More recently, people loved to visit and exchanged news at a personal meeting, were interested in each other's affairs, discussed different events from personal life. With the development of the Internet and social networks, this need has practically disappeared. Personal communication is no longer a necessity.
It is enough to go to the personal page of your friend or acquaintance located on the network, for example, "Vkontakte", to find out everything about his personal life, thanks to the numerous photos and messages posted there.
People in VKontakte, for the most part, post detailed pictures for everyone to see. And from them you can find out not only about significant events taking place in their lives, but even how a person spends his day, literally by the clock.
Why do some people flaunt their lives, why do people post photos in contact, what is the psychology of this? Let's speculate:
Psychologist's point of view
Why upload photos to the network?
It is effortless self-affirmation. According to experts, a photograph is not only a reflection of the appearance, but its imprint. It is also a picture of the inner life of a person, his emotional state... Therefore, most people try to show themselves in in the best possible way, good mood so that those who view the image will rate them positively.
Hence the number of likes that users "in contact" put to the displayed photos. Thus, users receiving a large number of assessments and positive feedback without making any efforts, they raise their own status, feel themselves in the center of attention.
It is much easier to express yourself in the virtual world than in real life. Agree, in order to be appreciated, praised in real life, you need to do something useful, make an effort. And in social networks, people uploaded photos to their page and nothing else needs to be done at all.
Just post a snapshot of yourself in front of an expensive car, dancing on the table, etc. - success will be assured! Likes, comments, reviews will sprinkle - everything that is needed for self-affirmation. So they post their images on VKontakte.
Look - we are happy!
There are a lot of wedding photos in the networks. Especially girls love to upload their photos to wedding dress, a beautiful car has a photo, in the interior of a holiday photo: What is the psychology of this?
Experts explain this by the fact that for every girl her own wedding is one of the most important events in her life. Everyone wants to be the most beautiful and happy in such a significant life. Therefore, from a psychological point of view, their actions are quite understandable.
Internet addiction
American experts dealing with the psychological nature of the described phenomenon have identified a connection between regular publications in the network of photographs of oneself, with the existing addiction to the Internet.
The psychology of this phenomenon is a kind of psychostimulant that allows you to get more and more powerful emotions. This is especially true for those who post photos from their daily life, sometimes quite ridiculous: I eat, I sleep, I undress, I dress, etc.
Such people simply can no longer live without likes, evaluations of their subscribers, and their approval. Without the support of the unknown strangers, which he does not know and is unlikely to ever recognize, an Internet addict simply cannot live a normal life. Without likes, reviews and comments, he feels lost, depressed, and can show aggression.
So you have to maintain interest in your own person with rather controversial, often just stupid photos in contact.
Vanity factory
If you look at the accounts of most services, you might get the impression that this is a place of communication for happy people who have achieved success in life. On the pages of many users, only photos and descriptions of luxurious rest, rich interiors, entertainment, delicious food, expensive cars, etc. flaunt.
Such images are most often posted by users living in ordinary ordinary life, with their successes and problems. In this way, they indulge their own vanity, showing their often invented "success", boring and not so lucky subscribers.
As you know, the world is harmonious and balanced. In addition to the ostentatious, glossy side of life of each of us, there is also a shadow side that not everyone wants to demonstrate.
Showing a stranger, faceless person photos of his "gorgeous", successful life, which in fact does not exist, the netizen himself believes a little in this, thereby increasing his life status. He is happy and proud of the likes and reviews he has left that amuse his vanity.
Loneliness and boredom
Very often people post pictures of their supposedly successful life just out of boredom and loneliness.
Psychologists say that an increase in the importance of the outer part of life always speaks of a lack of the inner part. There are users who post a dozen photos every day: She - with perfect makeup, without a single wrinkle, shows her outfits. He - demonstrates a new car, an expensive watch, etc.
This often means that they really need to feel their importance, which most likely is not in their life. Such people simply suffer from boredom and, often, from loneliness.
