Depression: Breed of silicon age

Being a mental health therapist, it is difficult to keep yourself completely uninfluenced from mental complexities, especially when you empathize well.

Besides dealing with people in hospital settings, observing commoners in houses, markets, especially in public dealing sectors, the most visible behaviour ,if seen cautiously is depression. And if you do a bit of net surfing you will find out that it is a universal bleakness, it has nothing to do with any place or event specifically. Just turn on your TV and zap through some news channels; you will suddenly feel gloomy.

My wish to write about depression popped up recently when I encountered  depressive cases excessively and a common factor I found out was ” hollowness”. I won’t write about any genetic, biological or medical factors that leads to depression. There is something else we need to figure out and give it due importance.

The missing x factor that I figured out is ; this has something to do with silicon age. Despite proliferation of social media(intently to increase communication) people are becoming more and more isolated. The amount of time we spend in front of screens is far more than we spend in front of people. This is breeding loneliness. We can say that we are living in a depressogenic social milieu ( I’ve heard this term somewhere).  What else that counts is our life style practises ; be they include marital fidelity or social delinquency, our daily decisions ranging from generosity to altruism and compromises.

Linked to depression some societal dilemmas are so contingent like we are increasingly overfed but malnourished. We are sunlight deficient and sleep deprived. The most awful thing is our sedentary life style. Everyone feels rushed and  pressured, no one has time to listen to others, and if they have time they do not have genuineness and unconditional positive regard to give. This again procreates loneliness and ultimately depression. Its like a never ending cycle of loneliness and depression having cause and effect relationship.

We should take some time from our busy lives just to rethink where are we heading? We should take our steps back before we get trapped into desert of soulless, shallow and hollow robotic life.

Strong relationships with genuine love and respect is extremely important for both individuals and society , So investing in them is pivotal. We need to reconsider the essence of life: the humanness, the liveliness. We should be happy enough to smile and to spread satisfaction. Limiting your circle and putting each others in a turmoil is not a solution after all.