Prisonlandia - Journal Entry 1

I knew at some point, that this blog would take a transformative turn into a journal of sorts. Not a longwinded daily journal with useless musings, but a place where I could lay out my thoughts and feelings regarding various things that fall in line with the Prisonlandia discussion. This week I deleted all of my social media accounts with the exception of this blog, Linkedin, and X. Why X? Simply because I like following and learning more about a genius of our time, Elon Musk, but that's a convo for another time. The reason that I deleted the accounts is because I didnt like the way I felt when using them and 95% of the material that is posted. I found myself feeling anxious, depressed, and in a constant state of comparing when scrolling through the posts and mosts of the posts in my opinion, are simply the equivalent of cotton candy for the brain. Tastes pretty good going in, but is ultimately not good for you and will rot your body away. One thing I especially had a hard time with was alot of the body cam videos from police and sometimes cell phone video of intense situations where there was usually some sort of violence or criminal act occurring. These videos are difficult because I automatically insert myself into them if it's a officer body cam video and begin playing it out in my head what I would have done. My blood pressure goes up, my heart beats rapidly, and I get a feeling of helplessness. Its a horrible feeling. I would have to walk away from the tv in Prisonlandia when videos like this came on, because I didnt like the way it made me feel or the thoughts it provoked. Then, while watching the news this morning, a thought occured to me. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The news was covering the story of the four Idaho college college students that were viciously murdered by that psycho Brian Kohlberger. He had pled guilty and it was time for his sentencing and being confronted in court by the family members of the slain students. Every station was covering this on both radio and tv. People were fascinated and curious with lust to see and hear the families and what they would say to him. I had no desire to see or hear this. What a horrible and painful situation to want to be included in. Why do we need to see this? Why do we need and want to see the many horrible things we see on a daily basis in a world where information is shared and processed on a level like never before. Seeing these painful experiences, whether they are shootings, stabbings, car accidents, people experiencing assaults and other traumatic events both physically and emotionally, has to take a toll on the psyche. I began to think back to my days working for the department when constantly dealing with crazy situations, crazy people, traumatic events, and simply compartmentalizing everything and moving on, but ultimately paying for it in the longterm. One thing about stress, regardless of where it comes from, is that one day the bill will come due. I began to compare my feelings of stored stress to that of society and it's ongoing consumption of material that causes anxiety and depression, usually without any immediate indication, just like during my time in law enforcement. I coined a term for what I believe to be happening. Mass Consumed Trauma. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our minds don't necessarily understand the difference between something that we see in person or something that we see in a video on TikTok. It is easy to see how things have effected the newer generations who are prone to pull out their cell phone and immediately become a spectator/viewer when in reality they need to be a participant in the situation. My theory however, is not confined to adolescents or teenagers who for good reason, a lot of attention has been focused on when discussing the long term effects of social media. My concern is that everyone, adults and younger people, are affected by the continous stream of social media posts that have an adverse effect on their state of mind. It's not so much the time spent(this is potentially an issue as well) but more the quality of what is input into our mind. The negativity, the depressing and sorrowful things that we take in simply out of morbid curiosity. Ever driven by a bad car accident and you looked out of curiosity to see if something horrible had happened? Social media is no different except we do it everyday and we're sure to see something, as opposed to the car accident which may provide no stimulating visual. I believe that the longterm results of constant exposure to sad, depressing, or violent social media posts effects the brain of a civilian in many of the same ways that constant in-person exposure to emergency situations affects our men and women first responders. I believe that this raw and unfiltered exposure on social media has a direct correlation with crime, especially with youth. Please watch this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWRPUEFStew _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Imagine that everyone carried the stress that an law enforcement officer carries but without the resources, training, or resilency to deal with it. It's no secret that law enforcement officers and other first responders live very challenging personal lives as a result of the processing of stress accumulated from the job (whether they want to admit it or not). What if society as a collective began to experience the same mental and emotional challenges not as a result of serving in uniform but from simply spending excessive amounts of time online watching videos depicting the trauma inducing events that LEOS have to deal with in person. What would the effects be? Mass Consumed Trauma. We're causing trauma to our minds but don't realize it. Here's an article from Psychology Today that breaks down some of the points I'm attempting to make: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/digital-world-real-world/202002/anxiety-and-social-media-use?msockid=1a0a7914e31666c717186f3ee25f6746 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Lastly, I would like to point out some statistics that I found on Macrotrends.net:

When looking at this graph, we see the ridiculous crime rates of the early nineties, followed by a downshift. Then an increase during the early 2000's which in my opinion can be contributed to the trauma that resulted after the Terrorist Attacks on 9/11 (thats just a theory). That uptick was followed by a downturn that continued for several years until approximately 2016. Politics? Perhaps. Or maybe word spread that I had left the Police Department and the criminals celebrated. Just kidding. One possible explanation is the slow forming volcano that began brewing around 2008 with the introduction of smart phone technology and increased ability to instantly capture and share information. This period of lowered crime rates continued as people consumed AND as their children began to consume much of the same. We went into 2020 dealing with Covid, political turmoil, and just as the internal volcano of the societal collective was beginning to spew. The kids raised on smart technology were in their teens and families were on lockdown. This pressure and challenge exposed the cracks that had been caused over the preceding years from constant exposure to negative materials via social media or extensive news sources. Mass Consumed Trauma that was now being seen but not realized. Upon 2021's arrival, the children who were toddlers at the onset of smart technology were now near legal adulthood and dealing with Covid, isolation, and a contstant feed of negativity on social media. Crime rate goes up. Social media and the access to a constant barrage of negative and toxic information has affected our population much like the way that working in law enforcement can effect the personality and mindset of its officers. The stress incrued by our police and first responders is one that comes with duty and service and is worn like a yolk, an accepted burden. Mass Consumed Trauma however, is a result of willingly allowing negative, toxic, and disturbing images and information into your psyche with no benefit to yourself or society. Please think twice before you look at that car wreck, whether its on the road or on the screen.