Problems of Social Media: Change your self perception
By Fr. Pasquotto - We create an illusory narrative of ourselves in our timelines. A year later, Social Media remind us of these moments, induces us to receive these staged moments as genuine memories
Note from the translator: A series of sermon by Fr. Luiz Fernando Pasquotto, IBP, in 2016. The original in portuguese can be read here .
Sermons: Problems of Social Media:
Changes your self perception ←
Crafted to be anti-theocentric and favor depression (link)
Jeopardize intellectual life (link)
Moral issues and fair use (link)
It is the duty of priests to instruct the faithful in the law of God. When they know that there is a widespread problem, it is necessary to give guidance to the faithful, because otherwise we priests will hear the following rebuke from God on the day of judgment: “They are all blind, without understanding. They are all mute dogs that do not know how to bark; they dream lying down and love sleep” (Isaiah 56, 10). Especially when the problem is presented in a subtle way and people are not aware of the trouble they are in. I refer here to the issue of the use of social media: Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.
Often the discussion about the good and the bad of using social media has stayed on the emotional level. Because of the ease of communication and transmission of information, and biased by the attractiveness of these media, most people think that there is no problem in using them, or that the problems they bring are small.
It is difficult to find texts discussing the issue in a reasonable way, starting from safe Catholic principles. Some articles say, for example, that they are modes of communication and transmission of information that are there, and that they should not be rejected. Now, this way of arguing is quite weak. Here we will present several serious reasons to support an adequate view of the use of these media, because they do enormous harm to Catholic life and people when they are used without intelligence and against the Law of God. The truth is that, commonly, the use of Facebook, Whatsapp and any social media is done in a morally reprehensible way, and many serious sins are committed. The considerations we will make here also apply to the internet in general.
We will see the problems that are caused in individual psychology, in people's relationship with reality, in people's relationship with each other, with society, at the level of politics and the most notable moral problems that occur.
1. Because of the way they work and the internal structure of these media, and not because of a particular personal problem of one or another user, social media affect the psychology of those who use them.
This influence on our psychology and, therefore, on our way of thinking, seeing things and acting with them, is reflected in our intellectual life, in our prayer and in the way we see ourselves, in the way we see God, the Church, how we relate to other people. Not having any criticism about this influence on us, and not taking practical and concrete measures, is the surest way to be harmed in our way of living as a human being and a child of God. All this has eternal consequences because, in our judgment after death, God will ask us to account even for the useless words we speak.
First, the way social media functions causes us problems because of the way they act in our memory. We collect photos and memories of our lives, (we add them to) social media like Facebook or Instagram, we put our memories of the past, where we posed for photos and created artificial moments to be photographed and remembered as real.
We create an illusory narrative of ourselves in our timelines: funny selfies, posts of things we want to show we admire, live streams of personal events, etc. But, of course, we only post pictures where we appear acceptable to others, and we don't post the things that we expect to be criticized about ourselves. These are purposefully artificial events, the details of which are all thought out in terms of the initial and tyrannical desire to be liked by others.
A year later, Facebook reminds us of these moments, induces us to receive them without nuance and to take them as genuine memories of things that, in fact, were only staged. By this way of working, Facebook induces the user to deceive himself about his own person: we look at ourselves and take ourselves as if we were really our own simulacra produced in posts, selfies and timelines. Finally, we become addicted to our own illusions.
The truth is, each of us knows very well that we are not what we actually store on Facebook or Instagram. We all know, when examining our conscience, that we have vertigo to look at ourselves, as when we look into an abyss. That's why we stopped doing 1 minute of examination of conscience and spent two hours or more on social media, admiring ourselves, and admiring the admiration that others have of us — let me say it in a better way — no (admiration) of our real selves, but of a simulacrum of what we are. The truth is that we want to be deceived. This is the truth: I want to be deceived, knowing that I am creating a simulacrum of myself and that I am false to myself. Because it is comfortable to have found a way of looking at myself without making me nauseous and, at the same time, without having corrected my faults, or made any effective intention of penance. It is properly the worst form of cynicism: cynicism exercised towards oneself.
Disinterest in examining one's conscience, disregard for one's own spiritual progress with consequent disgust for confession and decrease in the frequency of going to confession, pride without any foundation in real qualities, but based on qualities artificially produced in ourselves, by ourselves and encouraged by our admirers, cynical view of himself, disregard for their own miseries and in reforming themselves. These are the first damages that social medias do to people, not by accident, but as a result of the very way in which they are structured.
In the next sermon we will see how social medias have a properly anti-theocentric mode of operation, and their structure is designed so that everything is referred to the user and not to God.
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Great!