That sounds easy enough, but given the abundance of crisis managers and image consultants, and the financial gains that come from having influence and virality, how can you tell if someone is being genuine? And given how well emotional content performs online, what effect does that have on our ability to engage with each other in person?
The era of ‘McVulnerability’
Nowadays, it’s hard to find genuine vulnerability, he said. Maytal Eyalpsychologist and writer.
People’s experiences with vulnerability, or lack thereof, are also fueling rapid growth in parasocial relationships. Anyone with a phone can turn to social media for a quick fix to synthetic and performative vulnerability, a phenomenon Eyal calls “McVulnerability.”
It’s “convenient, easy and cheap, but ultimately it’s like fast food, [McVulnerability is] “It’s not necessarily good for your health,” Eyal continued, especially during these times of increasing loneliness. “Social media platforms have presented us with something really insidious and really brilliant: people no longer need to access real vulnerability in person,” he said.
Furthermore, adolescents are spend more and more time online. And although it is difficult to specify what exactly it is effects of social networks in adolescents, studies show that adolescents mental health is declining and his in-person socialization has decreased dramatically in recent decades.
So what happens to teenagers when they watch McVulnerability?
Ultimately, the more hours they spend online (and therefore the more potential time watching McVulnerability), the more teens become disconnected from the social activities that develop their relational intimacy skills, Eyal said. “The consequences are dire because the vulnerability and discomfort that comes with it are inherent in forming intimate relationships with others… without vulnerability, we have no intimacy,” he added.
Instead of going to parties and chasing romanceTeens are spending more free time on their phones, said Eyal, who works with teens and their families through her private practice. This behavior is not exclusive to teenagers. adults do this too – but the period of adolescence is essential for the development of social skills, vulnerability and empathy.
Teenagers are undergoing enormous neurological changes during adolescence and are extremely sensitive to how they fit into their social environments, compared to younger children and older adults, he said. Mary Helen Immordino-Yangneuroscientist at the USC Rossier School of Education and author of “Emotions, learning and the brain.“Teenagers also tend to be reactive, and when they don’t feel safe, it is very difficult for them to be vulnerable,” Immordino-Yang continued.
When schools are not safe places and do not focus on giving students enough time to tap into all their developing empathy and social skills, teens may respond to serious prompts in unserious ways, Immordino-Yang said.
Take, for example, a classroom lesson about a civil rights march, in which participants fight for change that is meaningful to them, he continued. A teenager not yet familiar with the Civil Rights Movement might not be very impressed by what they see, such as people registering to vote.
Immordino-Yang’s research team found that teenagers took longer to think about complex stories and ideas.
But if given a safe space and enough time, that teenager would be more inclined to abandon his adolescent fear of judgment and social status and ask for more information, revealing his inherent curiosity.
When teens ask to learn more, they are developing valuable skills for adulthood, such as expanding their contextual knowledge. This deeper and more complex type of thinking is called transcendental thoughtand according to Immordino-Yang, teens want to get there, but it takes work.
Immordino-Yang also recommends setting a calm tone in the classroom to provide a space where teens can explore big ideas. When teens are allowed to think deeply about an issue that matters to them, and then step back and learn more about how to solve that problem, they are more likely to abandon performative responses and take advantage of their newly developed vulnerability. According to Immordino-Yang, transcendent thinking – such as thinking about the values, intentions and implications of more complex ideas – not only helps young people better understand the world around them, but this type of thinking actually grows their brains.
“In other words, they are literally exercising their brain like a muscle when they think about these larger, more complex, hidden ethical ideas,” Immordino-Yang continued.
A retreat from discomfort
According to Eyal, teens aren’t learning to express their vulnerability with their peers like they used to and are instead “bombarded by vulnerable content” online that doesn’t require a response.
The teenagers Eyal works with are aware that what they see on social media is to some extent synthetic. The bigger problem is that teens hide behind their parasocial relationships and avoid the discomfort of in-person vulnerability and real-life confrontation, he said. “It’s almost like a retreat from discomfort,” Eyal continued.
