By The Editorial Board
All of us have characters we look to when we want connection. Maybe you watch that one movie every year or listen to that one album every time you feel sad. Some of us have created a personality for our favorite influencer and stalked them on Instagram, convinced we know them.
We all have that one character that we’re convinced would be the love of our life if they just, well, actually existed (season three Jess Mariano in “Gilmore Girls”). The degree to which we obsess over the newest TV show or rom-com, anticipate the newest romance novel, defend our favorite celebrity who “wouldn’t hurt a fly” or stalk influencers on social media has become terrifying.
According to experts, these things aren’t just guilty pleasures. They’re harmful. A Stanford study from 2014 found that, “low levels of social connection are associated with declines in physical and psychological health as well as a higher likelihood for antisocial behavior that leads to further isolation.”
The interconnectedness of social belonging and mental health became painfully obvious during the COVID-19 pandemic, and experts across the board agree on the biggest psychological byproduct of lockdown: loneliness.
COVID-19 did what seems like irreversible damage to people’s desire for human connection. Not only did it force everyone into using technology and entertainment to fulfill their desire for connection as meeting in person became deadly, but now the world seems to be terrified of human connection at the risk of it being taken away at any moment.
It’s easy to look back and laugh, remembering the good ‘ole days of fighting over toilet paper and consuming obscene amounts of Netflix, but I’d venture to say we’re traumatized. We trained ourselves to replace face-to-face contact with Zoom calls. We couldn’t leave our houses to meet new people, so we lived vicariously through Kristen Bell as we watched and rewatched her journey to finding love on “The Good Place,” the eighth-most popular TV show of the pandemic.
Now, four years after the beginning of COVID-19, obsessions with characters and celebrities are just as present, except real-life people are available. We just continually choose to replace them with fake ones. Despite the availability of suitable face-to-face connection, we try to fulfill that desire with connection through a screen and obsession over characters.
Whether it’s the honest-to-goodness belief that you and Taylor Swift have been best friends ever since you made eye contact at the Eras Tour or watching “Twilight” instead of going outside because no one could ever love you the way Edward Cullen would, many of us are guilty of replacing connection with entertainment and calling it a day.
The bottom line is that Heath Ledger’s character in “10 Things I Hate About You” doesn’t exist, and even if he did, he wouldn’t give up smoking and turn from his “bad-boy” ways just for you. And guess what? You don’t have to defend Kanye with your dying breath, because he doesn’t know you exist. Stop rewatching the proposal in the rain scene from the 2005 “Pride and Prejudice” movie, and go outside.
Make meaningful relationships. Talk to your friends. Following your favorite artist’s tour, rereading your favorite novel and binging romance shows is fun, but it won’t satisfy your desire for human connection. But the good news is there are other humans all around, and we’d guess that they’re looking for connection too.
