<h1 id="10-misunderstandings-of-meditation">10 Misunderstandings of Meditation</h1>
<p>Along my self-improvement journey, I have picked up a lot of things from different sources that have helped shape how I practice healthcare for myself - the medicine in this case being routines, habits, and practices and avoiding unnecessary substances (I can’t seem to get over coffee though). One of these helpful practices that I have learned to really enjoy is meditation. When bringing this up in conversation, I notice that mediation has almost a social taboo around it - similar to talking about religion or politics. I am disappointed by this because there are a lot of misunderstandings that have been propagated in our generations on what meditation is. I want to spread the word about the benefits and help people understand that it is merely a tool that everyone has access to in their mental workshop.</p>
<p class="preface-note"><em style="opacity: .9;">
(Note: If you would like to skip this and go directly to the scientific evidence on the benefits of meditation, go to the last misconception at the <a href="#10-meditation-has-no-proven-benefits">end of this article</a>)
</em>
</p>
<p>There seem to be a lot of people that associate meditation with a certain social group. You know the stereotype: the hippy, granola-eating, van lyfe, harem pants, etc… Nothing against people who do that - I have been tempted to take a break from the usual life and experience a living-in-a-van <sub><sup><sub><sup> down by the river </sup></sub></sup></sub> journey for a year. Regardless of this perception of meditation, it might surprise you how many people meditate now and the trend of its growth. It is hard to gather data on who in the world has meditated in a given time frame, but they say approximately <a href="https://www.nccih.nih.gov/research/statistics/nhis/2017">14% of U.S. adults practiced meditation in 2017 compared to 4% in 2012</a>.</p>
<p>Also more concerning, I have noticed that for people trying it for the first time, there are a lot of misconceptions people have. Unfortunately, when people expect things to happen and they don’t, then they will give up - and it is completely valid and logical to think that. When people are not able to see the positive results in other people that a practice has provided, it is harder to justify taking time out to practice anything. Similar to exercising, if we don’t see the benefits, why would we do it? It is up to us to remove misinformation that the unknown inherently creates. The most productive way is to help inform others that the experience is intended to be a unique and individual journey. This is so we can remove the generalizations on what the practice is or is not to others. Here are the misconceptions about meditations that I have noticed:</p>
<h2 id="1-meditation-is-only-a-spiritual-practice">1. Meditation is Only a Spiritual Practice</h2>
<p>Although the first written mention of meditation itself <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4895748/">was mentioned in the Vedas</a>, the earliest religious texts of Hinduism, the practice has been incorporated as a practice across most religions and as an agnostic ritual. Sufism, Taoism, Budhism, Christianity, Judaism and many others have practiced it for their spiritual benefit. The Greeks were an early example of a Western culture that incorporated meditation into their practices of introspection known as “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melete">Melete</a>". These, along with the studies on the benefit of meditation, have helped shape the modern practice we know today in the West.</p>
<p>I have often heard from people that they don’t meditate because they are not very spiritual. On the flip side, I have also heard from people that they don’t meditate because they practice a certain religion and they feel that it would be against their religious practice to do so. We know that meditation has been used in this spiritual manner, but it doesn’t mean you have to incorporate this. The experience of meditation is only defined for you based on who you are. This sounds obvious, but it is important to distinguish that meditation is merely a tool rather than a result.</p>
<h2 id="2-there-is-only-one-way-to-meditate">2. There is only one way to meditate</h2>
<p>One thing I have learned from talking to others who meditate as a regular part of their practice is that the experience is almost unique to every individual. Some people like to focus on their breath, some people like to give themselves affirmations. Some people even want to practice more spiritual expeditions where they attempt to tap into their previous lives - for those that believe in reincarnation.</p>
<p>There are many different ways people <em>choose</em> to meditate, and they are all valid. I have noticed this in different guided meditations. I have learned that every person who guides you through meditation has a different idea of what meditation is to them. None of it is the same. In fact, you could almost compare it to a thumbprint of how our minds process information and as proof that we are all unique people. So no, there is not just one way to meditate, but an infinite amount of ways to meditate.</p>
<p>If you meditate already, and you disagree with anything in this article, you are absolutely correct.</p>
<h2 id="3-you-have-to-meditate-in-a-particular-position">3. You have to meditate in a particular position</h2>
