Preface
When we meet someone we don’t like, we will choose to take a detour. When we are in a strange environment, we will also choose to avoid strangers and stay alone. This is because we don’t want to cause unnecessary trouble.
Nowadays, the development of science and technology has made our lives very simple. Many things can be done alone without even communicating with others. Not having to socialize with others saves us a lot of time.
But if you choose to stay alone for a long time, feel exhausted whenever there is a dinner party, and want to take a detour when you meet an acquaintance, then it may be a very dangerous personality - "Social Hangover".
Social phobia and social hangover
Due to changes in the general environment, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for communication between people.. Neighbors who once lived in the same building may all know each other, but now let alone know each other, see Maybe I won’t even meet him a few times.
This is all because of the development of technology. The emergence of mobile phones allows us to communicate without meeting each other. However, what we communicate here is destined not to be a real entity, and there is an unreal feeling. Therefore, many people will communicate online. He punches bravely, but in real life he is submissive.
And this has also caused many people to lose the ability to socialize in person. Many people think that they are sociophobic. They can communicate casually online, but in reality they feel very restricted.
In fact, most ordinary people will feel more or less nervous when facing people they meet for the first time. This is not social phobia.
Real social phobia is a neurosis which is characterized by abnormal fear of external things and situations. Patients know that their fear is not normal, but they cannot control their emotions.
They will be anxious when they are afraid. If they endure the fear to communicate, they may even feel unable to breathe.
With the impact of the epidemic, many students and young people have difficulty adapting to real life immediately after experiencing long-term online classes and remote work.
They felt very uncomfortable when they got together with friends they had not seen for a long time. Because during this process, they had to care about each other's emotions and status all the time, which made the party very happy, but they felt tired as soon as they got home. If it doesn't work and just want to rest, some people will feel dizzy and nauseated, as if they are hungover.
For such symptoms, American scholar Shawna Courter proposed a term "social hangover". In their normal lives, these people were used to communicating with others and the eyes of others, but after being isolated at home during the epidemic, , these feelings are gone.
Therefore, when they return to normal life, these exchanges and gazes will make them feel inexplicable anxiety and cause a "hangover".
"Psychological distance" in psychology
In cognitive psychology, scholars divide people's psychological distance into three areas: Comfort zone, stretch zone, and panic zone.
The emergence of mobile phones has kept our social life in the comfort zone. I can communicate if I want to, and don’t have to communicate deliberately to take care of other people’s emotions. Therefore, those who are introverted in this area, are more I don't want to communicate with others anymore. After all, I can't meet them in real life, so there is no need.
But this will gradually make us suffer from real "social phobia". A person's life is the process of constantly getting to know himself. In psychology, there is a concept of "self-cognition" . This means that everyone will have a self-observation and self-evaluation of themselves, and we will also adjust ourselves based on these evaluations.
However, relying on our own knowledge alone is not comprehensive enough. We also need to have a clear positioning of ourselves through feedback from the outside world.
Psychologist Brian Little divides the self into three types: The self determined by parents' genes, the self influenced by the external environment in which one grew up, and the self positioned through continuous understanding of oneself.
Among these three kinds of self, the last one is the most important, because we cannot change the genes of our parents, and the environment in which we grow up also varies from person to person, but it is up to us to choose the kind of life and the kind of person we become. can be decided.
So if we stay in the comfort zone, we will not be able to have a clear positioning and understanding of ourselves through external evaluation and feedback, and we will not be able to obtain the third self , which will cause us to gradually lose our self-awareness. Ability.
In the end, we will feel anxious and afraid because we do not understand ourselves and cannot find our position among the crowd. We seem to be incompatible with everyone.
If we suppress our anxious emotions for a long time, this phobia will gradually affect our normal life. Because our own negative emotions will cause internal consumption of our own energy.
When communicating with others, we not only have to communicate with the person in front of us, but also block our own hearts, which makes us feel very tired for no reason. Even though we just say a few words, we feel that our body is hollowed out.
When it is more serious, we will resist all social interactions and external environments, gradually shorten our comfort zone, and finally the comfort zone becomes our own room . We are only willing to stay in the room every day, as long as When we leave the room, we feel uncomfortable all over. Over time, our psychology will naturally change, and we may even suffer from depression .
Many patients will use some items to relieve their symptoms, such as alcohol, but this does not cure it, but may cause us to develop "item dependence" . As long as we feel anxious, we will drink, and we will feel uncomfortable without drinking.
Get out of the comfort zone
So, don’t give up socializing because of fear. No one can become an island in this world. Even if more smart products will appear in our future, communication will still be our most powerful weapon.
As the saying goes "A fence has three stakes, and a hero has three gangs." Many successes cannot be achieved by the strength of one person alone. Only by combining the strength of everyone can we create brilliance.
Therefore, we have to tell ourselves to get out of our comfort zone. If you are already afraid of social interaction, you can try the " system desensitization method " founded by American scholar Volpe.
It is currently the most effective treatment method. It uses professional methods to induce patients' anxiety, and then alleviates their anxiety through correct methods, allowing them to relax and gradually face their own anxiety.
In real life, we can also use this slow method to gradually pull the distance between ourselves and others, from the comfort zone to slowly reach the stretching zone.
Conclusion
Chatting is sometimes the best way to release emotions. It also allows our body to produce some hormones to promote metabolism and strengthen the body's immunity.
Although today's technological products make our lives very easy, sometimes we also need to put down our mobile phones and see the real world.