Many are engaged in self-admiration, for a long time looking at their own and other people's images, counting and putting likes. They get joy from a beautiful picture and dream about beautiful life... Such people are often internally empty, not busy with anything serious and very lonely.
Have you read the book "Games People Play: The Psychology of Relationships" by Berne Eric Lennard? If not yet, be sure to read it. Where can I get it? Search on the Internet, on the same social network. It happens that people spread, psychology interests many.
- Hello how are you? Has the cat recovered? It's a pity that you broke up with Vanka, he was a cool guy.
- Hi who are you?
- And I read your statuses.
A fictional story, and in fact it is so similar to what we see today in social networks... If you go to the page of some people and see the history of their statuses and albums with photographs, you can literally paint everything that happened in their lives every day. Where they rested, with whom they met, with whom they parted, who betrayed them, whom they deleted from their lives and why.
Such people, with some inexplicable fanaticism, post everything that happens in their lives to the network. Even everything that, it would seem, is somehow inconvenient to tell, even to people with whom I know. But in social networks, everyone has access to other people's pages, in this case, to someone else's life.
What it is? Modern trend? Wanting to draw attention to yourself? Lack of close friends, and the resulting lack of communication?
We will answer all these questions from the position of the system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan.
Who likes to live on display?
System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan shows that such behavior may be characteristic of some people with a visual vector.
The Spectator is a natural psychotherapist. He knows how to create an emotional connection with any person. You can feel special comfort next to him, he wants to trust and pour out his soul, feeling after that relief. The girls in the class, unhappy women who are cheated on by their husbands, men who are not satisfied with something in their personal life, tell the audience all their secrets and secrets.
But, not every spectator has such an ability. Only the one who was able to develop these properties in himself. Then, when the viewer, for certain reasons, does not develop them, he, instead of empathizing with others, enjoys demonstrating himself. He enthusiastically talks exclusively about his life situations, problems, experiences, happiness and suffering. Depending on his condition and additional vectors, he can do this to a limited circle of people - close friends, relatives, or even barely familiar people.
Previously, only those in whose environment they found themselves knew about such people. Their behavior was surprising, but everything was attributed to the "strangeness of man."
Today, with the emergence of social networks and the associated expansion of the circle of people we encounter, each of us sees such people every day. Their life for show annoys others. This is how a person is made, we do not like other people because they are not like us. We do not understand them and begin to build our own guesses. Think from the position of your vector set “what would have pushed me to this”? So theories are put forward that such people lack communication. That they just want to show off. And so on, so on, so on ...
But in fact, it is not the lack of a sufficient circle of friends or the desire to boast that pushes these people to lay out all the details of their lives for everyone to see, but the peculiarities of their psyche.
The visual vector, however, like any other, is multifaceted, depending on its states, each property and desire of the viewer can manifest itself in different ways. So, the spectator can bare his soul, as lovers of life do for show, or his body, as nudists and exhibitionists do.
And today there are much more lovers of life for show than a few years ago for another reason. Seeing how others expose their lives in front of the entire Internet community, those viewers who could still restrain themselves stop doing it. So every year more and more details of the lives of various people appear on social networks. Which, perhaps, have only one thing in common - the state of their visual vector. Before they saw it from another person, they thought it was not normal. They, perhaps, were even ashamed of their desire - to bare their souls in front of a large number of people, infinitely large.
By exposing the details of their lives, these spectators in this way, in a peculiar way, remove their shortcomings, receiving a feeling of satisfaction.
In fact, there is nothing wrong with it, just like it is good. The very fact of such a kind of exhibitionism speaks of not very good states of the visual vector. That instead of realizing himself outward, for the benefit of society, this spectator is trying to realize himself inward, to consume emotions. When we try to realize ourselves, what is called the system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan “inwardly”, this is always not entirely adequate. The internal volume is limited, but our desire is large, and our internal volume is simply not enough to realize our desire. So we go beyond reason. We do not have enough of those people who surround us, we are already going where they do not know us, trying to get more pleasure through expanding the circle of people to whom we show our life.
