Okay I had a chance to read it. I appreciate the perspective and agree with it but I also think it’s pretty on-the-nose and just reminds me of something a mental health influencer would say, with a bit of leftist language peppered in. Scrolling is absolutely a coping mechanism for unresolved trauma and any type of mental illness, really. Double that for someone who’s autistic or has ADHD; it can be soothing and is a dopamine machine so that HAS to make it even more alluring. But there are many self destructive coping mechanisms that a traumatized person can turn to. If you are simply in a state of coping, that in and of itself is not healing the trauma. Therefore I think any way that you decide to cope with traumatic events is simply prolonging it and that’s not exclusive to internet addiction.
Before cell phones, I had drugs and booze and my iMac. Before drugs I had videogames. An entire lifetime of coping mechanisms to help me avoid processing my feelings. Would you not describe the experience of dissociation from substances as some sort of simulacrum?
I’ve gone to therapy for 10+ years. It has helped to untangle a lifetime of traumatic experience for me, but it was not something that magically cured my need to cope in whatever ways I can. I am still mentally ill. I’m still neurodivergent. Still living in a capitalist hellscape as we all are. Not everyone has access to therapy. So, then what do you do? Get rid of your coping skills, no matter how harmful, to just sit with your thoughts, not knowing how to work through them and let them eat you alive? Fuck that, give me cute capybara videos to scroll through please.
I agree that internet addiction is a real problem, and the access we have to it can make it a real hindrance to being in community. I’m experiencing this first hand. But I think the conversation is more nuanced and I wish the writer would have taken it farther.
Okay I had a chance to read it. I appreciate the perspective and agree with it but I also think it’s pretty on-the-nose and just reminds me of something a mental health influencer would say, with a bit of leftist language peppered in. Scrolling is absolutely a coping mechanism for unresolved trauma and any type of mental illness, really. Double that for someone who’s autistic or has ADHD; it can be soothing and is a dopamine machine so that HAS to make it even more alluring. But there are many self destructive coping mechanisms that a traumatized person can turn to. If you are simply in a state of coping, that in and of itself is not healing the trauma. Therefore I think any way that you decide to cope with traumatic events is simply prolonging it and that’s not exclusive to internet addiction.
Before cell phones, I had drugs and booze and my iMac. Before drugs I had videogames. An entire lifetime of coping mechanisms to help me avoid processing my feelings. Would you not describe the experience of dissociation from substances as some sort of simulacrum?
I’ve gone to therapy for 10+ years. It has helped to untangle a lifetime of traumatic experience for me, but it was not something that magically cured my need to cope in whatever ways I can. I am still mentally ill. I’m still neurodivergent. Still living in a capitalist hellscape as we all are. Not everyone has access to therapy. So, then what do you do? Get rid of your coping skills, no matter how harmful, to just sit with your thoughts, not knowing how to work through them and let them eat you alive? Fuck that, give me cute capybara videos to scroll through please.
I agree that internet addiction is a real problem, and the access we have to it can make it a real hindrance to being in community. I’m experiencing this first hand. But I think the conversation is more nuanced and I wish the writer would have taken it farther.
Very good points.