<p>Everyone pictures meditation as having to be cross-legged, hovering off the floor, and palms up with our thumb and pointer finger together. I have tried it this way (lacking the levitation because I haven’t figured it out yet) and it is so uncomfortable for me, so I just sit on my beanbag. You can meditate anywhere and everywhere you want. You can even have your eyes open, be doing a task, or do whatever you want.</p>
<h2 id="4-“meditation-just-doesn’t-work-for-me”-or-“i-am-just-not-good-at-meditation”">4. “Meditation just doesn’t work for me” or “I am just not good at meditation”</h2>
<p>I don’t mean to be accusatory in bringing up this misconception of sorts, but I want to share my opinion - from my own experience - on why some don’t think it is right for them. Often, when people start to meditate, either first timers or after a long time not meditating, meditation is often a <em>very</em> frustrating experience. We find it hard to sit still with our thoughts. This is a good signal though. I compare it to the experience of physical pain. In order to learn that fire is hot, we first might have to experience the pain of heat to really <em>get it</em>. Similar to meditation, we need to acknowledge and validate our thoughts in order to truly acknowledge our present self. I compare it to shedding off the old skin of the world’s BS that truly doesn’t benefit me or anyone by thinking about it. I have learned, for me, it is not healthy to ignore and distract myself from my own thoughts.</p>
<p>Sometimes, meditation can absolutely suck. Sometimes, it can be so frustrating that we think we are bad at meditation because we are somehow “bad” with our own brains and how we manage our thoughts. We might have this feeling that we should somehow “be better”. Sometimes, we think that meditation is not for us because we don’t notice any immediate effects. A lot of times, other things give us way more stimulating, happy effects compared to meditation, so our brain tries to steer us away from it. I am here to tell you that it is impossible to be bad (or good) at meditation. You can’t be bad at practicing something, because it’s just not related to skill. Just know, that you are valid and are not any less for thinking this way because everyone experiences this.</p>
<h2 id="5-meditation-is-only-a-way-to-relax-by-means-of-escapism-or-distraction">5. Meditation is only a way to relax by means of escapism or distraction.</h2>
<p>I am guessing this is a very common thought. “Am I just doing this to avoid something in my life?” I often wonder about it still. Taking from the previous point, I mentioned that a big part of meditation is acknowledging our own thoughts. When I actually try to meditate with a result in mind, I am realizing that I am trying to just escape from the thoughts that I have. When I expect this to happen, more and more thoughts overtake my mind very quickly. It is similar to when someone says “<a href="https://youtu.be/ffOJC8s5Uuw">Don’t think of an elephant!</a>”</p>
<p>Imagine then trying super hard to escape from that thought of this hypothetical elephant. The more effort you put into not thinking about the elephant, the more elephants will pop up and dance around in your mind. Maybe even they will start to talk to each other and you might even imagine an elephant town bustling with elephants in their gigantic elephant cars and getting <a href="https://youtu.be/CA2sF22isCw">elephant road rage</a>.</p>
<p>In order to not think about something, we must first face it head-on. In order to get over fears, we must face them and accept their validity. Anything that occupies space in our&nbsp;big ol’ brains we have to experience in order to leave it behind. Meditation can be a means to accomplish this. With it, I feel like I have the tools to choose what thoughts I want to associate with in my present state and what thoughts I merely want to observe. In this way, we are facing ourselves in our truest selves, and I would consider it the opposite of escapism.</p>
<h2 id="6-meditation-should-only-be-done-alone">6. Meditation should only be done alone</h2>
<p>I recently just learned about this, but there are a lot of in-person meditation groups out there. I have only meditated a couple of times with others, and I feel like it can help give you this feeling of support and validation. Also, some people don’t like guided meditations in general, but I think they are sometimes pretty cool. It’s a different feel from your usual practice, and like my previous point, maybe you can pick up something you enjoy that you will incorporate into your practice. Some guided meditations I honestly find annoying, but it’s all a process of figuring out what benefits your mind the most.</p>
<h2 id="7-meditation-will-give-you-psychic-or-superhuman-powers">7. Meditation will give you psychic or superhuman powers</h2>
<p>I don’t think this is possible, unfortunately. Maybe if you meditate while being simultaneously involved in a nuclear futuristic scientific accident, you could become a superhero like Charles Xavier or Doctor Strange or something…</p>
<h2 id="8-meditation-is-easy-or-hard">8. Meditation is easy or hard</h2>
<p>I feel like meditation cannot be assigned a difficulty level because the perceived difficulty is so variable each time you do it. I find that every time I meditate, it is almost a different experience each time. Sometimes, it is extremely challenging and I am just swept up off the ground by the hurricane of my own ideas and thoughts. Sometimes, it is super easy and euphoric and I don’t have to apply much focus to experience total stillness.</p>
