Tag Archives: media

Panic in Times of Crisis: What is it and How can we stop it?

Richard Petrosyan

[4 minute read]

Edited by Natalie Grace Sipula

Note: This article is the fruit of my analysis and my analysis only. By no means do I wish to come off as an authority on these matters, but rather as a blog writer attempting to spark debate on relevant life experiences.

How often in the last few months did you see people panicking, washing their hands frantically, cleaning surfaces of things that don’t even belong to them, yelling that the end of the world is near, or preparing as though we were under nuclear attack? To some of us, these are precautions. To others, these are scripts for a comedic movie. Panic has posed itself as one of the major psychological refuges of Americans (and quite a few people in other countries, as well) in the face of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Here, I will seek to understand what exactly panic is and how we can alleviate this inherently adverse aspect of human psychology.

I define panic as the psychological and physical state of a living being that is based on the fear of an external entity or occurrence as a perceived threat to your interests, or in more extreme cases, to your own life. Accordingly, I define panic as the counter-reaction to lack of stability: we humans prefer planning and expecting the future; we like to know what lies ahead and take steps to succeed in our endeavors accordingly. Having this life stability reassures us. In some cases, we prefer things not to change whatsoever: this is what I call “love for the status quo.” However, as the saying goes, nothing in the universe is eternal except change. This means that, at any point in space and time, there is a nearly 100% certainty that some unforeseen element will disturb the established order of things. When people see that image of stability evaporate, their safety net erodes, and fear secures its nest in their minds. We begin taking precautions, avoid doing anything risky, close doors literally and figuratively, think about dangers and potential solutions frantically, sweat all the time, etc. I would argue this to be a tendency to protect oneself as an individual.

Photo by Arturo Rey on Unsplash

Where do these tendencies come from? I’d simply say: evolution. Since the dawn of time, when we perceived a threat to our survival (or that of our loved ones), we adapted by entering into a state of excitement and anxiety in order to acknowledge and combat the danger. However, the ways we protect ourselves have evolved over time, simultaneously with the nature of the threats. Prehistoric men didn’t fear that they’d get a bad grade and wouldn’t get into a good grad school just like we don’t fear now that we will be eaten by animals or other humans.

I will now apply this human instinct to the coronavirus pandemic. In the last few months, people have feared touching each other or approaching each other too closely. On national scales, some of them have even staunchly advocated for stay-at-home orders, border closing, furloughs from work, online classes, and so on. Governments have issued guidelines that push people away from each other (more famously referred to as social distancing guidelines) to avoid the threat of contamination by the virus. It appears that, in the fight or flight response associated with panic, most humans are choosing “flight.” To be fair, it’s a bit difficult to physically fight a microorganism. However, according to our more civilized way of fighting, the “fight” part against the microbe was taken up by scientists attempting to find cures as well as vaccines against the virus.

There is much ado -is it about nothing? That’s a matter of opinion. But how did panic even occur in the first place? The first answer that comes to my mind is media coverage. Journalism is a very powerful tool, in that news outlets are often used by people as a connection to the world at large. So, whatever people read, they believe. And the media certainly spreads alarming information. How much of it is fake news? I won’t delve into that question, but I’d keep in mind that this is a question worth asking. On the positive end, the spread of panic alarmed people to protect vulnerable populations. On the negative end, it shut down the world’s most powerful economies and altered our lifestyles significantly, and some may argue unnecessarily.

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Quarantine Watch: The Social Network

[4 minute read]

Run-time: 2h1m

By Natalie Grace Sipula

While on my phone the other day, I accidentally scrolled to the menu that records my daily screen time. To put it lightly, I was shocked by the amount of time I have been spending on my phone lately. I think most of us can relate to an increase in screen time occurring in our daily lives since quarantine began. Technology and social media have connected us in ways that were never thought to be possible, and they allow us to stay contributing members of society even from home. It makes me wonder how we would have reacted to quarantine 15 or 20 years ago, but then, one doesn’t miss something which is unknown to them. That transition to global interconnectedness through technology is truly unique to this generation, and social media has played a large role in that transition. If you are looking for a film to watch at home that explores this very topic, look no further than The Social Network.

Photo by William Iven on Unsplash

Academy award nominated film The Social Network, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, and many others, directed by David Fincher, traces the development of Facebook from its humble beginnings: Mark Zuckerberg’s college dorm room at Harvard. The film employs a variety of timelines to chronicle the story of Facebook’s creation, the personal lives of its founders, and the ensuing intellectual property lawsuits that plagued Zuckerberg’s young career. It is fast-paced, exciting, and rife with witty banter.

The first time I watched this movie I was struck by the impressive dialogue and pacing. The director shot this film in a way that moves almost as fast as the connections millions of people make on Facebook every day. The dialogue is rapid, the interpersonal relationships between the characters are complex, and the story weaves between the business and personal narratives of its subjects, which are as intense and messy as anyone would expect from college students finding themselves at the forefront of a multi-million dollar idea. Prior to watching, I expected the movie to be more similar to a biopic of Mark Zuckerberg’s life, but it focused on the narrative of his life objectively from multiple perspectives, leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions about the series of events. This, along with the variety of short scenes taking place in different locations in a non time-sequential order, truly makes you feel like you are piecing together Zuckerberg’s story from pieces of information found in various places on the Internet. It surely leaves a strong impression on the viewer along with questions about the influence media has on our lives.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash
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