As a consumer behavior expert, I recently edited a book about how social media affects mental health.

I'm also an enormous fan of Taylor Swift.

As I listened to Swift's latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, I couldn't help but notice parallels to the research I've been doing for the past decade.

It may look like a far-fetched comparison. What could the best-selling album of 2024 need to do with exploring the dark side of social media?

But bear with me: Taylor Swift lives in the identical social media-saturated universe as the remaining of us. Perhaps that's why her album's melancholy themes resonate with so many individuals.

With young people out of faculty for the summer and spending their free time on social media, now’s the time to placed on some music and take into consideration mental health and so-called “consumer wellbeing” in the sector of transformative consumer research.

Here are three tailored insights that illuminate a number of the themes of my latest book: “The dark side of social media: consumer psychology and mental health.”

Lesson 1: Modern life through the lens of social media could be depressing

If you've been feeling unwell currently, you're not alone: ​​Anxiety and depression could be made worse by excessive social media use, a study concludes. Chapter 1 Shows. And social media usage is increasing.

The average American teenager spends almost five hours a day scroll TikTok, Instagram and the like, surveys show, while adults watch greater than two hours each day on social media. This may very well be compulsive social media use or general overuse.

Digital life can simulate addiction and sometimes manifests itself as a pronounced form of tension called “disconnection anxiety,” researchers Line Lervik-Olsen, Bob Fennis and Tor Wallin Andreassen note in her book chapter on compulsive use of social media. This can result in depression – a mood this repeats itself throughout your entire “Department of Tormented Poets”.

Depression is commonly accompanied by feelings of loneliness. Social media has in some ways made people feel much more lonely – nearly 4 in 5 Americans say that Social media has exacerbated social divisionssays Pew Research. In our book chapter, my doctoral student Betül Dayan and I have a look at the Prevalence of loneliness within the digital world.

The pandemic has shown the world that social media relationships cannot replace physical company. Even celebrities with Hundreds of hundreds of thousands of followers just wants someone she could be with. In the song “The Prophecy,” Swift sings about loneliness and the need for somebody who simply enjoys her presence:

Don't want money/ Just someone who wants my company (“The Prophecy”)

Lesson 2: Comparisons make you sad

Social media is a breeding ground for comparisons. And because people are likely to portray idealized versions of themselves on social media – slightly than their authentic selves – these comparisons are sometimes false or distorted. Research has shown that folks are likely to make “upward comparisons” on social media, judging themselves compared to people they find inspiring. Social media can result in false comparisons because what someone is striving for is probably not authentic.

This can result in what researchers call “negative self-discrepancy” – a sense of disappointment over failure to satisfy a private ideal. As researchers Ashesh Mukherjee and Arani Roy in her book chapterSocial media makes people less satisfied with their very own sense of control, intelligence and power. This in turn can worsen stress and anxiety.

The theme of comparisons is expressed loud and clear within the song:The “Tortured Poets” section”, by which Swift chides a partner with literary ambitions – and herself for dating him. Swift stands out as the richest, most famous and successful pop star on the planet, but comparing herself to much more heroic figures is certain to make anyone feel worse:

(“Department for Tormented Poets”)

Lesson 3: Bullying is just not a small problem

In today’s social media-focused world, bullying has shifted to online platforms. And platforms are arguably the breeding ground for bullying: individuals are more more likely to take part in cruel behavior online than nose to nose.

Politicians are increasingly recognizing bullying as a crucial political problem. In their book chapter, researchers write Madison Brown, Kate Pounders and Gary Wilcox have examined laws to combat bullying.

One of those efforts, Children's Online Safety Actwhich might require online platforms, amongst other things, Take motion against cyberbullyingwas recently passed by the US Senate.

Lawmakers aren't the one ones taking bullying seriously. In her latest album, Swift describes bullies in her own life as vipers who “bring dishonor to her good name” and utter insults that stay together with her for a very long time. Topics from Call and bullying run throughout Swift's work—hardly surprising for somebody who has led such a public life each online and offline.

(“But dad, I love him”)

It is just not known whether general social media use or excessive use alone causes a few of these consequences, but our research shows that in some ways there’s a darker side to social media with regards to consumer well-being – even celebrities. So if you happen to Eras tour in Europe this summerit is advisable to leave your phone on the hotel.

Americans have challenged books at an unprecedented pace. According to the American Library Association People have requested greater than 4,200 titles be faraway from public and faculty libraries in 2023 highest number in a single 12 months because the ALA began tracking it greater than 20 years ago.

These challenges are further exacerbated by recent and proposed laws in lots of states. Florida Parental Rights in Education ActFor example, schools ban many grade levels from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity, while a 2022 Missouri law makes sharing “explicit sexual material” in schools a misdemeanor. Such mandates have prompted librarians to achieve this Pull materials from shelves.

