Apperceptive or task orientation – why the Facebook generation feels so alienated and useless

Abstract

Contemporary civilisational changes, especially the popularity of social networks, have made self-presentation the main source of success for an individual in the social world. These processes somehow naturally redirected the attention of the individual from the environment and the activity he usually practised in the social world to himself and the ability to build his own attractiveness in the group. I call these changes in the perception of oneself and one's relations with the social world apperceptive orientation. It has had a number of consequences, including: regarding priorities in terms of one's own activity, dominant mechanisms of self-esteem regulation, or points of reference for personal aspirations. The subject of special attention was not the people caused by the widespread presence of social networks, the typical traps that caregivers, psychologists, and other adults who are concerned about the growing scale of depression and alienation fall into, and the proposed solution presented to reverse this unfortunate trend.