Fanfiction, coping mechanisms, and shifting the realities
Abstract
The development and popularization of social media have increased social anomie, as exemplified by dissemination of fake news, stereotypes, hate, ostracism, social isolation, and ubiquitous fear of missing out. As a result, members of society are more exposed to witnessing and reading of tragedies than previously. The youth of today try to find some methods to “drown out” the reality, even if the methods they use were to be effective only temporarily. That is how, in some cases, people become addicted to and dependent on any form of mass media: social media and fiction (such as video games, books, TV shows, movies or cartoons, etc.). The present article attempts to answer the question of why the young people seek closure aided by fiction, and to provide examples to illustrate it.
Keywords
fiction; coping mechanisms; mental health
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Websites
University of Szczecin Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3396-9083
Kaja Rokicka ─ a recent graduate of Social Sciences at the Institute of Sociology, University of Szczecin. Her academic interests include popular culture, gender representations in film, along with their effects on young people, as well as studying the activities of social groups created on the basis of shared interests. She carried out and took part in a few sociological projects at the University of Szczecin, such as: TPAAE (Transcultural Perspectives in Art and Art Education), in cooperation with Kenyan artists, or “Namaluj z nami Szczecin”
(Paint Szczecin with Us) project.
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