By Ellery Johannessen
September 27, 2022
It’s a commonplace warning in these early years of the third decade of the 21st century to watch what you say on social media. The basic rule is that, if you’ve put it online, assume it’s going to come back to bite you. The internet never forgets. This obviously goes for text messages and emails as well, and I encourage any potential litigant out there to begin sanitizing what they say to other people, especially in writing. But social media reigns supreme as the space in which potential litigants make abysmal choices.
Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is a condition characterized by a near-total lack of empathy. A person suffering from APD person tilts toward self-destructive behavior, including aggressive and impulsive tendencies, because they simply do not care. It may also be characterized by unsafe sex practices and substance abuse (which may be the subject of later posts).
For all the potential good of nearly limitless information sharing, social media constructs have proven to be a source of significant social and psychological discord. Consider the QAnon conspiracy. For all its absurdity – a global cabal of baby-eating, Satan-worshiping liberals that only Donald Trump can stop – social media has made its proliferation remarkably easy. If a conspiracy like QAnon had sprouted with a man on a street corner shouting into a bullhorn, it would have been snuffed out for the raw, overwhelming embarrassment of a unanimously laughing crowd. But social media has spawned legions of echo chambers where the disaffected find a safe space for their worst impulses.
When do people fall into these traps? Periods of high stress and low morale are often the triggers. Maybe someone has lost a job or is facing financial pressures. Maybe someone has faced grave illness or lost a loved one. Maybe one has been called to defend a lawsuit or is facing divorce. In these places, people seek the solace of community and the validation of their feelings. Social media groups both offer and amplify that. Then, they offer something more – an outlet for all the world’s frustrations. Sometimes, as with QAnon, they offer an “inside track” to make people feel special.
Once a person has fallen into a spiral of social media, it’s difficult to come out. The shape and movement of a spiral perfectly describes what happens to a person when this happens. It starts wide and shallow, when all you have to do is turn in a different direction and the momentum will push you out and back into the normal. But the further down one goes, the tighter and faster the spiral becomes. It becomes almost impossible to escape. A mother who’s experienced physical abuse and is just protective of her children might start believing that a certain social media group is about saving children from sex trafficking. She winds up a full QAnon devotee, storming a pizza parlor with an assault rifle in an effort to break up a basement sex ring (never mind that said pizza parlor had no basement). Likewise, a father in a divorce who’s experienced an adverse custody ruling might be inclined to think that the justice system is prejudiced against men in custody cases. He might find online support groups that lead him to a place of believing that men are targeted in other aspects of society, leading him to identify as a “western chauvinist” and, before you know it, he’s aligned with the Proud Boys and storming the Capitol.
Both examples, while envisioning the extreme, illustrate shades of the same principle: as social media engagement increases, so does APD. Empathy dissolves for all but those who agree with you. Impulsive behavior skyrockets and poor choices become commonplace.
The writing should be on the wall about how all of this impacts litigation. If it doesn’t, please direct your attention to Alex Jones. Jones has made a career out of conspiracy theories, which he has amplified using social media over the past two decades. The brain worms have plainly gotten to him – last week, he blew up on the stand during his second defamation trial when he talked about his loathing of the trial judge on the stand and publicly stated that he was no longer apologizing to the families and stood by the allegations he leveled against the families. No empathy. Impulsive behavior. A history of violent outbursts.
APD and social media go hand in glove. Finding yourself looking for belonging through a screen is usually the first sign that something is wrong. Look for it and self-evaluate as often as you can. Understand that litigation never gets less stressful, but just because you face an adverse ruling doesn’t mean the world is coming down on you. Take a step back and engage in some self-care before you dive down the internet rabbit hole. If you let yourself spiral and ignore the guardrails around you, plan to lose as spectacularly as Jones has.