<p>This is probably my favorite benefit of meditation though: It forces you to pay attention to yourself. If you have a bad time meditating, you might be in a stressed-out state, be having a terrible day, or you just might not be in a good headspace. By going thru meditation though, you are allowing your brain to figure out <em>why</em> you feel that way.</p>
<h2 id="9-meditation-takes-a-long-time">9. Meditation takes a long time</h2>
<p>You can spend a few seconds practicing meditation or you can spend multiple days. Up to you on that one. Don’t pay attention to anyone that says you should do it a specific way. The only times I do a long meditation is because I legitimately want to and I am not pressuring myself to “do better”. In any capacity you choose, people often recommend you practice every day to make it part of your overall wellness routine.</p>
<h2 id="10-meditation-has-no-proven-benefits">10. Meditation has no proven benefits</h2>
<p>According to studies, meditation has been proven to exhibit these benefits:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5292">Enhances the ability to focus and concentrate</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886916301416">Improves self-esteem and reduces anxiety and depression</a></li>
<li><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jts.21936">Reduces PTSD symptoms</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/wk/jglau/2018/00000027/00000012/art00011">Reduces biological stress and cortisol</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3580050/">Improves pain tolerance</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376871616001174">Improves addiction treatment outcomes</a></li>
<li><a href="https://sleepscience.org.br/details/3295/en-US/enhanced-dehydroepiandrosterone-levels-are-positively-correlated-with-n3-sleep-stage-in-long-term-mindfulness-meditation-practitioners">Improves sleep quality and length</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212958820301567">Combats insomnia</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00296/full">Heightens self-awareness and emotional regulation</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/610862">Improves problem-solving</a></li>
<li><a href="https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/31423">Reduces chronic pain</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4694553/">Lengthens attention span</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7967907/">May reduce memory loss</a></li>
<li><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25938614/">Increases compassion and kindness</a></li>
<li><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31464026/">Reduces cancer and cancer treatment symptoms</a></li>
<li><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29076610/">Aids in weight control</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4940234/">Benefits the immune system</a></li>
</ul>
<p>This <a href="https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation-and-mindfulness-what-you-need-to-know">summarized resource page</a> is also an amazing resource for summarizing and linking studies that study meditation and its benefits.</p>
<p>Hopefully, this provided you with some good insight into meditation and helps get the word out on it more. Instead of defining what meditation is, I hope that these points will reduce the definition to a more simplistic view and provide a bit of benefit to some. I hope you feel persuaded to meditate more but also feel like you can do whatever you want.</p>
<hr />
<blockquote>
  <p>“If you seek tranquillity, do less. Or (more accurately) do what’s essential — what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?” But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.”</p>
  <p>- Marcus Aurelius</p>
</blockquote>

10 Misunderstandings of Meditation

<p>As a preface, I am primarily going to talk about ol' <code>rem</code> and <code>em</code> here but I'm sure one would be able to draw similar conclusions with other relative font and viewport units to the same ideas mentioned in this post.</p>
<hr />
<p>This post goes out to all the people that say: "You have to use relative units instead of <code>px</code> for everything in CSS or else you are a bad developer 😡”. I am sure some of you know my feelings on how the internet is just a huge mess right now and that I am disappointed with how people (definitely including myself) tend to gather information anymore. I think it is this continuance of the entertain-net that has brought us to this point of having an even greater stack-overflow-esq-copy-and-paste habit. We just want to do the right thing with the least amount of effort possible. I understand completely because I am guilty of it.</p>
<p>Anyways… this week has been interesting as you can tell. I am just tired of people getting overly excited over something so relatively small 😉. But fear not, because I am about to share with you really the <em>only</em> thing you have to do with relative units.</p>
<h2 id="use-font-size-relative-units-for-styling-font-size">Use font-size relative units for styling font size.</h2>
