“Block, block, block.” This is the method that the Egyptian media, Radwa El-Sherbiny, advised girls to follow when dealing with emotional relationships that have proven to be harmful or harmful to them, through the “She and Wess” program, where El-Sherbiny said: “Whoever does not appreciate you does not consume you, There is something called block, do you know it?
Perhaps you have come across a post written by a person on his account on a social networking site, during which he threatens his friends or followers that he will “block” anyone who disagrees with him on a topic or does not share his point of view on a particular matter or person, and you may have read a post by one of them. He says that he has just "cleaned" his account from people who hold a certain opinion or direction that he does not share with, and adds that he feels comfortable and happy after deleting and banning these accounts.
Arguably, “blocking” or blocking someone on social media has become the “revenge” of the digital age.
You do not have to quarrel with your opponent, argue with him, or bother choosing to respond to someone who insulted or hurt you, only you can block him and then you will feel that you have avenged yourself or won for your opinion and belief.
Easy revenge
Social rejection can affect emotion, cognition, and even physical health.
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When you choose to block someone, you are practicing a very old human habit of "social rejection", which has the potential to affect the psychological well-being of the person being rejected.
In many cases, the person blocking actually intends to psychologically harm or punish the blocked person, which they often do. Socially excluded people may experience emotional pain, even for a short time, regardless of their self-confidence. and respect for themselves.
The reason for this is that social prohibition or exclusion attacks four human needs simultaneously: the need to belong, the ability to control social situations, maintain self-respect, and finally a person's sense of meaning.
Therefore, many cases of anxiety and depression may stand behind social rejection or social abuse, including what happens on the pages of communication sites. (2)
“People have realized how much we care about social approval,” says Mark Leary, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. “This interest has a clear effect on almost everything we do.” (3) When the researchers delved into the roots of rejection, they found that the pain of social exclusion Or being rejected is not much different from the pain of a physical injury. Through research based on brain imaging, researchers have found that those who have been rejected show increased activity in the same brain regions that show increased activity when exposed to physical pain. (4) In the same context, she explains. The American Psychological Association believes that rejection has serious repercussions on the psychological state of the individual and on society in general, and that social rejection can affect emotion, perception, and even physical health. (3)
The bad doesn't stop there. In some extreme cases, outcasts sometimes become aggressive and can turn violent.
This finding was reached by Leary and his colleagues in 2003, when they analyzed 15 cases of school shootings, and found that all but two of these cases suffered from social rejection. (5)
Like hunger or thirst, our need for acceptance emerged as a survival mechanism.
"During the six million years of human evolution, man could not have survived on his own," says Leary.
With the development of life today, a person is able to live alone, but this solitary existence may not make him feel happy.
A ban that makes us feel good
One of the main reasons we want revenge is to reduce our stress levels.
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On the other hand, banning others feels good, simply because revenge is so "sweet".
And since prohibition is considered in certain contexts as a form of revenge, the feelings we feel about revenge apply to it.
Banning can be thought of as kicking someone out of your digital realm, like slamming your door directly in their face.
To learn about the effect of revenge on our brains and the secret of the euphoria it gives, a group of Swiss researchers examined the brains of people who had been wronged during a game of financial exchange, after the researchers gave them a chance to think about punishing their greedy partners.
While the victims were contemplating revenge, the activity in their brains was monitored, and the researchers detected an overactivity in the nucleus accumbens, a region of the brain known to process rewards.
The study published in 2004 in the journal "Science" provided physiological confirmation of what many know, which is that revenge has a "sweet" taste and causes a feeling of pleasure. (6)
One of the main reasons we want revenge is to reduce our stress levels.
Researchers see the desire to reduce stress as a coping mechanism, especially when a difficult or emotionally shattering event occurs. (7) On the other hand, people who have been hurt or betrayed seem to believe that if the other person suffers they will feel better and their emotional pain will be less.
Perhaps the “ban” here is a means of inflicting pain on the partner, ex-husband, or friend on the one hand, and protecting oneself from his continued presence on the other hand. (8)
On the other hand, however, behavioral scientists note that instead of quelling hostility, revenge can prolong the period of dissatisfaction, and that simply hurting the "offender" is ultimately not enough to satisfy the vengeful person's spirit.
