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Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

glamourmagazine.co.uk

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Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#2
I'm constantly having to remind my wife that she's a good mother. She keeps seeing all the posts on Facebook from her groups about how some woman made dinner, built a diorama and made enough to buy a new purse from her side business all in one day! And she thinks she's a slacker because "all" she can do is feed the kids and read them a story. I have to keep telling her that she's only seeing the highlight reel of those other mom's lives, and to stop trying to compare to them.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#5
There is science to suggest that negative talk can influence your mental health in deleterious ways. Words do create a reality to some extent, great or small.

There is no science (at least none that I know of) that indicates that someone telling you this fact helps you get out of this mode of being.

Therein lies the rub.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#8
So on the other hand there is a toxic negativity that seems to reign in pop culture where people's impression of many things in society in general are on the pessimistic side of what real data shows. I wonder if this tendency towards toxic positivity in social media is some kind of equal but opposite effect that acts as a balance.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#9
post #2

I'm constantly having to remind my wife that she's a good mother. She keeps seeing all the posts on Facebook from her groups about how some woman made dinner, built a diorama and made enough to buy a new purse from her side business all in one day! And she thinks she's a slacker because "all" she can do is feed the kids and read them a story. I have to keep telling her that she's only seeing the highlight reel of tho…

This reminded me of the Netflix show The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell where it's an ongoing joke how she wants to get ready for guests in the evening, so she makes this outrageously detailed gingerbread house then nips off to construct an elaborate dress before returning to solve world hunger or something. My wife and I speculated that it's a subtle dig at people who post like that on Facebook like they can ignore the laws of time and space at will.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#10
post #2

I'm constantly having to remind my wife that she's a good mother. She keeps seeing all the posts on Facebook from her groups about how some woman made dinner, built a diorama and made enough to buy a new purse from her side business all in one day! And she thinks she's a slacker because "all" she can do is feed the kids and read them a story. I have to keep telling her that she's only seeing the highlight reel of tho…

Thank you. This is a problem for my wife as well. She stays at home and is an introverted person so doesn't like to go out and socialize. Instead she sees the constant flow of amazing things that everybody else is doing, and feels like a failure.

My kids are hard to deal with. I honestly don't know how she does it. I have to remind her of that when she gets mad at herself for having started a business that failed quickly, and other things that haven't worked out.

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