Plural society, Virtual World, Social Media And Ideologies. Can They Make Us Happy?

Sitting home in Corona lockdown for the initial fifteen days I lost all my options of doing various household things to impress my wife and daughter, who have been and still are my locked-down partners. What happened was, after initial fun, they were fed-up with my ‘I can do all’ bragging. They felt, I increased their workload when I did things for them by disorganising the organised and disturbed them constantly by asking for the things which, most of the time were lying in front of me. As a result, they kicked me out of the household chores, rendering me jobless without understanding how important these simple jobs were for me to maintain my mental balance during these trying times.

Since Golf courses are closed and friends are inaccessible, social media heat has always been excessive for me, I am lurching with spare time. My enthusiasm has taken a big hit after the two ladies ganged up to isolate me. And, because of lower enthusiasm my friends are not enjoying my arguments over phone finding them too insipid. I am not taking clear and consistent positions and have become spineless is the charge on me.

I have always been a fighter and decided to maintain the same spirit. I promised myself; no one else can influence my happiness, only I can influence my happiness. After this resolve I took out a paper pad and pencil for brain storming and soon realised, it is easy to brag but difficult to……you know it. Fortunately, this time I had bragged only to myself.

Next day morning I got an idea, I opened my laptop and started browsing for tips to be happy. As they say, google never disappoints, if you want to know something. Within seconds I came across World Happiness Report 2019.

It took non-stop five hours to get a layman’s understanding because the report is very comprehensive and requires sociological understanding to grasp in entirety.

First, I looked at the top ten happiest countries and realised that there were a few important similarities. They were all with lower population, had relatively well distributed wealth, climatic conditions and common culture. One religion along with non-religious group constitutes a single cultural group accounting for ninety percent population. Second largest religious group accounted for one to six percent of the population, there was no competing culture to create social frictions. This was disheartening and I lost interest because I am an Indian living in India and if these are parameters for happiness, I concluded, I can’t be happy.

India, in population; number two. Disparity in wealth distribution; number one, in all probability. Climatic condition; we have all extremities. Common culture; We are probably the only modern secular country having two civil laws and variation in rights are so extreme that, I can marry one wife, my friend can marry four. My wife has right to property, her friend doesn’t. We, the citizen of this country doesn’t have common legal rights. Over and above this, there are political and religious shepherds, working in close coordination, creating and growing ‘ideological herds’ by divisions, to garner more power.

Suddenly, I realised I am a fool, the realisation to me has come late, my wife always knew this. Why should I trot around the world? I must focus on south Asia, my own country and around. I dug out the data on South Asia and to my horror, none other than Pakistan was on Top. Bhutan second, Nepal third, Bangladesh fourth, Sri Lanka Fifth and just before war-torn Afghanistan, my dear India sixth.

Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal have all the conditions similar to India, except that, like the top ten countries in the happiness index, one cultural group dominates accounting for more than ninety percent of the population. Sri Lanka being an exception with dominant culture at seventy percent, no wonder is placed just ahead of India at 5th place in South Asia.

My heart broke, I closed the laptop, went to my daughter, not being able to gather enough courage to go to wife, and requested for a cup of tea, in as soft a voice I could speak. She looked up from her Netflix and said “make it yourself”.

I asked “Sure?”

She said “Yes, but don’t disturb the kitchen, I will come and check.”

I said “Okay”. Went to the kitchen and boiled a cup of water and decided to go for lemon tea bag to be on safer side.

During this process I realised that India is a vibrant democracy. It will not be a bad idea to look at another vibrant democracy, and for that which other than USA fits the slot. When I checked USA, I found to my surprise, the world’s richest country was at nineteenth number. I started digging more and found two interesting graphical representations for American population. The first one showed

Negative correlation over years between increase in internet usage and Hours of sleep, in-person social interactions and Happiness. That means we have to reduce internet uses, increase sleep and social interaction to be happy.

The second one is the correlation between activities and happiness among Americans.

The positive-correlation activities were in order of impact; sleep, sports & exercise, in-person social interaction, voluntary work, religious service, TV news (I have my reservations though), Print media, Music concert, homework.

The negative-correlations in order of negative impact; Listening to music (surprised), Internet, Computer games, social media, leisure time alone, texting, video chat and talking on cell.