<p>Boom! You are done with the necessities of <code>rem</code>, <code>em</code>, etc… units. This is my biggest point and you can stop reading this now if you want. Everything else is basically optional given your site meets the WCAG conformance rules with variance in zoom levels and root font size values. As someone who has studied accessibility as their main focus in front-end development and has been a part of accessibility remediation projects for 2 years now, I can say from the heart that we need to just solve the <em>biggest</em> problems first. It is like arguing about car paint when your timing belt is broken.</p>
<h2 id="read-wcag-before-you-start-saying-what-is-and-isnt-accessible">Read WCAG before you start saying what is and isn't accessible</h2>
<p>Your biggest bet to understanding this whole thing is to just read the WCAG specs to get a sense of the definitive rules first, but here are the ones that are probably the most important for zooming and dynamic font size:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/resize-text.html">Resize Text</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/text-spacing.html">Text Spacing</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/reflow.html">Reflow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/consistent-help.html">Consistent Help</a> (maybe)</li>
</ul>
<p>I feel we as a front-end community get ahead of ourselves with this relative unit discussion, and the focus is lost on the main goal of ensuring that our site stays functional, legible, and informative on most different zoom sizes and browser-set font sizes. I just want to make sure that we know that “use relative units at all times!” is definitely not a rule in WCAG or anywhere for that matter.</p>
<h2 id="test-for-all-cases">Test for all cases</h2>
<p>Let's just do a super quick test. Adjust your default user agent (UA) font size by following <a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-increase-font-size-in-browser/">this guide</a> to increase it to "very large" or something similar. Now, going back to this blog, everything is indeed bigger now, which is what we wanted. Set that same default font size setting back to normal, and then go back to the site. Use the normal browser zoom this time by pressing Ctrl/Cmd + and Ctrl/Cmd -. Similar effect yes? </p>
<p>Essentially, we want these two tests, both conducted on a variance of screen sizes, to play nicely with the site and make sure <em>nothing gets broken</em>. If we set our zoom to 200%, size our default text to large, and look at the result from an iPhone SE screen size; this blog post will look broken. This brings me to my next point.</p>
<h2 id="relative-units-in-layout-styles">Relative units in layout styles</h2>
<p>Now, this is the interesting part: can we use relative units anywhere else? Of course, they are merely calculated values. Even the "absolute" CSS units are technically also relative values and are <a href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2021/07/css-absolute-units/">dynamic across different devices</a>. However, what we call relative units in CSS are very powerful, and with great power comes sometimes great headaches in refactoring. A lot of the decisions to use relative units in padding and margin are merely design choices. For instance, I will show some comparisons of different zoom/font size levels for the Recent Posts component on Mutual Threads.</p>
<h3 id="chrome-desktop---normal-ua-font-size---200-zoom">Chrome Desktop - Normal UA Font Size - 200% zoom</h3>
<p>Current Absolute State (<code>px</code> for padding, margin, gap, etc…)</p>
<p><img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/icorb7eomqj7u9i/200zoom__abs.jpg?raw=1" alt="Screenshot of zoomed-in Recent Posts component with absolute units for padding, margin, gap, etc…" /></p>
<p>Relative State (<code>rem</code> for padding, margin, gap, etc…)</p>
<p><img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/sb23tk8y0sx8jw9/200zoom__rel.jpg?raw=1" alt="Screenshot of zoomed-in Recent Posts component with relative units for padding, margin, gap, etc…" /></p>
<h3 id="chrome-desktop---very-large-ua-font-size---150-zoom">Chrome Desktop - Very Large UA Font Size - 150% zoom</h3>
<p>Current Absolute State (<code>px</code> for padding, margin, gap, etc…)</p>
<p><img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/v3z53x8zweoym4z/xlfont__abs.jpg?raw=1" alt="Screenshot of zoomed-in and increased font size Recent Posts component with absolute units for padding, margin, gap, etc…" /></p>
<p>Relative State (<code>rem</code> for padding, margin, gap, etc…)</p>
<p><img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/m75cg6a2k0tjrs5/xlfont__rel.jpg?raw=1" alt="Screenshot of zoomed-in and increased font size Recent Posts component with relative units for padding, margin, gap, etc…" /></p>
<h2 id="final-thoughts">Final Thoughts</h2>
<p>Based on the images above, we can see that either of these views of the site is accessible and everything is fine. It's really only a design choice (in this case), and so far I think the consistency with the absolute values looks better, but honestly, I could be fine with either. Basically what I am trying to say is…</p>
<p><img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/zi3z8h3dc1cbbcu/notthatdeep2.jpg?raw=1" alt="A meme showing a man in the water up to his neck and the caption says &quot;look fam - it's not that deep&quot;" /></p>
