How Stoicism Can Protect You from the Dangers of Social Media
How many followers do you have?
How many likes did you receive on your last instagram photo?
How many people have agreed with, and retweeted, the opinion you recently shared on twitter?
How often do you get comments and DMs from people expressing how they like something about you?
If all these numbers are low, how does that make you feel?
Or, maybe you are in a situation more similar to mine and you get plenty of attention online. But with it, you occasionally receive comments or messages where people disrespect you or even make an effort to hurt you with their words.
Now, you can tell me that you don’t care about these things.
But if you spend a decent portion of your day on social media, as most people do, it’s impossible to be completely immune to the impact these online platforms have on our sense of self-worth.
However, as much as our lives have been changed by their digitalization and as different as they may seem from the lives of our parents, let alone from those who lived thousands of years ago, there is a reason why some ideas are called "timeless wisdom."
In this age where our sense of self-worth is under vicious attack by the online world, we can find help in the ideas of those who couldn’t have imagined in their wildest dreams the technology we have today.
Let’s talk about how Stoicism can protect you from the dangers of social media.
Where does your worth lie?
One of the core teachings of Stoicism is that your worth lies inside you.
This hasn’t changed. The only thing that has changed is how much more important it is to be reminded of this today than it was in ancient times.
Back then, the average person had to worry about a handful of people affecting their sense of self-worth throughout their entire life. Today, if you have a social media profile, you have more connections and can reach more people than Marcus Aurelius, the most powerful man in the world in his time, could. Let that sink in.
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