The above made me understand why USA was not so good in ranking in spite of their more than great economy, innovativeness & enterprise, vibrant democracy and free society.

I am sure the same is true Indian too.

Sport and exercise have a positive correlation with happiness, whereas computer game has negative correlation. Not very difficult to explain, when we play outdoor games or exercise, our body releases endorphins which reduces pain and increases happiness.  On the other hand, Video game addiction causes stress, anxiety and even isolation. Sleep disorder is also common. Though, on the positive side, Video game increases dopamine and oxytocin, the love hormones. But, generally, a healthy person has enough of these and does not need any extra dose.

Attending Music concert has positive correlation and listening to music alone has negative. Again, not so difficult to explain. When we listen to music, mostly we are alone, submerged in music, and as we start enjoying this loneliness with music it becomes a habit. When we are without music we suffer. It is a kind of addiction. When we attend a music concert, it is occasional and we enjoy collectively with the band and the public. It is like drinking alone every day in the evening and attending occasional cocktail parties.

In-person Social interaction and social media interactions; I think is very interesting from Indian perspective considering public debate and intellectual pluralism has always been hallmark of our traditions and must remain so.

‘In-person social interaction’ is positive at number three and Social media is negative at number four. Probably because when we have in person social interaction, we all are always aware of the person’s feeling sitting across us, even when we are having heated arguments, at the end, we show a re-conciliatory gesture. We are our masters.

Whereas in social media, an issue is precipitated into two sides creating a binary by people having big following and well-coordinated set ups, often in support or opposition. These set ups could be Political, religious, social, economic or from any other domain. People like me end up becoming one of the warriors as well as the target of these interest group set ups. Couple of likes, forward or comments make our day and provide enough motivation to come back next day. Gradually we become part of a ideological herd and start fighting for our herd. Being part of the herd, we isolate ourselves from all other points of views. Each herd forms an ecosystem with few other herds on common interest basis.

The twin shepherds belonging to religion and Politics, along with their partners, the right groups and individual influencers, sitting away on the top of the hill, in a well-coordinated manner, create highly conditioned herds and control all their movements. This is going on since the ancient times, but the social media has given it a new dimension.

We all know, once a person is conditioned, he is a slave. A salve can’t be happy and coming out of slavery is very painful.

A new dimension has got added with social media, the privacy. We all want right to privacy, freedom of expression and right of dissent, and keep fighting for them with governments. Judiciary is full with petitions on these subjects. How many of us know that if one is on social media there is nothing left called privacy? Actually, everyone knows it, we close our eyes to feel, there is nothing like that.

TV news has a positive correlation with happiness. Initially I had my doubts on this, but when I contemplated more, I realised TV news has a positive correlation, not the political TV debates. Political TV debate with more than two participants, in addition to the anchor is not a debate, it is an extension of social media on TV, where; on any issues, you know the faces and their positions in advance. They represent the shepherds in the debates. Their job is consolidation of evolving ideological herds, or as the cynics call consolidation of different groups of slaves.

At the end I concluded that there area few parameters for happiness over which an individual doesn’t have direct control in short term, i.e. Population, climate, wealth distribution, but there are a few over which we have control.

Cultural plurality; We can enjoy the plurality by participating in all and enjoying the differences, assimilation is the key word.

Strong ideological believes and social media; More emotionally one gets involved on social media with an ideology more useful one become for the cause of the ideological masters. As one become part of the ideological herd and start fighting for them, one associates oneself with their gains and losses and wins and defeats, without getting anything in return, unless one is ready to move up in the hierarchy to get the share of spoils, but for that one doesn’t have to be a social media warrior but one has to be in the field warrior.

Reducing virtual world living; As far as possible do actual work, play actual games, increase in-person social interactions and spend time with nature. Spending more time in virtual world impair our natural abilities and render us unhappy.

After understanding the above mantras, I got an idea. I went to my wife and shared this piece with her and told her that I have only two options left; First, to go on social media and virtual world, which have strong negative correlation with happiness. The other; to get my household chores back which have a positive correlation with happiness as per the study. My wife has always been smart. She realised that it is a losing proposition to lose your slave to the ideological shepherds or let him live in virtual world. She talked to my daughter, and I got my home-work back, of course with conditions.