<p>Some people use <code>em</code> for media queries. Some people use relative units for padding/margin on the block axis and then use absolute units for padding/margin on the inline axis. Some people avoid relative units for layout styles altogether since they have the potential to cause problems on smaller screens for components with big padding and margin values. I personally, barely use relative units in layout styles unless it makes sense to. Some people need to use relative units for a lot of styles since they need the print version to look nice. Whatever you decide to do or use, make sure to just always test the WCAG stuff like mentioned earlier in this post, and that will benefit all of us 😊. Thanks for reading!</p>
<h2 id="tldr">TL;DR</h2>
<ol>
<li>The only place you really need to add relative units for sure is the font-size property</li>
<li>Use the WCAG specs as a baseline for all your rules</li>
<li>Add zooming and default font size changes to your Front End testing flow</li>
<li>Do you and be yourself yo</li>
</ol>

Think Before You Use CSS Relative Units

<p>As I write this, I am accompanied by this music: <a href="https://youtu.be/iBKt3-3ENEQ">Sines of Exquisite Pleasure - Modular Systems (1982 Cassette)</a>. There is nothing like ambient synths to get you in the mood for discussing machine learning. Anyways, there have been a lot of discussions this year surrounding media generation through artificial intelligence, and I am definitely late to the trend. Still, recently I was thinking about one question for this movement: is AI-generated media art? I want to know why we choose our answers to this question and examine the preconditions of how we think about machine-generated art.</p>
<p>Before we get into that though, let us first examine humans and their relationship to art, and more broadly, the relationship between nature and art. Are we familiar with what is art in the first place? Conceivably, art is difficult to define as objective truth. In circles made up of fans of art, it seems like the definition of art is undefinable - naturally lawless and turbulent. This is made exemplary by the famous Marshall McLuhan quote:</p>
<blockquote>
  <p>Art is anything you can get away with.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On the other side, some circles define art as only a part of a more orthodox, strict approach to creative expression. The argument is that true art will always be able to inspire awe from the general public due to sheer complexity and/or high standards. For example, a band whose individuals follow sheet music exactly to put on a perfect performance underlying the original author’s grandiose vision. This idea has been fairly common up to recent generations in the western world. During the Renaissance, and various other shifts in our collective consciousness, more freedom was given to artists to create what they wanted. However, only the most popular techniques during these time frames prevailed as being labeled as art.</p>
<p>That begs the question from both sides: what can be labeled as art in our world today?</p>
<p>We can first look at what we all agree to be art, and drawing from another post from James created <a href="https://www.mutualthreads.club/posts/a-psa-from-someone-who-paid-too-much-to-learn-this">here</a>, he mentions that writing is a work of art. Certainly, it has the capacity to be, and both perfectionists and free thinkers would agree. Writing is an expression of the way we feel and is a form of communication for other humans. You can’t be skilled at writing necessarily, but you can be skilled at a process that defines a set of rules for writing in its particular biome. An example of this is grammar. Grammar is not writing, but a set of rules applied to writing that defines a common structure for maximizing communicability. Writing falls between the spectrum of a painting and a piece of code, and we can control the balance between a grand story and a technical work. Writing is programmed art; a creation based on variable definitions of creativity and structure.</p>
<p>Applying this generally to all works, it is interesting to see what people can think is art. In my opinion, art is an expression of an idea or feeling. From the example before, most would commonly accept the idea of a painting as art and dismiss the possibility that a research paper on how <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ivan-Milovanovic/publication/281060852_Algae_in_food_and_feed/links/55d2dfc108ae7fb244f54d4e/Algae-in-food-and-feed.pdf">algae can be an alternative food source</a> is not art. Though, I kind of disagree with this sentiment. From what I see, you can still express your feelings and ideas through many different outlets, and their complexity seems to distinguish the audience, similar to the idea of targeted writing. If a complex idea or work is in your scope of reality or interest, and you see it as having no emotion attached to it, is it really art?</p>
<p>I would argue that a good example of art is the first bowl to be made by humans. I think this is a good example because it highlights the feeling of a need for something, in this case, a simple container to carry things, but very relatively technical nonetheless. This is why artifacts are some of the most valuable pieces of art as they communicate so much to our current generation implicitly. The artist (or creator) doesn’t need to try to influence others to give any feelings for the people that the creation interacts with - that connection is completely random. Does art need an agreeing audience, or rather more generally observers, to exist? Would you consider a natural occurrence to be an art piece? These are questions that must be contemplated to determine if AI has the potential to create art.</p>