They also found that instead of achieving justice, revenge often creates a vicious cycle of revenge, in part because one person's moral balance rarely aligns with another's.
What you see as justice, the other party sees as unfair and seeks to take his right from you, and thus the circle of revenge revolves without end. (6)
Precisely here, hypothetical revenge differs from real revenge. After pressing the ban button, everything may end, especially if your relationship with the person is completely hypothetical and you do not meet him in your real life.
After the ban, not only does the relationship end, but both parties may forget each other completely.
Here you can make sure of the matter through a simple experiment. Open your list of blocked people on the social networking site Facebook. Do you remember the reason or motive that made you block everyone on your list?
You might be surprised that you won't even remember ever dealing with or encountering this person!
Recognition versus disappearance
In virtual reality, blocking does not bring you complete satisfaction, because the person will not admit to you his mistake, but you are satisfied with the fact that you "punished" him.
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We can now move on to the next logical question: Can revenge always make us feel this “sweet” taste?
To answer this question, it is worth looking at the results of the study conducted by the German psychologist Mario Gollwitzer.
Gollwitzer and his collaborators asked the participants to take a language test in conjunction with a partner (one of the experimenters) taking the same test separately in another room. Each time both partners correctly solved a test question, they jointly received a €25 reward ticket.
At the end of the experiment, the researchers asked the participants to divide the rewards with their partners, so they chose to share them almost equally (half for each partner), while the partners (experimenters) chose to allocate most of the rewards (approximately 90%) to themselves.
When the participants were informed of this decision, they were given the opportunity to reduce the share of their partner's rewards, and a proportion of the participants took full advantage of this opportunity, leaving the partner with rewards less than the fair half share they wanted to give them initially.
In practice, these participants' decision was in retaliation for the partner's initially unfair behavior.
But in an additional step, Gollwitzer asked the participants to write a letter to the partner, and he found that the participants who wrote their letters indicated the injustice they had been subjected to, and when they received a response from the partner stating that he admitted his mistake, they were more satisfied than those whose partners did not admit the mistake.
"It is the perpetrator's admission of his own wrongdoing that makes revenge meaningful, because the avenger often sees his revenge as having a message," Gollwitzer says.
Revenge, then, can only be satisfactory when the offender understands it as a response or punishment for his previous behavior. (9)
In VR, blocking isn't entirely satisfying, because the person won't admit their mistake to you, but you're still satisfied because you "punished" them, and because you know the person will know you blocked them in response to their previous behavior or comment that you didn't like.
Perhaps instead of apologizing here, this person will disappear from your virtual world forever.
In the virtual world, the satisfaction of "admitting" the wrongdoer can be seen as equivalent to the satisfaction of having the person "disappear" from your world forever.
A means of self-protection
People don't have to be diplomatic about dealing with the person who is different, and they don't have to explain why they don't agree with a particular opinion.
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Revenge aside, we find that many people block others on their social accounts in order to protect their emotional selves, because we humans are simply social and tribal creatures who enjoy being with those people who support our view of the world. They want to spend their energy exploring and coexisting with different people's perspectives.
Blocking here allows for the possibility of intentional deafness online which is much easier to be exposed to and reflect on different viewpoints.
People can immediately block out any point of view they don't want to hear.
Through blocking, people don't have to be diplomatic about dealing with the person who's different, they don't have to explain why they don't agree with a particular opinion, and they don't have to provide motives for holding a belief.
All they have to do is click the "Block" button, and so they maintain the virtual safety of their world and ensure that their worldview is not in danger of being challenged or altered.(2)
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Sources:
1- Radwa El-Sherbiny
2- The Psychology of Blocking Others Online
3- The pain of social rejection
4- Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain
5- Teasing, rejection, and violence: case studies of the school shootings
6- The Complicated Psychology of Revenge
7- Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion: Theory and Empirical Review
8- Revenge: Will You Feel Better?
9- What gives victims satisfaction when they seek revenge?