Social Media Like The Allegory Of The Cave
Taking Plato's Allegory of the Cave as an example, it is possible to see many cave concepts today. As in The Allegory of the cave, people can first live in a cave that they only accept as their own reality, and then they can come out of that cave and access their own reality. One of the best examples we can give of these cave specimens is social media. Social media, like The Allegory of the cave that Plato produced, is a medium that causes people to not see certain facts, and many people find themselves in this unreal medium.
We can think of social media as a cave where people are here. Because of human psychology, which can be quickly directed, people find themselves in this cave with a different realism. This different perspective of realism prevents people from breaking their chains. While social media may be useful to people at certain times, as time went on it became a cave that trapped people inside. Getting lost in this cave isn't just the impact of social media. However, human psychology also allows us to easily enter this cave. We can give a few examples of these. Apart from this impressive feature of social media, human psychology can also be easily manipulated, which is why people easily trap themselves inside this cave. There is a part in The Allegory of the cave that can be linked to social media. Socrates said: “To them, the truth would be nothing but the shadows of images”. In the Allegory of the cave, the only truth for the prisoner was the shadows reflected on the rocks in the cave. Because the prisoner didn't know what it was like outside, he accepted the facts he had witnessed. The example of social media is just like this. Those of us who are prisoners who can't really see what's there can only accept what we see from that small screen as reality. To give a very good example of this, social media is widely used all over the world, and people who do not use it can often stay behind from others and experience a disconnect in communication. People prefer to be prisoners in this cave to follow the agenda, the fashion, and the conversations of their friends. I used to be a prisoner of the social media cave. I wanted to explore different things in this world. I was involved in this media and I thought it helped me. I followed people I wanted to know closely and wanted to learn about their lives. After a while, I realized that they always seemed happy and kind, and I began to question my own life, sometimes even ashamed of my own. Influencers just let us see what they want to show. We can say this is an example of marionette players and puppets in The Allegory of the cave. We only know what they're doing as much as we can see from there. But do we really know them? They share their happy photos the way they want to show them, but are they happy? We don't know that.
People who enter the social media cave feel addicted to it, they start to believe that this is real realism. But when they manage to get out of this reality and face the real reality, they feel pain, but after a while, they can get used to it. According to Plato, 'At first, when liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and work any of them turn round and walk and look towards the neck, feeling the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows'. Getting out of the usual reality is difficult and requires courage. Because every new path brings new challenges. This has been the same for prisoners. They are forced, to feel pain, but then they begin to realize the 'real truth' and realize that they never see the shadows the way they used to. There is no such pain when it comes out of the social media cave, but there is a sense of unease, but human psychology can prevent it. The power of human psychology comes to the fore at this point. For example, when I was a prisoner of social media, I felt like I was losing myself in a cave, but then I grew up, matured, and started exploring using social media the right way, and my problem was solved. It wasn't easy for me to find that fact. At first, I felt an emptiness, but over time I realized what the real reality was. I came out of the cave, as in The Allegory of the cave, I felt the pain, but then I got used to it. After these experiences, I realized how effective human psychology is in this situation. Every time I realized real life, I learned I was doing it with my own psychology. Human psychology, when used correctly, can overcome anything.
Nowadays, we see many examples like Plato's cave allegory, and on social media, this is a very good example of cave thinking. When people find themselves in this cave, they can lose their reality. The biggest factor in entering the social media cave is human psychology and willpower. Even if a conscious and careful person enters this cave, they can control themselves and put a boundary between their life and social media. In short, social media is a cave, and the way out of that cave ends up in the person himself.
