Attention, Social Media, and Egocentricity
- Charlie_C
- Jan 10, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 15, 2019
Earlier in the year I read The Tragedy of Hamlet, a play written by the English playwright, poet, and actor, William Shakespeare, and I noticed how relevant it was to our society. And I don’t mean by the main theme of death or madness that everyone thinks of when they hear Shakespeare, but I mean the tragedy of illusions in our life. The play opens with the death of Old King Hamlet, and his son, Hamlet, mourning his death. Nearly 2 months after his death, Old Hamlet’s ghost appears to Hamlet and reveals that his brother, Claudius (who is now king), murdered him in the courtyard... the rest of the play describes Hamlet’s inaction and overthinking as he contemplates killing his uncle.
When I first read the play, I found it quite interesting that the first thought I had was of social media. I was very confused at first, but then I soon realized that Hamlet lost sight of his way when he was so indulged in his performance that he began losing the people around him and didn’t realize it. This connected to social media because very often, we are so indulged in social media and the virtual world that we lose sight of the valuable things in life such as relationships, family, and being in the moment. Not only this, but social media takes so much time away from individuals to the point where relationships with others become sometimes solely based on an online interaction and as social media increases, the social skills of individuals decrease to which physical human interactions becomes “uncomfortable”.
In the play, everyone’s lives revolve around Hamlet and they are constantly being affected by him, both directly and indirectly. Meanwhile, Hamlet doesn’t even take notice of this because he is so obsessed with his revenge as well as making everyone think he has gone mad so he could get more attention on himself. This made me think of today’s society because very often, we find ourselves so indulged in what is going on in the virtual world and the online cyberspace that we begin to crave this attention and we do foolish and potentially harmful things such as the “tide pod challenge”. This relates back to the playwright because Hamlet decided to put on an act of madness without fully thinking of the consequences, such as the result of Ophelia’s death as well as nobody believing him when he claimed to have seen his father’s ghost.
Shakespeare did it once again with this iconic playwright. The Tragedy of Hamlet presents not only a tragedy of a man who was consumed by madness and revenge, but also a man who was unable to see how his actions affected those around him. Very often, we (as a society) forget to think of how our actions may affect us as well as those around us, and we often act before thoroughly thinking things through.
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Great blog Charlie! I really liked how you related the tragedy of Hamlet to social media. I agree with your argument that such as how Hamlet was selfish to purposely hurt others for his own needs, social media can do the same. Just as how Hamlet was obsessed with the idea of revenge, society is obsessed with the idea of social media and the illusionn it presents. I do agree that as a society that turns to selfish ways more and more it's hard to truly think about how your actions could be affecting others. Because of the negativity social media brings to certain extents, it could always be related back to many tragedies such as Station Eleven in the…
Great connection between Hamlet and social media regarding the tragedy of illusions in our life. I agree that social media is something we indulge daily and causes the loss of sight of valuable things in life. Relating to myself, I used to be addicted to social media a few years back where I couldn’t control myself whatever I did. My phone was always with me and that affected my social interactions and ruined potential friendships with people. It made me appear ‘uninterested’ in all aspects of life. Like your connection, social interactions were the most ‘uncomfortable’ during that time because I didn’t know how to cope with these situations. Finally, I dropped the majority of my social media accounts and…
Nice take on Hamlet. It was a pretty good read about how Hamlet’s antic disposition affected many people around him by being so selfish. I also agree that Hamlet can represent our own selfishness and our own self centred view. Like what you mentioned about the tide pod challenge, if we are too engrossed in our own popularity, we can hurt more than just ourselves. I also agree to your point that social media - meant to let people connect - has actually made people less connected, that physical contact is uncomfortable, but talking on the online world is more comfortable. This just shows how social media has changed us more in a negative than positive way.