The article was written using the materials of the training on system-vector psychology by Yuri Burlan
But in reality, you are still within four walls and look at the dusty screen, which displays yours in the form of small pixels. And even if you watch the most high quality photos and video recordings are still a bunch of not always necessary information, and not a real experience. So you can spend your whole life "online", filled with other people's emotions, other people's impressions and other people's desires.
The main harm of social networks is creating a bias towards people
Imagine:
There is a girl named Lena, she has twins and an ordinary husband who works in the office. Constantly sitting with the children at home, the mother of two daughters was completely bored and registered on Instagram. Lena does not throw her boring and monotonous life into the tape - she takes photos of only the best moments: in a restaurant (where she was last several months ago), on a walk, in a theater, in stores. That's about 15% of her life - the rest is hardly fun.
What is the result?
Friends and subscribers of Lena, watching her cheerful photos, shots from boutiques and restaurants, shots with a business husband in a suit, imagine that this is a rich, successful and driving personality.
What will be the disappointment of these people when they meet the usual Lenka, a mother of twins with an average husband. As a result, the subscriber and the owner of the page are unlikely to find mutual language- between them a chasm dug by prejudice and false images.
We all post photos of pleasant everyday things on the Internet - from our favorite plush toy to a funny announcement posted at the entrance. But some go even further and post photos of everything that surrounds them during the day.
We all post photos of pleasant everyday things on the Internet - from our favorite plush toy to a funny announcement posted at the entrance.
Ninety photographs, recording with chronometric accuracy not so much the events of the day as the interiors in which these events take place. Not very clean bed linen or blinds with a bright sun shining through them, cups, bowls, plates, flowers, fruits, animals, children ... Of all these objects, the little Dutch would have already cast a dozen metaphorical still lifes about the futility of existence. But these are not small Dutchmen - these are posts by members of the One My Day community, whose task is to tell about their day with the help of photos with a small amount of text. Photofixation of the smallest details of the lived period of time - not specific Russian history There are dozens of English versions of "A day in my life".
Photographic reports on the theme “One day of mine” in a highly simplified form continue the literary tradition of describing one day of the hero, showing through the prism of events his whole life and the entire volume of experiences that fill this person. And in exactly the same way as in literature, community members share either the routine day of their life, thereby demonstrating its stability and orderliness, or one of the significant dates: the birth of a child, the defense of a project or a wedding.
The community has existed for three years, but it became noticeable only recently - the number of participants exceeded 10 thousand. Thus, "One My Day" was included in the list of the 50 most popular LJ communities.
Psychoanalyst Mark Sandomirsky believes, “One day of mine” can be called an extract of Internet communities: “Of course, in such groups, participants are selected according to common interests, which can be called virtual exhibitionism, screaming demonstrativeness, an unrestrained desire to flaunt themselves. All these are general patterns of psychology of social media users, an increased need to draw attention to their own person. You can see it on any social networks. "
Most often women from 20 to 35 years old share their day, less often - men. A large proportion of storytellers are immigrants and citizens of the world: about 60% of all posts are pictures from the "beautiful far away". The founder of the community, Anna Gahan, is proud that she managed to create “an atmosphere of goodwill, openness and the ability to accept the world of another person completely, without conditions, without the requirement to be the same as
you yourself. " This, of course, is a somewhat polished version of the relationship of the participants: although the community rules prohibit direct insults and criticism, many commentators, no, no, yes, they insert secular hairpins: "Everything, of course, is very good and positive, but somehow without soul and meaning."
RETURNED EXHIBITIONISM
In the One My Day community, people open up their personal space for other people's views. Penetration into it is always painful, or at least palpable. A person becomes unarmed in front of assessment, discussion, questions and any actions directed towards him.
