It’s becoming increasingly clear that people of all ages and backgrounds need recognition from strangers to feel good. Since likes were invented on social media, it seems that more and more people are willing to do anything in exchange for receiving them.
I recently read something that shocked me: someone asked on a social network that people who wanted to go to Valencia could help do so through one of the many established associations that know what is needed , where and how; I constantly asked them to stop going, armed with helmets, shovels and cameras, wherever they thought without having the slightest idea of what was necessary and, above all, not to interfere with the clearing work. taking photos and videos. , that they stop doing “disaster tourism” because, in addition to being useless, it is very harmful for people in a state of shock or who have lost family members and property in the floods.
It would not have occurred to me that the possibility of this “disaster tourism” existed, although, if I had thought about it a little, I would have realized that it is the same thing that happens in road accident or violent accident. attack in the street and the place is immediately filled with idle people who want to see what happened and, if possible, photograph it. The same is true on a larger scale and it seems that in addition to the natural curiosity of human beings, it is a progressive development of our century: the desire to witness and document misfortunes and disasters are increasing, the more terrible they are, the better.
I believe that there are two impulses that come together in this type of behavior: on the one hand, the desire to chat, to discover news and to communicate it as soon as possible; on the other, the need to place oneself at the center of events and to be applauded for it. In both cases, social networks play a fundamental role and have exacerbated this long-standing desire.
Previously, curiosity and the desire to communicate news to others was one of the bases of professions related to journalism, especially for reporters and photojournalists. When one of them showed up at the scene of a crime or disaster, he did so in the exercise of his duties. But now, everyone, as soon as they have a cell phone, thinks they are a professional and goes anywhere to “get the news” via their social networks, their blog or a podcast they have just created. Everyone believes they have the right to ask anyone, to film anything without at least respecting the privacy of others, to appropriate what is happening without consulting those who suffered the disaster, the violence or the accident. Since they have the means – more or less – and they have an audience – more or less too – they think they also have the right.
In my attempt to understand what is happening to us as a society, how we are evolving, I am assailed by images and texts that lead me to think about possible explanations.
The same day, I don’t know if in a store or in an airport, I saw a poster advertising a perfume called “Fame”. Due to some crossing of linguistic threads – and perhaps because the model announcing it was very pale and thin – I did not read it in English, but in Italian and, therefore, for a few seconds, I didn’t understand it as “fame”, but as “hunger”, and it made me think about the two concepts together: “hunger for fame”.
I have already said that the desire to break news, especially bad news, is accompanied by the need for applause, recognition and fame, even if it is fleeting, modest and undeserved.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that people of all ages and backgrounds need recognition from strangers to feel good. Since the invention of tastes on social networks, it seems that there are more and more people ready to do anything in exchange for receiving enough tastes enough daily to secrete the dopamine to which they have become accustomed and which they increasingly need. As with any other medication, there is never enough.
The human being, by nature social, needs approval, recognition from his environment, some occasional applause, a compliment, a piece of praise, to ensure from time to time that he is useful, or beautiful, or intelligent, that he did something. well Before social networks, this type of approval was obtained from family, friends, teachers, colleagues… from people who knew us and who had affection for us, people of trust from whom we could suppose that they were honest in their judgment, sincere in their words. Now we don’t have enough. No one is so satisfied when their mother, partner or children tell them they are beautiful; whether your partner, your friends or your grandfather tell you that you have done very well. It’s appreciated, of course, and it gives a certain inner warmth, but – in general – nothing compares to receiving a hundred tastes of foreigners. We have even reached the point of giving tastes to things like a coil in which the funeral of a family member is shown, which seems an aberration to me, although not everyone sees it that way. On the contrary, many people feel a little supported when sad news is accompanied by a little media coverage, social recognition.
It is clear that the need for approval that we have developed is doing us a lot of harm. There are more and more young people suffering from depression: 15% of Spanish adolescents present “severe or moderately severe” symptoms of depression, according to data from a survey carried out by Unicef Spain with the University of Santiago, on the occasion of World Mental Health Day. I do not want to guarantee that lack of social recognition is the main cause of depression in young people, but it is one of the most common.
At that moment, according to a certain logic, when a person, whether young or not, feels that they are not receiving the approval they need and believe they deserve, or that they do not doesn’t receive her through the channel she most desires or through the reasons that seem most important to you, you have to find a way to get her. And there we are linked, among other things, to “disaster tourism”. Not everyone can get tastes for their success in sports or in an artistic activity, or for their trips to wonderful places, or for their dazzling partners or for their perfectly shaped body, but many come to the conclusion that, given the right circumstances, they can become the “hero of the moment” by taking photos in the mud of a city destroyed by a flood, or a snow avalanche, or an earthquake.
In my opinion, many people who don’t have a job or dedication that brings them fame or at least some notoriety – who aren’t singers, elite athletes, actors, television journalists or war reporters – are looking for a way to “be”, even if it is only for a few days or a few hours in the hope of obtaining that applause which eludes them and which they need to feel accepted and recognized. This seems understandable to me and, at the same time, it worries me and makes me a little sad because I know – as they know, even if they try to forget it – that it is something ephemeral, that these tastes that they will realize and which will make them feel better for a while, they will not repeat themselves soon and will leave them even more empty, because now that they know how good it is to feel recognized, the absence of recognition this will hurt them even more. And we will have to start again.
Could we not once again benefit from the approval of our immediate environment? Could we not offer this recognition to our family, our friends, our students, our teachers, our work colleagues? We would all feel better and we wouldn’t need to wander around like hyenas, like vultures, scrounging for offal to get that flash of dopamine that disappears in an instant.
