Social Amnesia

Who doesn’t know that moment when a word hides, or an entire memory slips away behind some invisible wall?
It’s awful.

My friend Don faces that wall every day.
He struggles to find the words that will eventually form a full sentence.
His face tells the story better than his mouth ever could — pure frustration.
The mind’s machinery sometimes just locks up — stubborn, mechanical, unfair.

Amnesia is a loss of memory — sometimes caused by injury, illness, trauma … and nowadays, by the constant use of social media.
People with amnesia struggle to recall facts, experiences, and moments.

And in some of today’s political shouting matches, you can clearly spot what I’d call historical amnesia — a selective loss of facts, mixed with a stubborn allergy to truth.
Facts are annoying, after all, when they poke holes in comfortable opinions.

How much are our brains and eyes reshaped by the endless pleasure – and pressure – of social media?
Anyone who spends hours on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook or whatever is living on quickies.
Social platforms train us for instant gratification and micro-attention spans.
That constant flood of content — scrolling, reacting, repeating — takes its toll.
And it’s anything but healthy.

Neurons forget how to stay with one thing for longer than a blink.
Distraction becomes a lifestyle.
And no, the human brain never feels full.

Simplifications feed on those info-snacks.
Even trickier are the toxic ones — the endless stream of outrage, fear, and half-truths that poison emotional balance.
Anger, anxiety, and helplessness take the wheel — if we let them.

It gets even worse when those little bites are decorated with racism or sexism.
The Department of Prejudice is always open for business.
And the most profitable section of that buffet? Fake news – now AI-flavoured.
Holy smokes – what a cocktail we’re feeding our brains!

Well … humans and their fragile minds just have to cope.
Toi, toi, toi.

Comparisons are never fair, and the line “Things were better in the old days” is laughable. And not true. 
But still – hand on heart – who used to fact-check the newspaper?
Hardly anyone.
It was printed in black and white, therefore it must have been true.
Only the political leaning of the paper – and its owner – added a bit of colour.

Today, that innocence is gone.
Every article gets chased through a fact-checker before we dare to believe it.
Nobody wants to be fooled by a fake story, not when April Fool’s Day seems to last all year.

Life in 2026 is restless and loud.
Conversations with friends or family have become trickier.
Why?
Because those little digital snacks now run the conversation – and often the whole emotional show.

And they offer another feature:
They push people to preach what they’ve just read or heard — with the passion of missionaries … and the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

That’s when not only babies get thrown out with the bathwater – but friendships too.
Old ties break under the weight of misinformation and misplaced certainty.
Sad, isn’t it?

But none of this is new.
Back in the world of Asterix, a certain Tullius Destructivus spent his days stirring up quarrels, envy, and rage among the villagers.
And boy, did he succeed.

Tullius Destructivus is banned in my house and brain – for life.