Stalker for no reason: Why do we follow people in social networks
Sitting in social networks can be traumatic. Irish researchers have found that 25% of users surveyed by them are subject to “Facebook depression” because of envy of other users or cyberbullying experience. FOMO (fear of missing out) is also widely discussed - the obsessive fear that the life of other people on Facebook is much better and more interesting. But it's not the social networks themselves, but how they are used. Back in 2015, researchers at the University of Missouri found out that the frustration was not the share of those who couldn’t get out of the chats at work, but of “innocent stalking” fans.
The difference between shameful online surveillance and stalking, that is, a form of violence, is obvious: an aggressive stalker calls from unfamiliar numbers, leaves threatening comments, harasses relatives of the object of surveillance, or at least actively makes itself known after blocking and requests to be left alone. The “household” stalker will give himself away except by a randomly put Like on a photo three years old, which he will remove as soon as possible.
Accidentally put a like, send a request to a friend, inadvertently view the store from this account, and not created specifically for this purpose for a couple with a girlfriend - all this is not so much malicious intent as abuse of technology. It seems that this kind of stalking harms the detective more than the victim. We understand what you can understand about yourself, recognizing that the interest in the thousandth of instagram began to resemble a maniacal one, and whether it is worthwhile to google a person before the first date.
And yet the most popular object for stalking is past partners. One of the 2013 Pew Research Center studies showed that 47% of millennials were following their former social networks - The Atlantic, who published the analysis of the study, jokingly noted that 53% of respondents simply lied. In any case, with the advent of social networks, it becomes much more difficult to dissociate oneself from others - and everyone is interested in how to stop considering the ex-partner's twitter before going to bed.
Standard tutorials on successful parting offer not only to block a particular person, but also to remove from the friends all his relatives, acquaintances and colleagues. If this is not expected to help, there are also sophisticated ways to keep oneself away from bad habits: go for a kilometer for every extra visit to the page, set realistic terms (for example, do not go to Facebook for at least one day), write a list of your positive qualities and view them every time you want to break or buy something for yourself in exchange for good behavior.
About how hard it can be to move away from breakup, now developers understand. So, in Facebook, you can opt out of all updates of the former partner, without removing him from your friends. You can use and, for example, AppDetox and block instagram at a time when it is not needed for work, but is usually used for a night stalking session.
However, scientists say that is not so simple. For example, a study by Concordia University showed that our endorphin dependence on a person does not stop along with parting: people who were shown photos of former partners had the same release of endorphins in their blood as those who were shown photos of today's boys and girls. So even a disciplined profile view on Facebook leads to detrimental addiction.
At the same time, experts urge not to panic at first - perhaps the desire will disappear by itself. "I am not a supporter of radical fencing myself from anything at all. In addition, there are situations in which looking at someone else's page can help relive emotions or events. But if it becomes, it is clear that a person hangs on it, does not let go of the former partner, but to overgrow with new emotions, you need to work with this problem ", - considers the psychotherapist Anna Nechaeva. She offers to pay attention to what feelings arise while doing this - it is possible that some of them can be overcome by apologizing or expressing something to the partner in person.
Often, however, the matter is banal in that it is hard to accept the end of a relationship and stalking becomes a way to continue interrupted communication without real contact, says Anna Nechaeva. It is worth paying attention that people with a greater inclination to code-dependent relationships are addicted to spying on former partners much more often, and perhaps such a bell would be an extra reason to deal with behavior in a relationship in principle.
Of course, stalking can have a negative impact not only on past relationships, but also on those that have just started. According to a match.com dating service survey, in which more than five thousand people participated, 48% of women study a potential partner's Facebook before a date. “I think most people watch social networks before a date because of a banal desire to protect themselves. This is absolutely normal, especially if you met in a conditional tyinder,” says Anna Nechaeva.
To look at the Facebook page for common friends and posts over the past month to find common topics of conversation is a common thing, to google and carefully examine the VKontakte page of a potential partner's cousin is a bell. Experts match.com believe that too much information can prevent falling in love. It is enough to imagine a situation in which a person decides to share sentimental memories of teenage love, but it will not matter, because you have already found all the photos from that time, and even know that this first love moved to India and works in a local IT startup .
“Thanks to technology, people find it easier to screen out unsuitable candidates, thus choosing a partner begins to resemble a shopping trip,” said Nicole Ellison, a media researcher at the University of Michigan. Emoticons with a monkey with closed eyes, too many exclamation marks, endless reposts of their assessments on Kinopoisk, food photos, daily selfie - the reason to say "Next!" can be anything. At the same time, it is obvious that photos from fashionable bookstore on instagram do not promise an interesting conversation about Hegel, and a press picture in the mirror does not mean that a person’s interests are limited only by the gym.
Although relationships rarely started in the open field before the Internet, those who are inclined to idealize a partner or, on the contrary, categorical, realize it without social networks, Anna Nechaeva believes: "We are in principle inclined to create a ready-made image of a person in advance, in many respects first impression. There are people who are very prone to idealization - to such an extent that when relationships become too close and the image of a partner inevitably breaks down, it becomes frightening and impossible to stay in these relations any further. only emphasize this individual tendency ".
If everything is clear with the former, present and future, sometimes stalking takes frankly ridiculous forms. A former classmate with a child, a blogger with a conventionally beautiful boyfriend, a boorish colleague from a previous job, a fellow student who abandoned her career as an engineer and became a florist sitting at breakfast is easy to go on forever. But for some reason the page of some can be indifferently scrolled, while the other captures better than the new Netflix series.
Usually it is customary to blame yourself for such stalking, considering it to be a form of procrastination. Psychologist and media researcher Anna Paukova believes that social networks offer a form of leisure that does not represent something fundamentally new, and instagram profiles replace the yellow press with gossip about celebrities - only now you can choose an object of interest yourself. In her opinion, in moderate observation of others, the need for novelty or the desire to switch is manifested - just as you can look at photos of, say, plants or dogs.
However, Paukova emphasizes that you should think about your hobby, if it begins to interfere with ordinary life or becomes one of the main activities. "Concentration on the social networks of a particular user can talk about difficulties in the life of the person himself, about some kind of shortage. And here it is important to trace which aspects of someone else's life interest us, whether we are satisfied in those areas that we pay attention to in the instagram of another person - what exactly touches us ", - considers Anna Nechaeva. In general, it is worth considering why it is so interesting to look at the profiles of couples in identical sweaters with disgust, when there are problems with their relationship, and why laugh at a popular yogi when a nervous tic does not go away for about six months.
Stalking people far from us can also signal the need for intimacy or communication, which is lacking in real life. "You can hope to feel spiritual closeness with someone through social networks and establish communication with this person, simply by viewing his new photos," says Anna Paukova. True, this intimacy often turns out to be an illusion: the columnist of the American Cosmopolitan described how she followed her school friend on instagram, imagining how great they could get along, but after a real meeting, she finally broke it - they could not agree.