Depression, Coronavirus and the Impact
of Social Media

Depression is so painful. It really hurts, but not everyone can understand this. You either come out of it or drown in it! Unfortunately we are living in the time where death is in the air – instead of love, although many people are getting married even in this difficult time. Some are spending their time in quarantine loving their loved ones. But some are going through a living death. This living death is a phenomenon known in medical terminology as depression, which has started gaining the due attention only recently.

Now I am not going to write about depression from the research perspective, neither do I want to talk about its symptoms or suggestions for its cure. I believe that even talking to or listening to a person going through this condition isn’t enough, as it is not a constant feeling or disease for everyone. Rather, I feel that it’s an issue we are all facing every day – some more and some less, but we simply can’t deny the reality of it anymore.

Even if we haven’t lost our loved ones to COVID-19 or suffered from the virus ourselves and just been reading on social media about other people suffering from the virus, we have all been affected in one way or the other, so much that even the sun shining as bright as possible seems so dark and gloomy. However, the feelings are usually mixed. So many people on social media have been sharing their workout videos and making scrumptious food and delicacies and cracking jokes and making memes, while others are just receiving the insensitivity and pain from it all.

Human beings are social animals. They need people for their own existence and apparently seem to support each other and get mutual benefits mainly of happiness and peace throughout their life. But honestly, I feel like we are all constantly competing against each other. You may be rich or poor, educated or uneducated, but you are only successful, popular and praised on the basis of the amount of attention you grab.

Some people are so vain that, without being sensitive to the current circumstances, they only like to press a few keys to post anything on social media. They try to portray how civilized they are by sharing everything and anything, without giving  second thought, without considering if the content they are sharing is  bringing positivity or spreading negativity like a wildfire.

We are now so used to speaking harsh  words, making hate comments, sharing demotivating and depressing posts that we don’t even realize how  we may actually be adding to the miseries of people who are already psychologically disturbed or going through depression. It’s nothing but insensitivity and lack of understanding of those who always think that they are right and have the right to troll anybody, and feel like sharing their insensitive opinions is their most important moral and social duty.

In this global pandemic where everything is changing, one should understand that depression is even more contagious and dangerous than Covid-19, because depression spreads without touching anyone. Regardless of whether the pandemic is fake or real, the fear of being attacked by Covid-19 is real, strong and so pervasive that it is negatively affecting the mental health of people and increasing the rates of depression around the world.

We have all been listening to news channels telling us that we are going to be the next epicenter of the virus, blaming every other person in power or in the society for its spread. We have all read articles and blogs and watched videos of people who were never seen before in the social media or television, telling us that we all are going to be affected by COVID-19, sooner or later. We receive alerts everyday about the increasing number of people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the warriors who fought with the disease and recovered, and people who lost the battle and their lives. Even in our very own home, there are unending discussions about how the pandemic has affected jobs and the social life, etc. All of this is only amplifying the intensity of this pain of people suffering from depression.

Now there is news about the increasing rate of suicide in the world, and this news is not spreading because suicide is the worst condition of hopelessness; it is spreading because news related to people attempting or committing suicide is going to be shared millions of times within a couple of hours on the walls of every other person, followed by with thousands of comments on how shocking it is, how serious it is, etc.

But, I, being a responsible citizen, want to know why does everybody have to share something that is already being shared on every other news channel? Why can’t people refrain from posting and showing how negative and insensitive they are, posting things which they really shouldn’t?

Your posts, suggestions, opinions, and memes about coronavirus are not at all helpful and are not going to help eradicate the disease. They are neither creating a positive impact on the world, nor making the world a better place.

As responsible and reasonable citizens, we must understand that depression kills, it is real and painful. Before posting anything, please just try to read it once and think from the lens of what kind of impact it will have on others, especially on those who are already psychologically disturbed and suffering from depression. Please consider whether you are contributing to someone’s peace and happiness or adding to their pains and miseries.

Battling depression needs faith and positivity. Please don’t become the reason of ruining someone’s faith and positivity with your random and unreasonably negative posts in the name of vanity, attention seeking and 15 minutes of fame.


About the Author

Sumra Peeran is the Senior Manager Academics and head of English Language Programs at Learntech.pk, with a Masters in English Linguistics, Masters in English Literature and MS in Applied Linguistics. She is associated with British Council as a trainer and ambassador of Connecting Classrooms program worldwide and has also worked as a teacher trainer, workshop facilitator, instructor of English as a foreign language and lecturer at university level.