Material written by or about LGBTQ+ people is often at the middle of book challenges and laws.

“We're seeing more and more challenges that simply say: This book has a gay character or: This book deals with LGBTQ themes even if it doesn't contain sexuality,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, told the New York Times in April 2024.

As a scholar of medieval literature and religionI used to be struck by the resonances between modern and medieval censorship of queer texts. Both are characterised by a sort of ““Don’t Say Gay” mentality: an assumption that even seeing or speaking about LGBTQ+ issues poses a threat to children and society, no matter the way it happens.

“Unmentionable” acts

Beginning across the eleventh century, European theologians and writers classified homosexual desire and sex as “sodomy,” an ethical sin. Unlike more modern definitions of sodomy, the medieval category was broad. It has been particularly related to sexual or gender-based sins “against nature” and also known as “heinous crime,” the unspeakable vice.

theologians, preacher And Authors of courtly travel guides expressed outrage at people's continued “discovery” of sodomy and stressed the importance of suppressing any mention of “deviant” sexuality.

This censorship was taken up within the comprehensive ecclesiastical and episcopal reforms the eleventh and Twelfth centuries, even though it went far beyond that. In these reform movements, sodomy was often portrayed as a threat to social stability since it disrupted gender hierarchies. Close relationships between male clergy were believed to encourage corruption. Gay sex was viewed as dangerous since it inverted strict gender expectations: passive sexual and social positions for girls and energetic ones for men.

From celebration to silence

The Fear of sodomy manifested itself within the suppression of homoerotic and homosexual content. Scholars debate the extent to which texts accused of “sodomy” were destroyed solely for his or her sexual content because such accusations were continuously used to justify the destruction of books Authorities desired to censor.

The more common and insidious type of censorship was deletion and alteration, which took various forms. In adapting and commenting on material from Greek and Roman history, medieval authors specifically chosen It must not contain any material depicting homosexual intimacy and sexual activity.

The stories of Alexander the Great modified his eunuch lover Bagoas into a girl, Bagoe. Stories about queer relationships within the Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses were reframed, Turning romantic endings into cautionary tales.

One of Ovid's stories describes how Iphis, assigned female at birth but raised as a boy, falls in love with a fantastic young woman named Ianthe and finds happiness in her. In “The moralized Ovid“, a medieval version, the commentator ties in with a story that describes how such gender-specific “tricks” are at all times discovered and punished.

The same pattern may be present in original texts by medieval authors. Some stories clearly highlighted what people today would consider queer narratives: Kissing games between men or young knights battling their gender identity. These stories might even have a good time homoerotic relationships and gender transitions for tons of of lines, only to finish in an abrupt ending that “corrects” them.

A very shocking example is the “Romance of silence” describes the adventures of the heroic knight Silence, who was assigned female at birth but lived most of his life as a person. At the tip of the poem, Silence must surrender his knighthood, marry a king, and is forced into a lifetime of quiet passivity.

Condemn or remain silent?

The “unspeakable vice” was so provocative that folks refused to deal with these issues in medieval texts and teachings, even to criticize them.

Typically, priests advise their congregation about specific sins and tips on how to avoid them. In “Instructions for PastorsHowever, the 14th-century English preacher and author John Mirk identified that priests mustn’t talk about “sins against sin” or nature: “You shall teach nothing to your congregation, neither shall you preach of this sin.”

Other texts were more explicit of their condemnation, equivalent to “De planctu naturae” by the Twelfth-century poet and theologian Alain de Lille or “Nature's Complaint.” The poem launches a violent attack, using metaphors that simultaneously describe, condemn and obscure homosexual desire – for example: “He hits an anvil that admits no seeds.”

By controlling access to information, these medieval theologians and writers believed they may end “deviant” sexualities and gendered behavior. By this logic, never talking about sodomy—not even condemning it—meant nobody would ever learn about it and never engage in it.

Records in sight

The truth is that records about queer people and their lives date back to the Middle Ages are more plentiful than many individuals are aware of.

Some historians previously neglected or even intentionally hidden Evidence of medieval queer history, literature and art. Court records medieval sex staff equivalent to Eleanor Rykener Talk in regards to the ways people have transcended categories of gender and sexuality, often without evidence of criminal punishment. The lives of the saints bear the records of holy men and ladies who selected to live their lives based on their religious calling moderately than the gender assigned to them at birth. Works of mystical theology, equivalent to Julian of Norwich's “Showings“described visionary experiences wherein God appeared as each female and male, husband and wife, mother and father. Many religious devotional texts Depicted were monks tenderly embracing one another and pictures of Christ giving birth to the church through his wounds of crucifixion.

Nevertheless, there have been efforts to silence the varied spectrum of medieval thought and experienceStories that tested the boundaries of gender, sex and desire increased.