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Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

glamourmagazine.co.uk

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Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#51

Post by jedberg »

sarcasmOrTears wrote: post #44
jedberg wrote: 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 "highlight reel" excuse is an excuse. I mean, why a person has a better highlight reel than another? Probably the one with a better highlight reel has a better life. I think denying the truthfulness in highlight reels is a form of toxic positivity.

It's not that the highlight reel is better. It's that you only see the good days. Sure, maybe one day you can get a bunch of stuff done and post about it, and then the next week you get nothing done. But if the only post people see is the one about getting all the stuff done, then they will assume that happens every day, including the days you don't post.

The problem with the highlight reel is that people assume it applies to all the times you don't post.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#52

Post by tracyshaun »

The author of this article seems to be a slave to her emotions and hasn't yet realize she can choose the emotional responses to the events in her life. Endometriosis is an awful awful awful thing to experience, but she seems to be confusing her own emotional choice about that condition and the inane platitudes those around her try to give to her. "Be positive" isn't toxic... it's just annoying when you think you don't have a choice about how to feel.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#53

Post by MrTonyD »

I don't like all the toxic positivity that has been growing in the workplace. This has changed a lot since my early days in Silicon Valley. My impression is that different countries have different "power distance" - a measure of submission to authority.

As the workforce has changed, with more hiring from "high power distance" countries, there are more "yes men" enthusiastically agreeing to anything that any incompetent executive wants.

Of course, the executives like this, and promote those who are "easy to get along with" and who are happy to "implement their vision". But I think history will show that this is one of the things which has contributed to the culture decline in Silicon Valley - from producing useful products to producing maximum profit regardless of any contribution to society. Right now, for example, I'm at yet another company with several incompetent managers who are supported by technical "yes men". They know that we are making idiotic technical decisions, but they would never openly disagree.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#54

Post by Applejinx »

jachee wrote: post #43
fnord123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, right? I get my tips from Teen Vogue: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-to-keep-your-internet-hi... (Actually a good article)

Teen Vogue has actually been doing some of the best hard-hitting journalism for the last few years. I'm not even close to ashamed of consuming their content.

Yeah they have. Their political coverage puts more mainstream outlets to shame.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#55

Post by munificent »

erulabs wrote: post #37
mcguire wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be too personal to tell us what the hobby is? (I've never seen one that requires you to have your shit together, any at all.)

While not entirely requiring your life to be together, any significantly tough outdoors activity tends to get an interesting group. Local search and rescue volunteer hiking groups, for example, tends to be a weird mix of geology teachers, ex-marines and firefighters, and nerdy hiker types.

I was absolutely going to guess search and rescue.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#56

Post by paulpauper »

We've all been in situations where no amount of positive thinking will change anything, and it's unhelpful because it fails to acknowledge the trying situation felt by the sufferer at hand and comes across as preachy and moralistic, except rather than admonishing someone for not going to church, it's for not exuding 'positive vibes', but also it's sometimes perceived as insincere and a way to absolve one's guilt for not doing more to help. This backlash explains the online appeal of Jordan Peterson, who is like the anti-Tony Robbins.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#57

Post by munificent »

sarcasmOrTears wrote: post #44
jedberg wrote: 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 "highlight reel" excuse is an excuse. I mean, why a person has a better highlight reel than another? Probably the one with a better highlight reel has a better life. I think denying the truthfulness in highlight reels is a form of toxic positivity.

> I mean, why a person has a better highlight reel than another?

But you aren't comparing their highlight reel to yours. You're comparing it to your entire life, because you have visibility into everything in your life, including all the stuff you don't post.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#58

Post by ultrasandwich »

Great further reading on this sentiment from academic/philosopher Byung-Chul Han if you're interested. He makes a pretty entertaining case against positivity in his book "The Burnout Society."

"...Because Otherness is disappearing, we live in a time that is poor in negativity. And so, the neuronal illnesses of the twenty-first century follow a dialectic: not the dialectic of negativity, but that of positivity. They are pathological conditions deriving from an excess of positivity."

http://theorytuesdays.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Han_Bur...

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#59

Post by reificator »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #31
itronitron wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While working in a startup for several years I became fairly practiced at running everything our CEO said through an internal BS meter and have found it incredibly useful in every workplace since then. The spectrum is 'true', 'optimistic', 'possibly true', 'not quite', 'probably lying', 'lying', 'lying to themselves'. During any company meeting I would keep a mental tally of how each statement measured up and used th…

'lying to themselves' In my twenties, I concluded that most people lying to me were actually lying to themselves. They weren't trying to make my life harder or deceive me per se. It was simply not possible to state the truth to someone else and keep lying to themselves. It made social BS vastly easier for me to cope with.

An excellent viewpoint, and one that I've found value in as well.

Re: Social media is spreading 'toxic positivity'

#60

Post by werber »

I think there's a lot of power in telling someone that whatever they're going through sucks and you can't do anything about it, but you'll listen to them bitch to get some relief. Being told to be positive can feel like a polite way of saying shut up, I don't care, keep that to yourself.
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