The word frivolity is a term that we use frequently in our language when we want to express, with respect to something or someone, that they stand out for their superficiality, even when faced with situations that demand a position or a compromised behavior that moves away from the recurrent lack of seriousness that is displayed.
Tendency to superficiality when approaching life, worrying only about what happens on an individual level and without committing to the needs of others
Frivolity implies indifference or disregard for the great conflicts of daily life, and a constant inclination to be looking at yourself instead of also taking a look at what is happening around you.
The person who has frivolity will never worry about what happened and is happening socially, politically, or historically in the place where he resides, and then, for all this it is a trend that has historically been considered negative and even disastrous, and that it is used with an absolutely pejorative sense, to refer to those people who do not turn out to worry about deep things.
We can also say that frivolity is the quality of the frivolous, as it is called that which is superficial, light, or has little relevance.
When someone tends to frivolity, popularly, it will be referred to as frivolous.
The frivolous indicates superficiality and lightness and so when a person behaves with these conditions we call it frivolous.
Individualism and desire for the material
Generally, the frivolous cares little and is interested in issues that concern and promote the common good, but rather the opposite, he is hyper individualistic, the frivolous is primarily interested in forms and not content, that is, things related to appearance physical, material, such as money, clothing, and everything that has the ultimate goal of satisfying material tastes.
For the aforementioned, for example, faced with a situation such as a national tragedy, the frivolous one will remain distant and even absent from it, continuing to carry out activities that satisfy their desires and needs, and without even approaching to offer their helps this complex and difficult situation, which of course would require your commitment and that of the majority of citizens to be overcome.
It should be noted that even that individual who is more aware and committed to reality will be attacked at some point by frivolity, because it is basically a human characteristic.
Now, it is one thing to behave for minutes, hours, like someone frivolous, that such a characteristic is the salient feature of someone's personality.
In this case, frivolity will be understood as a highly negative condition since it can lead to what we mentioned above, not worrying or feeling sorry for the critical situation that someone experiences, never empathizing with others.
In the world in which we live today, frivolity is a very present and common inclination to see, even momentarily in those people who are associated with a depth and concern for life and circumstantial issues.
Consumerism, promotion of personal success, and the exhibition of life through networks, some factors that exacerbate frivolity
This is so as a consequence of the fact that in this world various conditions of life and values have become entrenched that precisely contribute to frivolity, among them: a market economy that especially promotes consumption in a fantastic and unprecedented way, and in what internet has had a lot to do with it, since today it is possible to buy what you want or long for, after having seen it on television or on the web itself, in this way, and even being on the other side of the planet.
On the other hand, today personal success is promoted, failure is punished, there is an important tendency to promote the need to belong to something, to be eternally young, and to make all public and spectacular, something in which social networks, television and the internet have a lot to do with it.
Nor can we ignore that frivolity is used by many people as an escape route from responsibilities, to commit to causes that transcend them and that have to do with the search for the common good and not so much with individual well-being.
And also the growth of crime, and other evils such as terrorism, have caused people to begin to distrust others, and this obviously keeps us more and more every day from being able to empathize with the needs that some social sectors have.
The term that directly opposes the one at hand is that of seriousness, which precisely refers to the opposite of the concept addressed, because seriousness implies sobriety and the absence of humor in situations that demand it.
