through a bad day.
Love your pub metaphor! I’d definitely be inclined to have a quiet chat with my close friends in a corner of the bar if I was feeling rubbish. But then sometimes it is an unexpected surprise to have a profound conversation with someone I’ve only just met. As you say, it’s complex!
Victoria this is a great article that really needed to be written. I can relate to it after having a hard time recentley. I tried to reach out to people on online several times and didnt get any responce. In life I learned to have a mask [smiley happy face], to survive and now knowI also need an online one [yes im fine thanks]. The only place online I think people are able to show their true selves is on youtube, where people can sit infront of a webcam and talk about what they are going through. They always get feedback, some trolling but mostly messages of support and shared feelings. Whatching these videos has helped me to feel less alone unlike facebook and twitter.
Hi Donna. Thank you for your comments – really interested in your positive experiences of You Tube. I was chatting to someone who has put up a load of wonderful self-made films about their recovery journey with mental health problems, and they told they’d had a number of death threats – which really surprised me. Having said that they’d had loads of positive feedback as well to balance it out but the negatives hadn’t been great for them as you’d imagine. I love the Arts and Minds ‘film to change’ project – making short films representing mental distress in different was and very proud that we get to show them at the Leeds Film festival each year 🙂
Hi Victoria thanks for replying. I hope that youtuber is ok and doesnt stop making videos it would be a shame if they did. The film to change project is great and im glad I was a part of it. 🙂
I saw your headache tweet, Victoria. Must admit my first thought was get off the bloody computer and take an aspirin! Which wasn’t very kind.
Then I thought, what do you want me to do with that information? There’s nothing practical I can do. I could offer to bring you an Anadin, but I live miles away and by the time I got there you’d probably be feeling better anyway.
Of course I could have sent a commiserating tweet. But what would be the point? The last thing you should be doing if you have a bad headache is staring at a screen, so my attempt at kindness would have been counterproductive and would even have had the effect of prolonging your pain. And what if a bunch of us had sent sympathetic messages? You would have had to read a lot of irrelevant gush, perhaps felt obliged to respond to some of it with even more pointless prattle, and put off resolving the headache.
The only thing that would have occured if I’d tweeted you would have been that I’d paraded in front of the twittersphere what an empathetic, kind hearted, sensitive sort of chap I was, and I would have been able to feel mightily pleased with myself at absolutely minimal personal cost (a few keystrokes, a passing sigh) and utterly no benefit to you.
Sadly I think a lot of social media simply delivers a simulacrum of kindness. It fosters the illusion that we’ve done something when all that’s happened is we’ve increased our own personal self-satisfaction whilst only pretending to relieve the actual pain of another human being. And we’ve not even had to get off our arse. Fabulous.
If you’d been in Ben’s pub I would have told you to go home and lie down. Sometimes you have to be cool and impersonal to be kind.
Yes, good point, but, when you are alone a lot (I am) and talk to yourself (I do)using Twitter is like putting your passing thoughts out there. When someone responds it’s a kind of valedation that you aren’t alone in a meaningless universe. That’s kindness. Or summat.
One of my fav tweets of last year was by a friend going through some self inflicted bad times; a hangover at the end of a sustained period of hedonism. Now this clearly isn’t comparable to mental health issues….but then neither is a headache, and I do have a point…. I think.
It simply read: “Hold me Twitter.”
It made me laugh a lot. It still does. Especially when I look to the sky, arms pleading, and say it in a reverent way. (Im sure helen could do me a good doodle of it actually! 😉
But why does it make me laugh? Because he was being sardonic. Twitter doesn’t “hold you”. He knew it wouldn’t. And he knew he didn’t deserve holding anyway.
But I wonder if twitter ever will “hold” people. Or if it ever should. Or if it ever could.
Social web certainly does something “real” in amongst the narcissism and bile, but not sure its good at holding someone in a time of need. But I hope I’m wrong.
(Sorry I’m only talking about twitter, its all I (don’t) know.)
Thanks for the blog, Victoria, I’ve been thinking about it on and off all day if only because I think I might disagree with a lot of it, and I’m trying to figure out why.
If I take my slightly harsh friend Mr Kirby above…
Twitter is great because if it didn’t exist Phil wouldn’t be my mate. I would never have met him or we might have just muttered something at each other at BettaKultcha twice a year.
However because we got chatting on Twitter we met in (shock horror) real life!
So for example if I have something that Phil would find amusing or facetious or cathartic or whatever that might spark a laugh or a thought in someone else, I tweet it. If it’s not relevant to anyone else or if I’ve had a bad day at work or he’s fed up with summat, I’ll DM him. But more than likely the DM says, let’s talk in real life over a bottle of wine.
