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Dottoré!

Social Media Envy Is More Than Just Your Imagination

Our Naples psychiatrist's view on unrealistic social media standards, feeling inadequate, and the price of happiness.

Photo of a heart icon on a smartphone

The hidden price of a single "like"

Mariateresa Fichele

Some of my female patients are struggling with the way life is exposed on social media. It is becoming extremely problematic not only in relation to the beauty standards exhibited online, but also the family models that are exposed.

Some women — who struggle with their role as working women and mothers or housewives — have difficulty in understanding that behind a bright young entrepreneur who constantly shows herself on social media as a loving mother and wife, immersed in an opulent and perfect reality, there is a hidden world of waiters, nannies, makeup artists, hairdressers, drivers, airplane pilots and photographers, who certainly do not appear in videos and Instagram stories.


My job, in dealing with these patients, is to relieve them of the sense of frustration and inadequacy that arises from the comparison, trying to bring them back to the level of reality. And yet it may be reality itself that is the biggest obstacle in any of my therapeutic efforts.

For it is looking ever more true what one of my patients, Gennaro, once told me: "Dottoré, this story that money doesn’t buy happiness is bullshit. It was invented by the rich to comfort and trick those who have nothing…”


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Geopolitics

D.C. Or Beijing? Two High-Stakes Trips — And Taiwan's Divided Future On The Line

Two presidents of Taiwan, the current serving president, Tsai Ing-wen, and her predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou from the opposition Kuomintang party, are traveling in opposite directions these days. Taiwan must choose whom to follow.

Photo of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen

Tsai Ing-wen, the President of Taiwan

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — Tsai Ing-wen, the President of Taiwan, is traveling to the United States today. Not on an official trip because Taiwan is not a state recognized by Washington, but in transit, en route to Central America, a strategy that allows her to pass through New York and California.

Ma Ying-jeou, a former president of Taiwan, arrived yesterday in Shanghai: he is making a 12-day visit at the invitation of the Chinese authorities at a time of high tension between China and the United States, particularly over the fate of Taiwan.

It would be difficult to make these two trips more contrasting, as both have the merit of summarizing at a glance the decisive political battle that is coming. Presidential and legislative elections will be held in January 2024 in Taiwan, which could well determine Beijing's attitude towards the island that China claims by all means, including force.

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