In the poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the narrator contemplates his sense of loneliness and lack of belonging in the world. He questions if he can change his introverted, shy ways, and how his actions will effect the world. Some might say that the narrator has depression or another mental illness, a conclusion drawn from the nature of this mans thoughts. Depression is something that, today, millions of people suffer from. But why are there no cases of depression from the past? This is in part because depression was not a termed mental illness long ago, it only became so fairly recently. But more than that, one big difference separates the past life from modern times - technology. The spreading of information is now faster than would have ever seemed feasible one hundred years ago. And as a result, media. A culture shaped by what is on the screens in front of them. Today, everywhere you go there is something telling you what is the best food to eat, the nicest clothes to wear, the comfiest shoes, and the coolest places to visit. Before technology existed, there was nothing for people to compare their life to, except for those directly around them. But today, on the flipside, you have instant access to a look at anyone's life around the country thanks to social media.
Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and many more networks are ways for people to connect with old and current friends, or people they don't know, or ways to start blogs and channels with millions of subscribers and followers. You can even follow celebrities and check out what their day to day life is like. But is social media really helping people to connect, or is it tearing them apart?
People are selective about what they put on their social media accounts, so what you see is not always what that life consists of entirely. You will see the high lights of someone's day - parties, twinning with a co-worker, or a pretty flower they saw on the way to work. But not often do people show the real stuff - the hour drive to work with nobody to talk to, being ditched in a date, and sitting alone watching Netflix for hours. So when someone compares their life to someone's life online, it can be painful. We see all the "fun" they are having, and feel resentful and jealous, and mad at ourselves. Because of this access to other people's lives, it can be very easy to feel bad about your own.
On top of that, people are constantly tweeting, instagramming and face booking pictures of sweet gestures their loved ones do for them, proposals, and intimate moments of their lives. Seeing these on our screens and wondering "when will this happen to me?" creates a lot of sad, lonely feelings in a person.
Before all this existed, you couldn't see as easily what another persons life was like, so comparing lives wasn't as easy as opening an app on your phone, and it wasn't as accessible as your back pocket. So that could be a way that technology has increased mental illness.
Along with that, in the past one hundred or so years, media has been taking over our every day lives as well. Books, movies, music, TV shows and advertisements everywhere depict all the products you should be buying, what house you should live in, what type of clothes you should wear, how fun getting high is, and so on. Having this constant omnipresent voice speaking in our heads all the time about how we should be living our lives can make simply living how we want to be very hard. Before media was infiltrating every part of the daily life, people could make their own choices and not be worried about whether they were buying the right brand or listening to the coolest bands.
Finally, urbanization has changed the world drastically. With the sharp increases in world population, people have been moving to cities to find jobs and simply to live the city life. But being so close to other people creates a lot of problems, too. Going back to comparing lives, you could be walking the streets of New York, doing your daily errands, when you see tons of couples walk by holding hands, or a flash mob performing, or a proposal on a street corner, or if you are at the airport and you see people reunited after time spent apart, or men buying flowers for their ladies, it can create a sense of loneliness for a person. Seeing all of these nice, romantic gestures surrounding you when they went happening to you is painful, and makes you lose patience for when you might find love.
Back to J. Alfred Prufrock, who lived in a modern time as well. Although his time didn't quite have all the technology as today, media and urbanization was prevalent in this time, and could heavily effect the outcome of a persons life. Prufrock is seeing women coming and going and talking of Michaelangelo, as he says. This can be two things; the urbanization, and the media effecting what should be considered right. The urbanization has pushed his life closer to that of these women, so he sees them often and wonders if he could be with them. And their talking of Michaelangelo is evidence of media telling them and in turn telling him what they want in a man and what he needs to be, as a man, respectfully.
When Prufrock is assessing his physical appearance, and wonders about the comments people will make on his balding hair and his skinny arms, this is evidence of media saying what is right and wrong in a person. The media had been showing less and less of old, balding men and more of young, buff men as the suitable companion for a woman. So he worries that with his lack of hair and his skinny arms, he won't be able to find a lady.
The lonely men that Prufrock sees is another example of how urbanization can effect loneliness, except rather than him seeing the good lives of others he sees other men in his shoes and thinks that there is no hope for him, since so many others are lonely, too.
Throughout the poem, Prufrock is identifying with certain factors of modern times that really prove how technology has effected the likelihood of mental illnesses. From media to urbanization, technology makes people feel isolated, impatient and lonely because of the lack of belonging they have and the jealousy of others lives. I believe that because of technology, mental illnesses are much more likely and are more prevalent in people in modern times than in the past.