“The reason for such a massive, epidemic demonstrativeness is quite objective,” says Mark Sandomirsky. Research shows that active social media users literally fall into childhood. The brain of an adult in the process of Internet surfing and virtual network communication switches into a childish state, and he begins to behave egocentrically, demanding attention, naively exposing everything in a row. And as desperate as Small child, in need of praise, categorically rejects criticism. True, some researchers go further and in the described features of the behavior of Internet users see manifestations of the global trend of infantilization of humanity. "
Anna Gahan says that in the stream of photographs, into which one daylight turns, the life values of a person are most clearly manifested: “He himself can look at his day from the side and notice that it is too empty, or that he pays too much attention to work, or that he has wonderful children and an absolutely amazing wife / husband / mother-in-law. When I photographed the first day for this community, a lot was revealed about myself.
In the end, it became a kind of therapy - I “strip” in front of society and better understand myself and the people around ”.
We lock ourselves in the space of our apartment, hardly talk and know almost nothing about what we think, what we dream about, what we hope for, what our neighbor or colleague is interested in. But man is a social creature, he is lonely and uncomfortable alone. The Internet allows us not only to show our life exactly as we see it, but also to try on someone else's. Some use the photo report as an opportunity for internal cleansing, while others - just to clean up the apartment.
“This is not to say that I flaunt my life. The really important, hidden somewhere inside, remains with me. As for everyday little things, I think that from this point of view, the community is an excellent reason to finally put in order your life, to make it so that you would not be ashamed to show it to others, ”says Katya
(26) from Kiev.
The order in the apartment and inside themselves, demonstrated by the community members, is nothing more than screens, thanks to which they send updated messages to the world: "I am the mistress", "I am a decorator" or "I am a highly organized and exalted person."
Candidate psychological sciences Natalya Chudova, author of books on the psychology of Internet users, notes that on the Internet we try on many different guises, playing with our own identity: “The fundamental property of the Internet that sets the security situation is anonymity. But Internet technologies not only provide new opportunities for communication, but also generate a special cultural space in which the user gets at his disposal tools that influence the process of forming the image of the Self ”.
Evaluation and self-esteem are some of the motivating factors for posting this kind of post. Demonstrate your own superiority or just the norm. No one has canceled the provocation: having shown their life, the authors expect vivid reactions.
Same-sex couples host their own days to protest existing stereotypes. People dissatisfied with their financial condition are deliberately poor and sloppy interiors.
SYNTHETIC LIFE
Someone else's life through the prism of social networks always seems more interesting, richer, brighter and more significant than our own. The desire to spy on the life of other people, examine it in the smallest detail and compare it with oneself is absolutely irresistible. This is what a member of the community Katya writes (26): “I always liked to look into people's windows in the evenings and imagine: how do they live there? It is equally interesting for me to observe the life of a student from Moscow, a worker from Khabarovsk and some millionaire from Tyumen. " Anna Gahan bluntly declares: "One day of mine"
This is an opportunity to try on someone else's life, and many linger in this fitting room indefinitely. Community members admit: viewing community topics has become their main "time eater".
“It teaches me to find small joys,” says Olesya (27). - Once it seemed that if a day passed without any super-events and acute moments, it was wasted. But looking at how other people live, I understand once again that the amazing is near, you don't need to chase after impressions, you just need to look back and find the positive in what surrounds you. "
Getting in touch with someone else's life gives you a sense of involvement. A person has the opportunity to live someone else's life without destroying his own. Get new experiences at a safe distance. Tatyana Kochetova, Associate Professor, Candidate of Psychological Sciences of the Faculty social psychology MGPPU, believes that the members of these communities have protective mechanisms that work according to the principle (to paraphrase the well-known saying): "Whoever hurts, he says that it hurts for another", that is, it is always interesting what constitutes its own problem, but due to self-control in this problem is difficult to admit to yourself. “Moreover, looking at such things on the net with constant feedback“I liked it”, “I rate it” - a kind of positive reinforcement protective mechanism for the one who uploads the photos, and the successful operation of the identification mechanism for the one who views them, ”the specialist adds. The enthusiastic comment of one of the commune members can serve as the most striking example confirming this opinion: “Reading the community, I learn to live, I learn life from others, I find people interesting to me, I follow their further life, some posts are an incentive for me not to be afraid to take a step in one direction or another. Thanks to everyone and the community for the inspiration and desire to change lives! " - writes Alena (25).
