A Stoic Reflection on Contemporary Social Media

The prevalent mental health issues of particularly younger generations are often being ascribed to contemporary social media usage. Since some of the key notions of contemporary cognitive behavioural therapies, which are often employed to battle mental health issues such as anxiety or depression, can be traced back to ancient Stoic philosophy, this thesis aims at critically reflecting on social media practices from a Stoic perspective. By applying Stoic philosophy to three problematic and typical social media phenomena (envy, judging and fear of missing out), the arising discrepancies are being discussed. Due to the apparent incongruities, a different kind of approach to our interconnected existence is argued for. Keywords: cognitive behavioural therapies, Stoicism, social media