Personality Crisis

Written by Roki Lili

Edited by Roki Lili

Society is facing a crisis that most people overlook. It’s the lack of personal identity. Almost

everyone wants to outsource their entire personality on every trend that Instagram or TikTok

decides every other week.

It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly this crisis started although I strongly believe it started in 2020 during the lockdown. People were bored, staying indoors forced ourselves to find cheap dopamine like scrolling on TikTok or Instagram. From then onwards, our brain is losing its ability to feel motivated without a cheap dopamine hit. We became lazy and fixated on our gadgets. 

Gadgets, particularly our phones, are the main catalyst of this crisis.

“What you pay attention to, you become.” 

Just like you are what you eat and who you hang out with, you are what you pay attention to. As you go through your daily lives, scrolling past thousands of TikToks, pause for a bit and you’ll notice the algorithm-inflicted thoughts being imprinted in your subconscious mind. This does not only apply on TikTok rather it differs in every app. For instance, when we go on Threads, we become a different version of ourselves. We tend to be more negative and angrier about every little thing that we usually don’t care about. Then we switch to TikTok or Instagram and see new trends popping up. Suddenly, we get insane FOMO when we see influencers travelling to our dream destinations or clearing out their Sephora cart.

My point is, we have lost interest in exploring things we truly like without having an influencer

screaming at your ear that this is what you should have or do. In a way, we are scared to be

different and we became more self aware. The internet has shaped our society to fit into one

template. Put down your phone and ask yourself, what do you really like? What brings you joy? You don’t need to seek anyone’s approval. The internet changes every day and it feeds off one thing, which is your identity. Be different, be you.