Social Disconnect

In light of the YouTube shooting, one thing hit me. People seem to be more disconnected than ever. Based on the article, this woman had a number of different social media accounts portraying herself as a "vegan bodybuilder" to an "animal rights activist" to a "comedian."

The problem is the one thing it does not say is that she had a complete social disconnect from reality. This is one thing that most of these shooters seem to have.

There is a claim in the linked article that she was enraged over the "demonetization" of her YouTube videos, but that is the way the world works. You can post things online, but they have to meet certain standards and some of the graphic animal abuse videos she posted were not suitable for general consumption - especially when you are using someone else's platform like YouTube or Facebook.

Then for her to blame YouTube for her losing "money" is a clear sign of an entitlement mentality that is prevalent in most toddlers in my honest opinion. The issue is that she was considered an "adult", but she acted like a child and threw a truly violent temper tantrum. Yes, that is a pretty sad description - but it is an accurate description. This act - assuming she was not truly insane - is liberal entitlement and victim mentality run amok. She lost money because of YouTube - not because of her, not because of her content.

However, the real problem is that there are times you have to step away from the laptop, turn off your phone, put away the I-Pad and re-engage with the real world. That is the common thread I see in most of the situations. The person spends way too much looking at a screen - whether it is a laptop, a phone, or whatever - and forgets to go out and be in the real world.

People need to actually interact with one another in real life on occasion. Some of the behavior you see online would never occur in the real world. The need for civil discourse is fading because the main part of civil is based on human interaction. That is something we desperately need nowadays - some civility.

When you do not have actually civility, actual social skills, the actual ability to properly interact, you end up with:

The sad part is something like this would not happen when people actually interact with other people. You would think no one would ever intentionally go to someone's place - or any place - and trash it. Literally!

This is a sign of a mob mentality, narcissism, and an entitlement mentality. That also occurs when there is no one else taken into account which can be based on a social disconnect. If you are not around other people, if you do not interact with other people; then you spend all of your time thinking about yourself.

End result - you devolve into the mindset of a two year old. The difference is an actual two year old IS dependent on others. The people who trashed Washington, DC during that march AREN'T. But because they do not think of anyone other than themselves, they are so socially disconnected from real people that they do not care. When things do not go their way, well it is always SOMEONE ELSE'S fault.

So, every so often, turn off the electronics and go out into the real world and socially connect with people in real life. It will do us all some good.