Addicted to Gossiping About Other People's Pain: Beware of Losing Your Direction

Modern Habits

“I haven’t had time to digest the story of two famous TikTokers breaking up, then there’s the story of false advertising, then the story of KOLs (online celebrities) exposing each other… Sometimes, when they bring up old stories, I have to search for that story again to see if it’s true or not. I’ve been waiting for months without realizing it,” Thanh Thao (20 years old, living in Ho Chi Minh City), a young person who likes to watch stories online, confided. Thao thinks that “being a little more gossipy” will help you have something fun to watch every night to relieve stress, learn about social views around you, and save money on going to coffee shops or arranging to meet up with friends.

Liked the way people in the situation handle the problem, My An (21 years old, living in Binh Duong ) shared: “I find it strange and attractive partly because in my personal life and the people around me, there are rarely such overly dramatic things. Usually, when something happens, I and my friends just act in a peaceful manner to calm things down and feel better, but the way people online gather in groups to livestream, accuse each other, etc., shows that life is really colorful, I feel like I have "opened up" a bit more."

According to psychologists, this curiosity partly comes from personal psychological instincts. The human brain really wants to know unusual, painful information... due to the need to know the dangers around to protect itself from risk. Another reason is compassion, caring about those stories makes us feel like we share the pain of our fellow human beings. Therefore, people with higher compassion sometimes pay more attention to arguments, scandals, and complicated stories between individuals, often on social networks or showbiz.

Drama is not harmless

Viewing drama as an indispensable entertainment in modern life, in order not to fall behind in information..., many groups of young people stay up all night to watch livestreams, paying money to ask questions to the characters. Dissecting other people's pain in small groups, large groups, commenting, adding salt and pepper, digging up old information, editing photos, summarizing livestreams... has become the main job of "drama editors" (the profession of creating content, chatting, editing gossip on social networking platforms). At first, they come for instinctive reasons, but the deeper they go, the easier it is for the brain to fall into a state of addiction. At this time, internet users watch dramas because they are too... interested in other people's pain, not to sympathize or find ways to help.

Dr. Pham Thi Thuy (lecturer at the Regional Political Academy II) further analyzed: Viewers feel safer and happier than the suffering of the person involved. The need for satisfaction arises when judging "if I were him, her, I would have done differently, I would not have let that happen...". Therefore, observing painful situations also makes outsiders feel superior and smarter when "turning on the switch" to judge the main character's solution.

Pham Phuc (30 years old, living in Ho Chi Minh City) pondered: “Following the story, I often think about how I would handle it if I were in that situation, how would I feel? But I only stop at that thought, while many people scrutinize, criticize, and even humiliate others. I feel like hiding behind my phone, some people easily show their inhumane nature.”

Another young person shared: “In the past, I was very strict about being faithful and keeping face for each other in love, but when I heard the arguments of young people who also considered it a bit of a name to argue and mock each other's old love affairs, I don't know since when, I saw adultery and superficiality in love as normal. Then, like the advertising issue, before, I always demanded everything to be true, after several cases of famous people being arrested for false advertising, I felt more "open-minded", normalizing the fact that KOLs are just human, also deceiving others for profit..., gradually I felt like I no longer had faith in anything in life anymore."

Dr. Pham Thi Thuy warns: Drama addiction is not a "healthy" hobby as we think. It makes viewers gradually become insensitive, callous, watching real tragic stories as plays, movies, just for entertainment, for fun... Being swept away by the crowd and being drawn in by too many opinions is sometimes very fallacious, if viewers do not stop to have their own opinions, in the long run, they can easily lose direction in identifying personal emotions and those of others. Along with that, the core values of the individual are also distorted and shaken.

KIND HEART

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/nghien-ban-tan-noi-dau-nguoi-khac-coi-chung-chinh-minh-bi-mat-phuong-huong-post796563.html