Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The relationship between social media use and well-being

hbr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 132 posts

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#61

Post by thex10 »

abalashov wrote: post #37

I can certainly agree with the study abstract and most posts here, but would add a twist: social media use is depressing, but falling out of touch with faraway friends is even more depressing. I've been on and off FB over the years, and what I've found is that the only thing worse than being on FB is not being on FB. There are many people I'd just never talk to if I didn't use FB, and I do think the connection is som…

Unfortunately, my faraway friends were perfectly capable of moving on from our friendship even while being linked on FB.

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#62

Post by seanwilson »

lsc wrote: post #40

I feel the 'social media is bad for you' thing, but for different reasons. I mean, I don't really understand the 'feeling inadequate because of my cousin's baby pictures' thing. I mean, I am happy for them, but that isn't the life I want, so I don't feel bad that I don't have it. Alternately, I could be less jealous than most people, but let's run with the more realistic first reason. For me, the problem with social…

> For me, the problem with social media is a fundamental lack of self control; I get into 'someone is wrong on the internet' discussions, and for me, those are the 'addictive but not pleasant' aspects of social media.

Why not control yourself to not reply to people you know aren't going to have a healthy discussion with you? Surely the same issue exists in real life?

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#63

Post by platz »

cc439 wrote: post #60
platz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with the fact that couples tend to announce things like "We're having a baby" or "We're engaged" or "I'm moving to Utah" on facebook as their primary mode of informing social circles of these kinds of events?

If they, or someone else close to you, doesn't inform you of a major life event like that outside of Facebook, maybe those people aren't anywhere near as close as you believe them to be.

So your policy is to trim as many of your loose acquaintances away as possible?

I was under the impression that having loose ties is important for various reasons in life, assuming they aren't taking up significant mindshare with non-essential things. (Then it's not really a 'loose tie')

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#64

Post by platz »

brightball wrote: post #54
platz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with the fact that couples tend to announce things like "We're having a baby" or "We're engaged" or "I'm moving to Utah" on facebook as their primary mode of informing social circles of these kinds of events?

It's been a funny thing. My wife fills me in on this stuff now. Previously, conversations would go something like this... Her, "Did you hear so-n-so had a baby?" Me, "Yep." Now it goes like this... Her, "Did you hear so-n-so had a baby?" Me, "Really? That's great news, was it a boy or girl?" Very similar thing happened with my mom, except with my friends from high school.

I'm all for delegating the matter to someone else, sure; but that's different than not doing it at all (someone is still doing it).

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#65

Post by ovulator »

seanwilson wrote: post #62
lsc wrote: post #40

I feel the 'social media is bad for you' thing, but for different reasons. I mean, I don't really understand the 'feeling inadequate because of my cousin's baby pictures' thing. I mean, I am happy for them, but that isn't the life I want, so I don't feel bad that I don't have it. Alternately, I could be less jealous than most people, but let's run with the more realistic first reason. For me, the problem with social…

> For me, the problem with social media is a fundamental lack of self control; I get into 'someone is wrong on the internet' discussions, and for me, those are the 'addictive but not pleasant' aspects of social media. Why not control yourself to not reply to people you know aren't going to have a healthy discussion with you? Surely the same issue exists in real life?

As an anecdote, I very rarely use Facebook. But recently saw someone on my feed share their thoughts on a very interesting topic that had a lot of nuance. I thought I would weigh in because I know this person is thoughtful and open to productive discussion, so I leave a comment.

Of course their friends who I don't know can also see my comment, and they quickly weigh in with their un-thought out vitriol. I try to keep the discussion going for a little while, but they quickly degenerate it into ad-hominem attacks (which is impressive because I am a stranger to them) and I give up.

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#66

Post by Swizec »

platz wrote: post #58
Swizec wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lots of people are there who lack a background in early internet culture or academic culture I think this hits it. Many (most?) people just aren't used to having people disagree with them. Let alone voice those disagreements and be expected to defend their beliefs and explain why they think they're right. For many people the way they think is correct, just is correct. It's not something that needs defending or even…

Framing that difference as a "lack" the other person has, may be right, but creates a sense of superiority over that person which also seems wrong, for certain people that are aware of their differences (they may not be "lacking" anything"). Some people are emotivists ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism ), which means that for them preferences are moral positions in themselves, not just reasons about the morali…

TIL! I've never heard of emotivism before.