Behind all the motives and impulses of people publishing photos of their day, there is a desire for manipulation and even aggression, albeit in the most hidden form - in most cases, the discussion of one day of a stranger is reduced
to the fact whether there is a meaning in his life or not, is it sufficiently saturated, are his achievements satisfactory from the point of view of society, are the curtains good, are cockroaches fat? But since an unspoken taboo has been imposed on the open position of superiority in LJ, it all comes down to a simple psychological devaluation of achievements. In this case, the expert position is advantageous in all directions: the commentator receives confirmation for himself that his life, compared to this squalor, is just a miracle how good it is, filled with meaning and spiritual growth.
Natalia Rustamova
Sometimes we envy users who brag about their well-being on social networks, posting photos of their family with happy smiles, scenes of prestigious vacations, expensive entertainment and acquisitions on the account pages, and put hashtags like "life is good!" But is everything really so rosy with them? After all, there are no problem-free people ...
Not everyone will post on the Web information about their illnesses, quarrels with loved ones, failures and failures ... This, as a rule, remains behind the scenes. However, if a person is already very zealous, trying to prove to others how good and wonderful everything is with him, then this is a very alarming sign.
"If you post 10 photos a day, where you are in a chic environment, without a wrinkle, with an expensive watch, against the background of an unreal sports car, this means that the high assessment of others is very important to you, and you are not busy with anything else," says the psychologist Anna Khnykina - People who live only on external assessment and a picture are internally empty and very lonely.
Alas, neither an expensive car, nor a vacation in the Bahamas alone will bring happiness. And happy faces in photographs do not mean that people are happy in real life. It is not uncommon for the family to be in a bad state, for example, the husband is cheating, but the wife posts pictures of the "happy family", in which the relationship between its members seems to be ideal ... But we do not live in photographs!
It happens that a person commits suicide, and acquaintances are surprised: after all, judging by the account on the social network, everything was fine with him: a wonderful family, money, work ... He just invented virtual "happiness" for himself, but in reality he had big problems: for example, difficult relationships with loved ones, debts or career failures ...
Some post pictures of their partners or spouses or joint photos with them with the hashtags "happy together", "the most best person in my life "and so on ... Why brag about personal happiness and notify the whole world about it? This is often done by people who have not been able to find a mate for a long time.
Pictures of children, in turn, are liked by those who have not had children for a long time, for example, women who have never been able to get pregnant before. “We are furiously broadcasting what we haven't had for a long time, and suddenly we got it,” says Anna Khnykina. It is clear that a person wants to tell the whole world what a fine fellow he is - he achieved what he so passionately desired ...
Meanwhile, "perfect" profiles do not always generate a positive reaction from other users. " Nice pictures can cause envy and irritation, - says Khnykina. - And this is also a reaction. A person who does not strive for compliance with a certain level, conventionally, a rich life or expensive things, calmly looks at those who spread their every "sneeze" in a good restaurant or an expensive resort.
And those who crave to meet a certain standard of living, but cannot afford it, will be annoyed looking at the happy profiles of their friends and acquaintances. ”This is another reason not to chase“ perfection ”...
Here are some tips from a psychologist.
Analyze where, in fact, you are real and how your real life matches the image that you are trying to create on social networks. Remember that happiness is our inner state, not an external attribute. So, if pictures from a party, likes and comments on them are more important to you than the fact that you were there, this is a cause for concern.
Try to understand why it is so important for you that everyone knows what is good in your life. Is it because you yourself are not sure that you are good, and are trying to prove to others and to yourself that everything is much better than it really is?
If you realized that the gap between your real life and in a virtual way it is too large, this is a reason for contacting a psychologist or psychotherapist.
You should also not try with all your might to achieve the external "effect of ideality" - this can cause a reaction that is completely opposite to the one you are trying to achieve. You are attractive to other people for who you are, not for who you are trying to look in their eyes.