Gallup’s finding that anger has been on the rise since 2016 is significant. It was the year in which the world became more divided, thanks to Donald Trump and Brexit. Four years later, the pandemic hit, making people even more isolated. Confined to their homes, frustrated and afraid, they were immersed in their phones, feeding the algorithms.
It’s hard to determine the mental state of everyone reading this article right now. Someone is probably listening to children screaming. Maybe someone just saw the most terrible news on their phone… even if it’s from the end of the world. Maybe you opened Instagram and saw the “stories” of people you don’t really like. You’re probably feeling bad. Or rather, angry. Unfortunately, we are living in the middle of an epidemic of anger. It doesn’t just seem like everyone is angrier than they used to be: in fact, they are. The world has become a furious and angry place. Last year, Gallum published the Global Emotional Report to show the positive and negative aspects and mental state of people in the world. From this report, a grim report emerged. Anger around the world has been increasing since 2016. In fact, 23% of respondents said they feel angry every day. Although anger is understandably high in areas of war, genocide, or extreme poverty, even in countries at peace, levels of anger were concerning.
But why do we get so angry? What do we get angry about? In fact, it varies by demographic. And as expected, young men are leading this rage epidemic. Ryan Martin, a researcher and author of the books “Why We Get Angry” and “How to Manage Angry People,” found that men get angrier than women.
More than half of the men surveyed, 60%, reported getting angry at least once a day. 40% of them said this happened to them several times a day. As for women, only 38% of them got angry. According to Martin, there are three reasons why people get angry more quickly. Because they experience injustice, are treated with mercy and do not get what they want. If there is one “zone” where all the anger is released, it is undoubtedly the online world. We have elements like Andrew Tate who have created their own “army”, driven by misogyny, with frustrated young men. Attached to this manosphere, materials that incite anger have also become a dominant option in online life. A genre of content inspired by anger has emerged on social networks. That is, videos and posts that aim to irritate the reader or viewer in order to cause anger with the aim of having as much traffic to the page, engagement, income and attention as possible.
Gallup’s finding that anger has been on the rise since 2016 is significant. It was the year in which the world became more divided, thanks to Donald Trump and Brexit. Four years later, the pandemic hit, making people even more isolated. Confined to their homes, frustrated and afraid, they were glued to their phones, feeding the algorithms.
But there are other times when these videos that are intended to incite anger in people turn out to be funny. For example, the case of Ashton Hall and his morning routine. His videos caused laughter instead of anger, but this does not happen often. Most people who provoke anger with their material want their audience to be angry. And sometimes this spills over into real life and does not stay within the confines of the internet. More and more often, videos of people exploding in anger are going viral, from road accidents to arguments in the middle of a station, with many passengers ignoring them instead of intervening. Watching these types of videos only adds to a general feeling of growing annoyance fueled by anger, online and even in real life. Sometimes the anger goes even further. Without an answer, but filled with anger, people take to the streets to burn, attack and destroy. They usually target women, immigrants, or anyone they believe is the enemy, the source of their rage.
Perhaps the best way to view anger is not as an epidemic, but as a cultural addiction. Like all addictions, if we don’t find a way to manage it, it will eat away at us, leaving serious social consequences. (The Independent)