And I don't think that's what I was pointing towards. My comment is about the idea that people aren't used to having their beliefs investigated or challenged. No matter what the basis is for their existence.

It's more a lack in their environment than in themselves I think. You can't get used to defending your beliefs until you're exposed to people and ideas that challenge them.

I mean it's fine if your defense is "That's what feels right". But it's not fine if your response to "I think you're wrong" is to think you're being attacked and it makes you feel superbad.

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#67

Post by lsc »

seanwilson wrote: post #62
lsc wrote: post #40

I feel the 'social media is bad for you' thing, but for different reasons. I mean, I don't really understand the 'feeling inadequate because of my cousin's baby pictures' thing. I mean, I am happy for them, but that isn't the life I want, so I don't feel bad that I don't have it. Alternately, I could be less jealous than most people, but let's run with the more realistic first reason. For me, the problem with social…

> For me, the problem with social media is a fundamental lack of self control; I get into 'someone is wrong on the internet' discussions, and for me, those are the 'addictive but not pleasant' aspects of social media. Why not control yourself to not reply to people you know aren't going to have a healthy discussion with you? Surely the same issue exists in real life?

I haven't quite pinned down why I have this problem on social media but not other discussion sites or the real world. I suspect that social media, or more specifically Facebook is different in some way, and I just haven't been on Facebook long enough to properly learn how to deal with it.

It is also possible that something about Facebook makes it harder to deal with, and I simply have left other platforms that have that problem to that degree, and I just haven't left, hoping that I will get it figured out.

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#68

Post by [deleted] »

seanwilson wrote: post #62
lsc wrote: post #40

I feel the 'social media is bad for you' thing, but for different reasons. I mean, I don't really understand the 'feeling inadequate because of my cousin's baby pictures' thing. I mean, I am happy for them, but that isn't the life I want, so I don't feel bad that I don't have it. Alternately, I could be less jealous than most people, but let's run with the more realistic first reason. For me, the problem with social…

> For me, the problem with social media is a fundamental lack of self control; I get into 'someone is wrong on the internet' discussions, and for me, those are the 'addictive but not pleasant' aspects of social media. Why not control yourself to not reply to people you know aren't going to have a healthy discussion with you? Surely the same issue exists in real life?

[deleted]

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#69

Post by dankoss »

013a wrote: post #25

I'm curious: Which aspects of Facebook cause this? Do other social networks, like Insta or Twitter, exhibit this behavior? In a way, this and studies like it are damning to Facebook's core mission to connect everyone in the world.

This is just my speculation, but I think the utility of facebook declined when external linking took over user created posts on facebook. I don't go to facebook because I want to know how my friends feel about political news; I go to facebook because I want to know what they are up to. I think Instagram and Snapchat got this right, because even though you can regram something or paste a screenshot, that's not the default way to interact with the platform.

I would check facebook a lot more often if they had an option to hide all external links / images. I know there are browser plugins that enable this but they're not on mobile.

Re: The relationship between social media use and well-being

#70

Post by 5thaccount »

Redditshill wrote: post #16

I think my experience and satisfaction with Facebook has steadily decreased in a linear relationship with how many friends I have on my friends list. My guess is because: 1) the more friends I add, the more likely I am to add that guy on Facebook. The guy who always posts very annoying political posts, or the guy who posts very smug+condescending posts. 2) I find myself comparing with my friends, especially when they…

I think it is simpler than that - we like most people because we really don't know them that well, and the inverse si true as well.

We all have quirks that other people might find distasteful. As an easy jump off point, the pr0n habits of people vary wildly, and I'd wager if everyone knew what someone was into... The more you know about many people, the more chance there is that a part you uniquely find distasteful will emerge.

On top of that, the modern world in general, and SM specifically, has melded the public world, the private world and, most annoying of all, the inner world into a single, undifferentiated miasma. All these posts I see of people who can't work with Trump voters, or the religious right, or gay people or whatever shows how this melding causes real problems, even if it alleviates others.

We now know too much about people, and that isn't a universal positive.

Post reply on HN