You’re Alice but this isn’t Wonderland (it’s your For You page):

There are few certainties in life apart from death, taxes, and the fact that my next swipe on my For You Page would reveal a TikTok worthy of an ooh, an aah, or a giggle. With every consecutive swipe, I become further entranced. That is, until I inevitably catch a glimpse of the time at the top of my phone screen—3:30 AM—leading to the heart-stopping realisation that my 20 minutes of planned TikTok time had miraculously stretched to 2 hours. And just like that, another certainty of life—my 7 AM alarm—dissipates my euphoric cloud, and I come crashing back down to reality.

Our phones have become an endless rabbit hole of individualised content curated by AI algorithms. Gone are the days of simply using social media as a means of communication. Applications like TikTok and Instagram have become hubs for creativity, entertainment, and intellectual discourse all at our fingertips (quite literally). But at whose behest exactly? Could it be that we’ve become reliant on our daily fix?

The 80s had cocaine, and the 90s had ecstasy. In this digital age, could online escapism become the hallmark drug of our generation?

To properly explore the multifaceted realm of escapism, it is important that we distinguish between positive and negative escapism; productive escapism can be conducive to creative expression and rejuvenation, whereas negative escapism is the all-consuming act of evading the daily realities of our lives.

Escapism is defined as “the tendency to escape from the real world to the delight or security of a fantasy world” by the American Psychological Association. As social media cements itself into our daily routines, it is important for us to redefine escapism in a modern context, as it is no longer limited to drinking, gambling, smoking, and drug abuse. It is critical that our view of escapism considers the rise of artificial reveries, i.e. escapism via technologically manufactured fantasies, as a convenient and accessible outlet.

Numerous studies conducted over the last decade have established a strong connection between escapism and excessive internet use, perpetuated by psychological and social factors. This further identifies escapism as the key driver behind social media use as both an adaptive and maladaptive coping mechanism.

In the past two decades, the social media sphere has evolved into a more nuanced platform for communication. It has transcended from being direct or one-on-one, to curated online alter-egos becoming our mode of expression to the world. With so much value placed on how we’re perceived, the burden of intolerable self-awareness has intensified our need for escapism. Ultimately, the discrepancy between our real and idealised selves may have become too burdensome, especially when we have a 24/7 reminder of this distinction in our pockets. In addition to coping with the burden of hyper-self-awareness, escapism may stem from external pressures and stressors that plague our personal lives, like work, school, relationships, and finances. To evade the tribulations of self-actualisation, we immerse ourselves in an activity where we’re able to temporarily suppress conscious thinking, forgetting the responsibilities, demands, obligations, criticisms, and judgments stemming from daily life. The advent of platforms like TikTok has streamlined this phenomenon by manufacturing an illusion of safety and comfort in a personalised fantasy world: the sardonically named “For You” page.

While it may seem a tad freakish, our escapist tendencies are actually quite rational according to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud: “[Humans] cannot subsist on the scanty satisfaction they can extort from reality.” Professor of philosophy John L. Longeway agrees with Freud’s rationale; in the paper “The Rationality of Escapism and Self-Deception,” he argues that escapism can serve as a necessary coping mechanism “to avoid succumbing irrationally to despair, or unless it compensates for the effects of an environment in which it is otherwise impossible.” It would be ingenuous to believe that we could persist in a healthy mental state while being continually entrenched in the chaos of our lives. Indulging in fantasy is an inherently human act; we’ve indulged in the sanctity of arts and culture since the Middle Ages. Thus, to maintain a state of emotional and mental well-being, a vial of escapism can be a necessary antidote to relieve the sometimes intense dose of reality—perhaps, a therapeutic strategy to avoid burnout, rejuvenate, and even practise self-care.

But where do we draw the line between escapism and avoidance? When do our healthy periodic breaks from the trenches of reality become an unhealthy pattern of dissociation?

Whether we find solace in binge-watching reruns of our favourite Netflix show or advancing to new Candy Crush levels, it is important that we practise mindful content consumption and remain grounded in reality by constructively addressing the stressors in our lives.

Nevertheless, I leave you to ponder this question: How much of your mental soundness is tied to external gratification and social perception?