From the Brain of Dr. Nicki: Falling Down the Media Rabbit-Hole

Pressure, pressure everywhere and not a moment to profoundly think! Yep, we now live in a constant social media sh..t-storm where cyber-bullying, relentless self-centered promotion, cyber-screaming matches, and excruciating public shaming is daily fare. But the fare isn’t always fair. And it certainly isn’t, no matter what we pretend, balanced.

Every week now in my office I hear terrible social media stories. Whether it’s localized, like vile fighting by text between a warring couple; or public as in, instagram assaults through disgusting photo-bombings; or twitter rampages; or offensive FB attacks; or snotty snapchats. Public or private, the war is on.

I’m not as concerned about the private fighting and sexting et al. But the public recording of every minute of our lives bugs me. We’ve begun to catalogue each thought that roams through our brains no matter how sickening, as well as what we glimpse in the world around us no matter how sordid, plus our often uniformed opinions on it all, and send it out to the world. As if it matters. Or perhaps to make us feel like we matter. Our fifteen minutes of fame is now an instantaneous snapchat away.

Indeed, exploding has replaced expressing. Inciting has replaced inviting. And, probably worst of all, private conversation has become fodder for public humiliation.

What’s happened? How did we get here? Those questions are more than a brief blog can bare but let’s keep it simple: as a collective we’re slowly but surely losing our ability for true, thoughtful and heart-driven dialogue. But as a person who works daily with picking up the resultant pain pieces I’m here to tell you – it ain’t worth it! Shaming doesn’t make you better, or smarter or funnier. It makes you toxic. You become a blight on the environment. And guess what – that what we reap we sow business applies too. Because the toxins you spew pour down inside you as well. Slowly but surely you become a dark place no one wants to visit.

You know how during war at Christmas time we sometimes shut down all fighting for the day. An odd concept at best, right - cause if we can stop for the day why not stop altogether - but anyway – what if we were to declare maybe a 30 day moratorium on awful public assaulting? Wonder what would happen. What would we picture, write and talk about?

Now THAT would be an extraordinary month.


** this is a re-post of a blog that first posted on September 8, 2016