One of the down sides of social media is that it makes you feel you know people better than you do and it’s ok to share loads of stuff with them.
The risk, if someone is feeling seriously down, is two-fold…
Either they say to Twitter they’re feeling rubbish and they get resounding silence back and this reinforces a feeling of being unworthy.
Or they get lots of kindness back and this can reinforce the idea that the way to get comfort and attention is to be a victim. I know that’s not a popular thing to say but I see it in practice very often when a call to a friend would be far more supportive than a random message out to the world.
On the other hand a close friend of mine found that Twitter was brilliant in his fight back against ME as firstly it provided social contact when he was not well enough to go out and secondly he was able to find other people struggling with the same issues he had. It can be a force for good but it is high risk if you rely on it to solve your problems for you.
If it’s a question for mental health care professionals as opposed to us well meaning amateurs (!) I think it might be about how you put people in contact with each other and with support networks rather than us all being kinder.
You make a great point about social media – it isn’t offline or online – the two are interwoven in our lives and we create online networks that spill in to other aspects of our lives and vice versa. Social media can be a great way of connecting people in similar circumstances who might be isolated in their lives for all sorts of different reasons and often leads to offline connections. My blog wasn’t aimed at mental health professionals but I agree with your point that peer networks are important (and often experienced as being more helpful than professional input!). But I still maintain my general point about fostering kindness online. When I had my chat with @iamcreative and @CultureVultures I experienced a depth of communication/connection that moved me and I appreciated Helen’s openness. I love the wit and the humour and even the showing off on Twitter but I also value the little moments of kindness and profundity that occur out of no-where once in a while
First up, I’d certainly like to attend a Cultural Conversations on this topic. I’m very interested in how this kindness thing works. What’s written above seems at odds with such well known internet proclamations as Jonathan Zittrain’s .
That set me thinking, a few years ago I was at a family Christmas and was enduring some casual racism and general bigotry. I tweeted my frustrations (and I think, asked for advice) and got introduced to people in similar situations having similar family difficulty. So, Twitter was kind, and solidaritous (if that’s even a word), but again it’s not of the same gravity as a mental health issue. I think Ben has a great point here in regards to “The Headache Tweet”, which is that it’s “not comparable to mental health issues”, so it may be that we may feel a response isn’t necessarily necessary.
When it comes to these bigger issues however, I can only plead ignorance and say that until now, I haven’t really known how best to respond (though this has somewhat been helped by this discussion). I’ve also sometimes presumed – most likely incorrectly – that tweeps have been needing to vent, and not known how or if to react. So to Helen (and most everyone else I like and have not replied to in times of need), I am sorry, I didn’t know what to say, or how to help, but I should have been better.
Something that I think applies to a lot of the tweets we’re alluding to here though is that they’re more difficult than “positive” tweets to interact with. I don’t want to “favourite” a tweet about someone’s pain, that seems cruel to me. Similarly, I don’t want ReTweet it either (unless there’s some good that can come of that… “My dog’s lost, please RT” for eg). So, it’s either a reply (which I can feel awkward about – Isn’t this personal stuff we’re talking about? Should I be having this conversation publicly? etc) or a DM. It’s much easier to engage on the fun stuff than it is about someone’s personal unhappiness.
Another possible reason that Victoria’s [puts on best newsreader voice] now infamous “Headache Tweet”, may not have got a lot of responses is that it didn’t ask for one. It wasn’t a question or a request for help, simply a statement. If the internet is about conversations, then a statement probably isn’t the best conversation starter. It doesn’t invite feedback. I wonder would tweets such as “anyone else feeling a massive headache right now? #asprinsolidarity” or simply “Terrible headache. Any suggestions?” have yielded a better response?
I’m also wondering how many of our entirely positive tweets get good reactions and responses? How does this compare with tweets that aren’t?
It’s difficult to try and draw up any guidelines based on such a narrow survey of tweets though Emma’s Best Practice Guide would be super helpful to me. At least now I know. DM’s FTW!
Blimey I sure am regretting that headache tweet…. :-p
Like you I follow a LOT of people on Twitter. I know quite a few of those people really well that made me worried or concerned I’d probably reply to them by DM. They may have said it publicly but I like to give them a chance for private conversation. With the other hundreds of people I respond if I *rarely* am very, very concerned. I probably wouldn’t have replied to your tweet if I had seen it cause I don’t think I would have realised that it was looking for a response. I think it is quite easy to tell the tweets that want responses and I usually try to reply if I have time etc.
