According to the researchers, Life evolved on Earth around 4.7 billion years ago. Once the first organism came into existence, the process of biological evolution took a start. “Transmission of important information” from one generation to next generation has always been the most important part of evolution. “DNA” is the nature’s chosen agent to transmit this information. Whatever important information (regarding survival and existence) is learnt by parents during their lifetime is stored in their DNA and is automatically transferred to their kids so that they can evolve further and so on. It kept on happening for billions of years and this process lead to the evolution of Homo Sapiens. Things started to change from here; as Homo Sapiens evolved with an extremely special feature known as “LANGUAGE”. Our ability to “speak” and “write” has exponentially increased the amount of information we transmit from generation to generation through books, articles, blogs etc. So language has made humans surpass the actual “slow” speed of biological evolution.
There has not been a single detectable change in human DNA in recorded history of the last ten thousand years but as we can see humans have grown tremendously during this time in terms of industrialization and technology. So, clearly there is a mismatch between the speed of biological evolution and external technological evolution; which leads to the conclusion that we are not biologically prepared to handle many things which we have created because of faster speed of transmission of information.
And this mismatch is causing most of the psychological troubles. Our brains have evolved enough to write complex algorithms and develop applications like Facebook, but they are not equipped to process huge amounts of information which is bombarded at them while using Facebook. Remember, “developing” Facebook and “using” Facebook are completely different phenomenons. According to recent research, around 100 years ago, one person used to meet maximum 20 people in a year but today, because of internet and social media we can check thousands of profiles in a day, which hugely overwhelm the normal functioning of our brains, causing damage to brain tissues. If someone is feeling sad because of any set back and gets to see pictures of celebrities and friends enjoying their lives to the fullest, will undoubtedly start to feel hopeless and think as if he is the only one having issues in his life and rest of the world is happy and enjoying, while the reality is far different.
None of us has a problem-free life. Every one of us feels sad and disappointed at some point or other. Expecting ourselves to be always happy is itself a form of unhappiness. We all lead extremely normal lives for most of the times and few extraordinary moments in someone’s life are usually the results of extraordinary hardships and hard work. But the world of social media focuses only on the result not the process, which causes immense confusion and dilemma.
Internet has empowered us to let our voice reach everyone out there; but are we biologically prepared to listen and process every voice reaching us? Our brains have limited amount of cognitive resources. We spend a lot of these resources in our daily activities. If we will keep on investing our energies and mental resources over internet and social media then our daily activities will inevitably be hampered. So, we must learn to invest our time and energies in things which are actually important instead of overwhelming our brains in superficial and mundane activities.
Thinker | Meditator | Life Enthusiast