<p>Artificial Intelligence does not have the ability to reason about its surroundings in a free-thinking way, but only relies on the input of the machine to produce an output. It is a tool that our generation has become increasingly familiar with - recommending content to consume, helping us drive cars, assisting in robotics applications, simplifying individualistic tasks in business, and much more.</p>
<p>To me, AI art is a good metaphor for our ever-increasing <a href="https://www.metamodernism.com/2015/01/12/metamodernism-a-brief-introduction/">metamodernistic</a> way of thinking. From the perspective of machine learning, everything is structured only in terms of reason within the bounds of mathematical computation. However, the human side of the equation is the one interested in the output and the one responsible for the input to this machine. Considering a person who wants to create art with a computer program, I see it as an allegory of the ironic progression of our collective culture and society. We take all the data on the complexities of the human condition and mix them into the rigid, scientific structure of the computer to produce a creation that no one has seen before.</p>
<p>This makes me believe that AI-generated media is art. I can see how you would disagree though. That being said, I know very little about art and its history, but I couldn’t help but contemplate this. I will leave you with an image I created with Dall-E:<br />
<img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/n8tphm3bjx39eax/DALL%C2%B7E%202023-02-12%2019.00.52%20-%20A%20person%20handcarving%20a%20bowl%20next%20to%20a%20fire%20under%20a%20starry%20sky%20in%20a%20postmodern%20style.png?raw=1" alt="DALL-E creation of a person standing next to the fire with a wooden bowl of food under a starry sky as a surrealist art piece" /></p>

Machine-Learned Art

<p>Since around June, I have been undergoing a journey that focuses most of my energy on self-improvement, and quitting social media has been a part of this experience. A few months ago, my friends convinced me to download BeReal so that we can share our selfies and general life stuff between our friend groups, something I admittedly missed from being on Snapchat before. If you are reading this and you were wondering why I deleted the app a few days ago, I mainly just found it boring and I also think there are some other bad things with social media in general that I would like to share with you.</p><p>To give you some background on why people like me have started to abandon social media and other types of indulgences completely, let’s first look at a couple of graphs.</p><p><a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/187478/death-rate-from-suicide-in-the-us-by-gender-since-1950/" rel="nofollow" style="display: flex; justify-content:center;"><img src="https://www.statista.com/graphic/1/187478/death-rate-from-suicide-in-the-us-by-gender-since-1950.jpg" alt="Statistic: Deaths by suicide per 100,000 resident population in the United States from 1950 to 2019, by gender | Statista" loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="width:100%;height:auto;max-width:700px;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"/></a></p><p><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/internet" style="display: flex; justify-content:center;"><img src="https://www.dropbox.com/s/4dm6sks7w628oa9/share-of-internet-users.jpg?raw=1" alt="Statistic: Share of the population using the Internet" style="width:100%;height:auto;max-width:700px;" loading="lazy" decoding="async"></a></p><p>Looking at these timelines, we can first assume that suicide rates are a rough measurement of the state of mental health in our country. We can also note that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble">dotcom bubble</a> peaked in 2000, so we can assume that 2000 could be considered a major marker pointing to when the internet first became popular. Examining this, it’s easy to be suspicious that the “internet age” and the zeitgeist that continues to build with it might be a major reason for the 21st-century degradation of mental health. Unfortunately, it goes past suspicion as well. A lot of studies surrounding this topic have directly correlated smartphone usage and social media as having a mostly negative impact on mental health, and they are starting to associate it with the exacerbation and even causation of some mental disorders. <a href="https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/6/E136.short">This article</a> is a great summarized resource and provides a lot of good information and citations to some recent studies in this area if you would like to read more. These types of findings are most concerning to children and young adults since they are on the internet and social media <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/chart/internet-use-by-age/">the most</a> and have shown a <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/03/mental-health-adults">71% increase from 2008 to 2017 in total psychological distress</a>. Considering these grim statistics, these topics go beyond just personal improvement and should involve <em>way more</em> discussions on the health of our modern world. </p><p>Now that the justification for why I am writing about this is out of the way, I want to persuade you why BeReal is just as worse as any form of digital media. First, regardless of how “real” you