The effect of deactivating Facebook and Instagram on users' emotional state

Don't be too discouraged. IMHO it's as simple as there being a significant portion of the population who tend to talk shit about other people in their circle when those people aren't around. If asked, they'll often attribute this oddly unmotivated malice to some conveniently proximate reason but, in most cases, if that reason didn't exist they'd still talk some slightly different shit about that same person.

In my experience, these kind of people will, at various times and in various contexts, talk shit about around half the people in their relevant circle. And who's in the half varies over time and each shit-talker can have different individuals in their half. So how does one end up in a given talker's shit-talked half? It can seem almost random but definite contributing factors include the talker perceiving you as better than them in any way (even if you never imply that - and even if it's not remotely correct). It's enough that their insecurity gets triggered even if it's over something 100% imaginary. Heaven help you if you actually are slightly more attractive in some way, have a slightly better job, spouse, education, hobby, hairdo, car - it can be anything or nothing. It's them - not you. And if it wasn't that one thing, it would be about something else.

The truly strange thing is, in my experience, when many of these people shit-talk about their friend group it's unconsciously triggered behavior that relieves some internal psychological stressor. It's almost like some kind of bizarre Tourette syndrome. On another day, in another context, that same shit-talker would tell someone you're their friend, that you're a great person - and, strangely, in that moment they would sincerely mean it. In some ways, I'd almost prefer it if these people were two-faced liars who spend every moment secretly hating me but act nice to my face. While unpleasant, that's at least easy to understand. The reality that they're just socially schizophrenic and almost randomly acting out triggered emotional stress but without harboring any deep rooted animosity toward me is much harder to mentally model.

Once I gained an understanding of this. I learned to avoid not only the shit-talkers, but the people close to them who don't shit talk but listen to their shit talk passively. While the shit-talkers are flawed, insecure people, the regular shit-listeners are just weak and unprincipled. I decided I don't have time to waste on either type. It's also a good reminder to myself to avoid ever slipping into passive shit-listening. Whenever I'd hear shit-talk about someone else, I'd usually politely question the shit-talker on their inconsistent behavior. This pretty quickly ensures no one shit-talks about anyone when I'm around - and it often leads to being excluded from the group entirely. Which I consider an excellent outcome.

Note: Based on the broad circumstances you related, I'll also add a general reminder to always consider the motivations of whoever told you about the shit-talking. Obviously, that's an all-to-common way to stir up drama and/or deepen their relationship with you. Always remember, if they weren't considered a 'safe' shit-listener by the shit-talker, they wouldn't have heard the shit-talk about you. And, of course, exaggerating (or entirely fabricating) the supposed shit-talk they reported to you is another level of shit-stirring.

A bit more than a century back, one branch of my family tree stems from somebody with the surname "Berlin".

Sometime in the vicinity of WW1, their ~dozen children each chose a different spelling variation and changed their names so that they wouldn't be directly associated with that city. Being seen as "German" went out of style.

You can call this some unique type of racism, or you could call it being dumb, or you could call it being... not nuanced. But generalization is a fundamental mode of human thought, and you shouldn't be surprised when something awful happens attributable to a group you happen to be a part of, that some significant fraction of the population generalizes their attitudes as your attitudes. This isn't some defensible ethical position I'm staking out, it's an observation that people were prone to make this ethnic generalization in the first place, and unlike in most cases in a liberal democracy, every authority figure in their lives have EMBRACED the generalization as a direct equivalence, at the request of the foreign ethnostate. Netanyahu wants to SPEND DOWN any social capital that the term "Antisemitism" has accrued, for short-term political gain, and both US political parties and media ecosystems have complied with this plan. If this causes harm abroad to non-Israeli Jews, Netanyahu only benefits because it drives Jewish refugees to seek Right of Return to the self-proclaimed Jewish ethnostate and its strongman leader who will provide you security.

J-Street and similar groups need to be out there on the streets, frankly, not just as a normative moral stance, but to protect themselves from Israel's blowback.

October 7th was many things, but the narrative these particular people focused on was of a prison break, by a prison gang, who was imprisoned by act of military conquest in a concentration camp, which has been periodically bombed and starved for as long as they've been alive. Israel's ruling coalition had grown increasingly right wing, incorporating people who were actively discussing a final annexation of this land and expulsion/extirpation of its people. It has also accelerated "Settlement" activity on Palestinian land. These acts drew harsh condemnation from the rest of the world... but not the US. The US has bent over backwards to support Israel despite any ideals it might have; We have sacrificed relationships with other nations and given away diplomatic priorities to extort them to support Israel. It's done so because Israel has corrupted the US legislature in a top-down fashion, going back to the 60's, using a combination of Cold War logic, captive military-industrial ties, espionage (Among the most salacious examples, Epstein/Maxwell), racism, evangelical rapture, and cold hard... uhh... lobbying. They dumped a hundred million dollars on our political establishment's primary campaign system this past election to secure their consent, and we are told growing up that this isn't something a foreign state actor would ever be allowed to do.

In the _days_ after October 7th, before the bombing started, those of us with a lot of exposure to media were watching nonstop war propaganda about things like hundreds of babies being beheaded, much of it in an Israeli accent; There was talk of the immediate urgent need to Solve the Hamas Problem by any means necessary. And we've watched this happen with Iraq/Afghanistan after 9/11 - we've seen these characters say these things before, played by an earlier generation but making the same "mistakes" to appeal to the same urges. But Iraq & Afghanistan are not one of the most densely populated cities on Earth, which was on the verge of starving in the best of times.

We were told growing up that "dual loyalty" was some kind of warped Nazi idea, while it was marketed to impressionable young American Jews by Israel as an ideal in all-expenses-paid Birthright tours. My largely apolitical friend in high school with an American sports scholarship staring him in the face ended up doing his IDF term of service in the Second Intifada instead because that was just what was expected of him in his family, and because of how Israel treats dual citizenship & Return. I don't think we should be surprised if some people just choose to believe what Israel says about Jews, and conclude that they should be generically opposed to Jews. It takes _effort_ to understand perspectives and _exposure_ to Jews that aren't ethnonationalists, to avoid these sorts of conclusions.