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Desktop Alternate Universes
Why was I on LinkedIn today? Why do I ever go there? I mean, you gotta, of course. And as someone still in the long project of putting my life together after last year’s layoff, it’s a good idea to go there. I guess.
But it sort of makes me feel like I have gone - as we in the mental health biz call it - bonkers. LinkedIn feels like a hidden dimension that bears some resemblance to the world I live in while also being a caffeinated Lewis Carroll parody of my world.
Here are some things I see on LinkedIn that sap my reality supply:
People I have known a very long time arriving at prestigious job titles doing things I don’t understand.
They often do these jobs at companies with names barely tethered to language and recognizable nomenclature. So it’s like “College Pal is the new Director of Threshold Paradigm Initiative Solutions at SMOGlm Partners & Group.”
Then there’s a statement from College Pal about how excited they are and everyone at SMOGlm welcomes them. Other people congratulate.
I long ago took on the approach of approving anyone who wanted approval to join my “network” and it tends to be a lot of self-help entrepreneurs and life coaches. They sometimes want to team up.
Some of the messages and updates are advertising for products and services I either don’t need or cannot understand.
I’m from Seattle and a lot of people I know currently do nebulous things at Microsoft, which pulls them in like a black hole.
I wonder if situations like LinkedIn or Twitter or Reddit or 10,000 other platforms are messing with our heads in a really deep and primary way. Because they are all like their own little universes with different ways of experiencing people and rules and customs. I wonder if it’s some form of trauma.
Like, what is trauma? It’s an event of such power that the brain can’t process it so it puts it to the side. It procrastinates processing. When we used to experience the world with atoms instead of bytes, it was a world that was easier to process. This was, like, 25 or 30 years ago. Not that long ago. You could see how machines work, how mechanisms work. Now it’s just a flood of information spewing out in a variety of ways, each by its own unique set of physics.
I’m speaking in some generalities.
Here’s what you need to know:
Are all the places you experience social relationships in fact alternate dimensions of a sort?
I had a disorienting trip to LinkedIn
I should try to get in on that sweet SMOGln action.
Speaking of alternate realities
Fast Company with a look at something called BeMe, which sounds like an absolute nightmare and is designed to help young people - somehow? - with mental health. It’s not out yet and it was designed by your nightmares.
BeMe is a mobile platform for teens that looks a lot like TikTok. Its stated goal is to help make teens happier and mentally healthier. But with $7 million in seed funding—alongside paid partnerships with multiple, top 10 commercial healthcare and Medicaid plans—BeMe is anything but your bootstrapped nonprofit. Instead, BeMe is a for-profit company, specifically courting the insurance industry to modernize ongoing and remote psychological treatment. To do so, BeMe will use smartphones, influencers, and all the social media tricks that get people checking an app multiple times a day.
Dear Diary,
The fuck did I just read?
Next, users arrive on a homepage, which features the Daily Three. These are basically three tasks—pieces of content to read, or exercises like brief meditations and journaling, that someone can do. “No kid wakes up thinking, ‘how do I work on mental health?'” says Dhillon. “So we try to use gaming and quests to help them.”
My head hurt.
GGGGnnNHHHFGFFgggg. guh.
Let’s watch something real.
Congratulations, Dysthimia, on your retirement
I found out last night at an appearance for a book club that the term “dysthimia” is being eliminated. It refers to a prolonged low-grade depression that operates as a constant thing as opposed to the ups and downs associated with regular ol’ major depressive disorder.
We thank dysthimia for it’s prolonged low-grade sad service.
Taking it’s place? “Persistent depressive disorder”. Yeah, okay. I guess.
I totally missed that one but I guess it’s the new thing.
As someone with dy— uh, persistent depressive disorder, I will miss having a special word that sounds like a terrible name for a baby girl but I do enjoy being associated with persistence!
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