are on the app, I would be willing to bet there still is some consideration on how people see you on it. I will confess that I'm the worst with this when I had the app, and I couldn’t help the temptation to set up my posts to look favorable at that moment. But in the (*often rare*) perfect user case, if your posts are never late and are always reflecting the reality of your environment, you must admit you still care about how other people see you. This is one reason why a large percentage of the population tends to be <a href="(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S174014451400148X">negatively affected</a> after spending time on social media. It is hard to see at first, but the subconscious automatically attempts to employ similar scenarios online as it does in real-life conversation. This is also how people end up getting dragged online, it’s because they are unconsciously convinced that they are talking to a friend or a select few friends, and then they say some ridiculous thing, and then they get roasted by the entire internet. While this doesn’t apply too much to BeReal, the same – very unhealthy – disconnect can be applied visually here. This brings me to my next point.</p><p>Social media isn’t just unhealthy for its inaccurate portrayals and unhealthy comparisons, it is also unhealthy because of the amount of stimulus you receive from it. We all know that all social media is simulated social interaction, but the amount of dopamine you get from visual interaction can significantly influence how you live your life. The BeReal reactions play a big part in this platform because you get to see how your friends are reacting to your posts. This type of simulated incentive has the potential to create long-term, detrimental effects. For example, after scrolling for a few hours on Instagram or the sort, how likely are you to go outside and talk to people afterward? Or even spend time with your family and friends? I’m going to guess that the probability has decreased or gone to zero. On the other hand, restriction of social media is guaranteed to change your life because it will change where you decide to get your dopamine consumption. The restriction of the dopamine you get from digital media has shown to <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/c3phw/">benefit life quality overall</a>, but it is also important to get our dopamine from other healthy channels like cooking, exercising, or going out and talking to people IRL. It’s a long-term migration, but this year I have learned to draw these small distinctions between our online circles and our real social life.</p><p>One of the biggest things I have noticed is that the various levels of trust, honesty, love, or any other emotion that we all rely on to gauge our social interactions, don’t exist to the same extent in social media. They never will, due to the complexity of scales and differences for individuals and certain micro-cultures. The internet destroys past cultures this way because it inherently rewards large user groups with an assimilated environment and global group set of social rules. This group identity is more accessible than our previous metaphysical ways of communicating. And since we are wired to believe what others think, we are more likely to believe what people say that subscribe to similar values on these platforms. Therefore, it’s easy for young people to assimilate to the ideologies and values of the most popular creators and influencers on TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and more - <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20563051211008821">it is the modern newspaper</a>. We are inherently very smart and unique people, but the need to “fit in” is one of the biggest drivers of humanity. Internet platforms continue to get more restrictive as more global social rules are adopted and can destroy the individuality of their users. I have seen that extended use can draw the diverse potential out of people, interfere with their emotional stability, and pigeonhole them into a specific group or status of society.</p><p>Also, you must realize that BeReal is only a business. The “anti-social-media” front is only a marketing strategy to get you to sign up. It is reassuring that they currently don’t sell user data, but once their user base increases, that might very well change. I wanted to point out that they, and people in charge of any other platform designed to get users, don’t care if they harm people or are negatively affected by any product they create. By promoting that they are better than other types of social media, it’s a <em>classical strategy to promote trust in their product</em>, regardless of whether it is true or not – infomercial anyone? From reactions to comments, these things create an app where users are consistently checking for updates, which is a great thing from a money-making perspective. I would also be willing to bet that most people with BeReal use another social media app daily as well.</p><p>This might have sounded accusatory, but it’s just a contemplation I have had with myself this past month and is primarily a standard that I will uphold myself towards going into the future. I hope that this article gave you some stuff to think about and is beneficial to you in some way. Also, the opinions expressed in this writing are exclusively my own and do not represent any organization, association, or company wherein I hold membership.</p>

Gabe Petersen