Obsession with flattery

To the media, of all types, from the large print publication to the "communicator". random The media network's current newscasters love to pronounce themselves on the apparent need for digital visualization of individuals. I am referring to the compulsive attitude of the vast majority of "share"their daily banalities. Whether it's what I eat, what I see, what I read, what I listen to, what I try on in the fitting room of X store...

The most common gesture when sitting at a restaurant table and being served your plate is no longer to pick up the cutlery, but to reach for the cell phone to put the lens on the plated food.

The same action is repeated when someone seems to take the elevator home in the morning. Taking the cell phone to the omnipresent mirror in the elevator and taking the snapshot to share it with friends and strangers in the broadcasting network seems to be the daily action.

But, is this unhealthy obsession, and already semi-unconscious action, a need to feel "accompanied"? or, on the contrary Is it a plea for approval, asking for adulation?

From my point of view, it is the latter.

There is an apparent need to feel flattered, recognized, appreciated.

You do not share the clothes in the fitting room to ask for the opinion of the "audience"but rather to wait for the flood of emojis that some apps show scrolling across the screen, or the preconfigured onomatopoeias of the mobile keyboard. Because no one takes a picture in the mirror and publishes it without first seeing him/herself beautiful. When you have it clear is when you want to take the image to the networks, hoping that they make you feel good about yourself and your image. flatterylet's be honest, are largely fakedI tell you that you look great because I expect you to tell me the same when I publish something.

So, finally, the share by broadcast networks like TikTok and instagram, or by social networks like WhatsApp, is nothing more than a ego-feeding appeal request.

This is directly related to the negative impact that these networks have on their users, as they depend on them to "feel" good. And this is why mental health experts have been warning for a decade of the enormous negative impact they have on society in general..

The fact is that when we talk about content dissemination networks (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram...) or social networks (WhatsApp, Telegram), the focus is always on young people, as if they were the main users. Nothing could be further from the truth. Any scroll over your WhatsApp conversation list will show you a tangle of selfies of your relatives who are approaching their fifth or sixth decade, or acquaintances who show you their random plating, and who are already wearing quite a few gray hairs.

The need for flattery knows no age, because it is addictive.

But it is true that today's twenty-somethings have grown up with this conventional and standardized behavior of "order"The flattery through the images shared with the cell phone. Hence, their dependence on them is more dangerous, leading to personality disorders and mental breakdowns.

Perhaps it would be good to reflect out loud to others that when you see a photo of a plate, a trip, a landscape or a pose in a dressing room, what you think of the sender is that he or she is begging for my adoration. Y perhaps this will reduce the number of images that are shared. unnecessarily.

Maybe it is good that we start to stop vulgarizing the fact of sharing things that should remain in our private space. It is not intended to make the usual propagators feel some embarrassment at the idea of being a beggar.The goal is to teach them that they should not depend on others to value their own experiences.

You shouldn't enjoy a plate of food because others tell you it looks delicious. You shouldn't want others to seem envious of where you're vacationing so that you can enjoy it to the fullest. And you certainly shouldn't buy clothes, or not buy clothes, because others fill your cell phone screen with floating pink hearts.

We have to stop this escalation that seems to have no brake. And maybe it's time to say loud and clear, that what you perceive when you receive a selfie or an unsolicited vacation photo, or an image of a table set, is that that person is not sharing something with me, is begging me to flatter him. And I do not intend to do so.

Cover image by Philippe Oursel