Thanks for your comment Anne Marie. My ‘headache-gate’ comment wasn’t really the point of my post – just a personal experiment to see I could comfortably share anything other than the positive or cheerful on Twitter – I found that it doesn’t come easily. And yes we have a multiplicity of relationships on Twitter – some close and many much looser. If one of my friends tweeted something about being upset I’d DM or text straight away 🙂
What a truly wonderful article.
It resonated with my in a few different ways:
1) from a academic point of view, I’ve been struggling with my dissertation for my MSc in Digital Marketing and over the past few days, I’ve been slowly realising that not only have I been pushed for time with work and a family death plus a divorce….it’s because I’ve chosen a topic that just doesn’t interest me. In fact, I’ve always been so much more interested in this side of things – who we are in social media, how we present ourselves. You’ve actually inspired me to go back to my course tutors to see if I can start my dissertation again, this time on much more these lines.
2) from a personal point of view – I suffer from anxiety and depression. My mum had it, I now have it and it’s a constant journey of learning – finding out what truly makes me happy and what doesn’t. I’m a geek who can easily addicted to the internet. I can find myself on my laptop or phone all day every day, part of which is checking social networks and ‘performing’ myself – I have a personal blog and Facebook…and Twitter. All places in which I perform. I enjoy it….but I don’t think doing it 24/7 is good for my mental health. Last night, I didn’t pick up my laptop and didn’t touch my phone. I meditated with a mindfulness MP3 for 15 mins. I felt so much better. If I’m feeling depressed or anxious though, it would be a very rare occasion where I’d ever be honest about how I’m feeling online. I’d fear the uncomfortableness.
I think I’m rambling now, I just wanted to say I enjoyed your article really… 🙂
Ally x
Do let me know what you end up focusing your Masters dissertation on – perhaps we can swap notes. And yes I think it’s good to know the limits of social media for our own wellbeing and when to leave it alone and do something else!
Hi – fascinating post and some great comments so far! So, just to buck the trend… 🙂
In my view, social media is exactly like the offline world. There are small pockets of genuinely wonderful, interesting and supportive people scattered about, but they are vastly outnumbered by a slew of awful creatures who seem to only possess (user)names in order to pour scorn, mock, or take faux offence on behalf of others.
With my happy cards thus now firmly on the table, I do still think that the concept of online ecosystems/networks is an appropriate one, and agree with you that a key part of this is the responsibility of the person ‘at the centre’ to shape theirs and use them appropriately.
I also believe that the fundamental difference between an online and offline network is not the digital versus non-digital nature, but rather the way it is built up. Offline our networks can grow organically or by design, but they are generally cultivated and pruned slowly over time. It doesn’t happen in moments, but instead carefully over weeks, months and sometimes years, and so they become things which we know and trust.
This is the opposite to how it usually happens online, where just 140 characters or a retweet can be enough to have your Twitter follow reciprocated, and don’t even get me started on platforms’ obsession with showing me people I ‘might know’. The implicit suggestion is that your network must always be growing as quickly as possible, as if the notion of six degrees of separation must be exterminated or at least downsized at any cost.
Leaving aside those of us sexy and social media-savvy enough to not always fall for this, the risk can be that people end up with networks based on quantity rather than quality. One possible consequence of this is that words of genuine sympathy, empathy, and plain old human interest can easily be shouted down or completely lost amongst all the noise.
If I decide to tell various people on Twitter that I’m feeling dreadful, I’d rather have one nice reply from Victoria Coren than be retweeted to Piers Morgan’s entire horde. And I don’t necessarily see a problem with slightly compartmentalising a personality for discrete accounts. To be honest, I’m not really sure I want all of me connected to everyone! And I’m fairly sure they wouldn’t want that either…
Don’t get me wrong, in an ideal world it would be lovely if we could be open and honest about how we’re feeling, but I think the reality is that without either complete anonymity or a very good knowledge of our network(s), this is sometimes unwise and also counter-productive. Remember, statistics have shown that 79% of people are ghastly.
Twitter offers anonymity; Facebook and Google+ offer restricted postings to closed groups of people – but if your Twitter identity is public, then not only do you have to manage your ecosystem, but also your own output as well. And this is quite a lot of work if I just want to be miserable and not have to reassure people I’m ok or explain myself.
I no more expect or assume kindness from random social media than I do from random offliners – yet there are tiny subgroups in both those worlds who I know I can rely on, and who know they can rely on me.
For this reason, while the cool kids are using Facebook less and less, it’s usually there where my declarations of depression, despair and general worthlessness find themselves. I can post to a select handful of people* who I can be fairly certain will ‘get it’ and respond appropriately. And I to them in kind.
