Your browser does not support the audio element.
The Great Rewiring
In 2010, the whole world changed.
Huge societal changes, with people getting delusionally closer, and technological advancements redefining human existence.
Smartphones became the gold standard, and people embraced a new form of connection, often unaware of their long-term effects.
And social media taking over human relationships and perceptions of the world, with Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter (now X), becoming the new normal.
What has all this done to human society and our brains, which have been wired for true connections rather than virtual ones and real stimuli rather than pixels on screens?
What is Actually Hurting Us?
At our core, humans crave connection.
We want to be seen, heard, and understood. We also tend to look out, speak out, and send signals to the world, stimulating the environment.
That’s how the human brain works, at the very bottom.
It wants to stimulate. And it craves a response.
Now think about social media.
Where is the stimulus here?
And more importantly, what is the response?
You watch a reel, a story of a friend, or even a random YouTube video that has nothing to do with your life.
Nothing.
Here, the stimulus is clearly the reel, the story, or the YouTube video.
But, the response?
Unseen. Unexpressed.
It stays in our minds.
As humans, what is kept unresponded and unexpressed, is what later turns into assumptions that fuel anxiety and depression.
The responses—such as sadness, fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, hopelessness, jealousy, envy, etc.—that our brains have naturally produced, waiting for its confirmation that it’s valid, is the beginning of mental health struggles.
It’s our natural tendency to fill the stimulus-response gap with whatever sticks to our minds at that moment, that begins the foundation of mental illness.
Our inability to handle the stimulus-response gap.
The longer you stay in this gap, the worse your mental health will become.
And social media is the best provider of this gap.
So, How Can We Cure This?
The cure to all emotional pain and suffering is wisdom.
Nothing else.
So, the cure for the mental strain caused by social media is also wisdom.
We talked about our craving to respond, right?
Do it.
Yes, simply engage.
Respond to the stimuli rather than passively consuming content (doomscrolling).
Our brain only carries the weight of what is unexpressed.
If you cannot do this for some reason, I’d rather say don’t consume content that you cannot respond to.
It’s actually that simple.
Either respond to the stimuli you find online or simply don’t consume content that you cannot comfortably give a response to.
Quite simply, express.
If you can’t, for some reason, don’t put yourself in places where you have to.
Protect your peace.
“You should consume social media. Social media should not consume you.”
Another piece of wisdom is realizing that not everything actually needs a response and a reaction.
Sometimes you have to let things be.
No drama. No hatred. No envy. No anything.
Just some comfort in silence.
Realize you are not compelled to have a perspective or an opinion on every stimulus you encounter.
That realization can revive a lot of peace in our hearts.
One more wisdom to cure this:
Embrace and accept that you might not know all the reasons.
Or in other words, avoid assumptions.
Realize you might not have the correct perception.
Realize you might not be informed enough about the incident to have a perspective.
Realize you might not know everything to have an opinion.
Realize, that there can always be something unknown to you.
This realization will erase assumptions that pave the path to overthinking and then mental chaos.
It’s mostly about self-realization.
If you truly understand yourself, i.e., human nature, you wouldn’t bother to judge, assume, and have opinions about things you don’t really need to engage with or have half-knowledge about.
You learn to avoid unnecessary chaos and have much better mental health, just by using wisdom.
Social media rewired the world. But the real power?
It’s in how you choose to engage—or disengage.
It’s in how you handle multiple perceptions.
It’s in how you manage the stimulus-response gap.
It’s in how much you understand human nature.
It’s in how much you’ve awakened.
It’s about self-realization.
Subscribe to receive weekly thought-provoking insights that inspire clarity and self-realization.
Jasir Ibrahim
From Beyond Silence