Let’s continue with sociology…

Most of us are having difficulty naming the era we live in. I’ll try to explain the situation briefly.

Of course, I’m directing this primarily to those whose awareness is somewhat higher than most.

Let’s take a look at a few new concepts our age has given us:

1.Fear of Missing Out

2.Digital Fatigue

3.Information Age Anxiety

4.And Anomie…

Let’s begin…

The Feeling of Missing Out

One of these concepts is the constant feeling of missing out on something and, relatedly, the need to stay online continuously. It’s not a situation everyone experiences, but you may have felt this need periodically.

This mindset—“Something is happening right now and I’m not there; I’m missing out”—feeds the sense that you’re always missing something in life.

Additionally, seeing glimpses of other people’s flashy lives can make you feel inadequate.

Digital Fatigue

It’s the mental burden and exhaustion caused by continuous exposure to information flow, the effort to follow news, notifications, and developments on social media.

Being regularly exposed to the portion of a massive information network—fed by 5 billion people—that falls within your areas of interest can be a huge challenge.

You can find yourself doomscrolling through a platform filled with truths, falsehoods, realities, and fabrications.

Everything you watch stimulates a different part of your brain.

And I haven’t even mentioned what’s truly on the current agenda; when you add that in, you really go into overdrive.

Information Age Anxiety

The dizzying pace of social acceleration, technological, and cultural transformations causes a collective anxiety. Deep down, we look at each other like passengers in a plane that’s going down.

No one knows what’s going to happen next or simply doesn’t want to know.

Some of us try to catch this wave of change in one way or another, but in doing so, we are exposed to the situations I mentioned above. And that genuinely makes things more difficult.

Anomie

A concept introduced by Émile Durkheim. It comes from the French word “anomie” (lawlessness, disorder).

According to Durkheim, when the norms regulating social life (the rules and values that determine what’s right or wrong) change very rapidly or aren’t strong enough, people become uncertain about “what they should do, what they should believe in, which values they should follow.”

In short, the individual may not feel secure in a social framework; they may be unable to figure out “where and how to belong.” This leads to various psychological and social issues.

When you add up all these syndromes, there’s nothing abnormal about feeling a bit fucked up in this new era. It’s not you; it’s the era itself.

What Can You Do?

If you want to protect yourself a bit from this situation, you need to learn to filter.

Twenty years ago, we had to make an extra effort to access information. Now, you need to use that effort to filter information. You shouldn’t spend more than five seconds on information you don’t deem truly necessary.

You need to quickly evaluate the source and credibility of the information and then move on.