*Victoria Coren is sadly not one of these people.
My immediate thought on reading was of course 79% of our population are ghastly hence the supermarket,road,street quote. I am continually reminded of peoples inability to be nice to one another irrespective of where it happens online or otherwise. We live in a society where it appears the “not in my backyard” and “not on my watch” syndrome is so in your face that I believe that the not so cynical person I was, has now become an almost full time cynic.
There needs to be more room for people who have time to listen and allow those with problems to unload a little. The shoulder needed is probably all it takes for someone to feel a lot better about themselves. The online thing for me is just another setting where people can share.
I agree with Victoria on one thing that the mental health aspect does in some respects alter peoples views on what they want to become involved in, however, it doesn’t preclude all on the topic, but it does thwart many.
I recently have become more aware of the subject of mental health with a daughter a second year at med school in London who has decided that mental health/psychiatry will eventually be her specialty, and yes it does deter due to ignorance, however do we become more aware of this, and the other pressing problems by the 140 characters, I really think not. Kindness wherever it happens, online, face to face, a mere gesture, is something we all benefit from, inwardly and outwardly. There was a time not so long ago when the 140 tweet/Facebook/tumbler didn’t exist and we reacted how? Did we neighbor more, did we fall over ourselves to help/be kind I think we were probably a lot like we are today, but perhaps without as much “in your face” as we experience today, although I’m not sure that the statistics would have come up with 79% of people are ghastly or perhaps they may have. All that said, I for one will always have time to listen, lend the shoulder, or make the gesture, as I don’t think it costs me anything, and hopefully I may just make the difference that was being looked for..
Happy to stumble on this through twitter, and resulting comments. I really get the pub analogy. And also makes me think about early days of the web and academic excitement (at least in the performance studies discourse) over ‘avatars’ eg different, often anonymous representations of self online. I never got that. My online self represented is pretty close to how I wish to represent my public offline self. I tweet as ‘me’, with my real name and face. I’m as unlikely to tweet about things that make me feel emotionally vulnerable as I am to stand in a cafe and discuss that with the patrons. There’s been things I’d love to have a bitch about online but I haven’t because people who know me would easily connect the dots and figure out what/who I was referring to. If I wouldn’t share that info with my acquaintances, why would I share that with people I don’t really know at all, just because it’s through a medium where I don’t get immediate social feedback through facial/physical reaction?
However I am learning that other people DO use the platform differently. And probably what I have to practice is that’s OK. Yes, I probably have rather unkind thoughts about the classic passive aggressive status ‘some people need to learn not to slam the car door cos I might be upset’ etc. Oh please. You’re not talking to us, you’re talking to one person and using a public forum to broadcast that. But you know, maybe it is hard to have those conversations face to face and maybe I could stop mentally being sniffy about that way of expressing unhappiness/conflict/ distress.
I still have this feeling that tweeting (unless your protect your tweets, and even then) is a bit like when you write a play (yes, not quite the same but bear with me). Once you write it, you have to let it go. You have no control over what people do with it, how they interpret it. Your writing is not you and something so close to you then becomes public property. The same for a tweet. It’s not crafted like a play is, it’s a moment but once you hit ‘submit’ it goes and is no longer yours/you in the same way. Being a bit of a control freak there are some things I am willing to let go of, and some things I am not.
I think Twitter, like the rest of my life, can either be ace or poo, depending on other people.
I regularly talk about when I’m feeling rubbish on Twitter, because I talk about everything on Twitter (whether or not that’s a positive I don’t know!). I’ve recieved some amazing support through the people who follow me, help, advice, guidence on how to cope with panic attacks, explaining my issues to people who don’t know about them. I’ve found Twitter a great sounding board for talking about things that make me angry or upset. I think this is mostly because the kind of people who follow me are either Leeds arty folk, book folk, or feminist/intersectionalist folk, and I find that those sort of people tend to be fairly good at being understanding and helpful.
Twitter has also made me cry a couple of times. A few weeks ago I was having a really bad night and went on Twitter for a bit of a moan. I then saw a tweet (obviously a subtweet) to the effect that people moaning how rubbish their lives were should maybe stop and get out more. This on an evening where I’ve already panicked wasn’t helpful, and really set me back.
Now I’m private I find that I can moniter who sees what I say more easily, and I do tend now to just block people who I see saying stuff that could trigger me at a later date. I’ve stopped feeling guilty about blocking now, after seeing my friends recieve so much abuse. Yes Twitter is the pub but when you’re private, you do feel a little like you’ve got your own bouncer in the VIP section, it helps a hell of a lot.