Of course, teenagers not only browse social networks, but they also post there. Eyal has found that many of her teen clients are very afraid to expose their own vulnerabilities to their peers in person, but find it much easier to do so online. According to Eyal, this is a different form of McVulnerability that also causes a lack of reciprocity, but is not as far-reaching as a tearful apology from an influencer might be. He said vulnerable posts by teens online eliminate the “tender, awkward waiting experience that happens in person with an exchange of real vulnerability.”
J’Nyah is quite confident in her ability to navigate online spaces, but she can still find it difficult to decipher her friends’ social media posts, especially when they don’t reflect her behavior or mood at school. With abbreviations like KMS (kill myself) used casually, J’Nyah makes sure to reach out to her friends in person when she sees them posting related things on social media.
The line between right and wrong can easily blur online, especially for young people who are expanding their social skills and refining their relational identities. When online behavior goes too far, there is often a waiting period for J’Nyah, and it is not until days or weeks later, when her suspicions about questionable content are confirmed, that she can be sure of the information she has been presented with. Other online content is more obviously nefarious to J’Nyah, such as someone who records and posts himself being rude to customers and store employees.
J’Nyah also noted that people on social media tend to act more extreme because they feel protected behind a screen. And there are negative consequences, J’Nyah said. Trends like “Tortuous Licking” Tendency encouraged middle and high school students to steal and vandalize school property, costing some schools across the country thousands of dollars in damages. “I think sometimes things go too far,” and “I feel like I’ve become desensitized to a lot of things,” J’Nyah added.
To avoid getting too comfortable behind a screen, Eyal encourages her teen clients to seek out healthy pursuits away from their devices, such as being a camp counselor during the summer, where they might be responsible for younger children, spend a lot of time outdoors, and have to do some type of physical labor.
“Put them in situations where they may feel nervous, shy and out of their social element, or put them in a situation where they may have to be among a group of other kids” and away from their phones, she said.
While teens may think it’s more comfortable to escape behind screens, it’s important for parents to show them that they can find meaning and value in the temporary discomfort of unfamiliar environments and social activities.
Problems with empathy
Teachers may question their students’ ability to empathy when they laugh during a lesson on the Holocaust, or make an inappropriate joke while learning about the Jim Crow South. And these adult concerns may be rooted in concerns surrounding teens’ increased use of social media. But to Eyal, these reactions “seem so developmentally normal” because teens are experiencing and learning to express their emotions. Teenagers experience immense self-consciousness about how they are perceived by their peers, and responding to a serious topic in an emotionally incongruent way is a way to avoid discomfort and vulnerability, she said.
In these cases, the neurological immaturity of adolescents is visible. According to Immordino-Yang, adolescents sometimes express an emotion before processing what is appropriate in the context, but this is also a social response. “I don’t think they would laugh if they were alone,” Immordino-Yang said.
Teenagers are also learning how and when to apply transcendental thinking, and sometimes they make mistakes, Immordino-Yang said. “They often think about very deep things in a superficial way… or they think about superficial things quite deeply.” When thinking patterns are exercised over and over again, such as spending hours scrolling through social media, those patterns stick, Immordino-Yang continued. So seeing McVulnerability online too often “is probably also going to change the way you see things at school; I mean, your mind goes with you wherever you go and it’s built on how you use it,” he added.
For parents concerned about their teens watching McVulnerability online, Immordino-Yang suggested watching those videos with them and talking to them about it. Asking questions like: Why do you think this person acts this way? Or what is your motive for publishing this content for millions of people online?
“Help them start to question what you, as an adult, are able to notice about the big picture,” Immordino-Yang said. Remember that your teen doesn’t have to agree with what you say, he continued; It’s important to learn to analyze the things you’re seeing instead of letting those things direct your attention and future decisions.
“Commitment to [online] Media is a great way to learn things. “It’s a great way to be exposed to things that are outside your immediate sphere of influence,” Immordino-Yang added.
