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

Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 230 posts

Re: Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

#151

Post by exodust »

throwaway413 wrote: post #16
PuffinBlue wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on this? I don't really understand how x lead to y as i don't have much idea about social media addiction at all or its effects.

We moved to a new city. I work full time (from home) as a SWE. She is a stay at home mom. She met new people on IG in our new city, made friends. I thought it was great. My wife has a hole deep inside her from years of childhood abuse. She has no career, is early 20s like myself, and has yet to figure herself out. As the months went by, she filled that hole more and more with her connections on IG and less with our f…

> She has a girlfriend now.

Social media can't be responsible for that.

At least you didn't have kids. My sister's friend (a man) was married to a woman who left him for another woman. Two kids from the 6 year marriage. There was no "social media" element to the story. Sometimes people just change or snap, and is most likely because they get married too young in the first place.

Another person I know, a man, got married to his girlfriend - they'd been together for about 4 years and were happy. Big expensive wedding. Less than 12 months later he left her for another woman. Again, social media not involved at all. Just human relations.

Re: Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

#152

Post by askafriend »

throwaway413 wrote: post #143
askafriend wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just silly man. I’m just going to come out and say it. I hope you’ve re-read what you yourself wrote here and realize how ridiculous it is. I urge you to take some people’s advice here and talk to a lawyer immediately, start cutting her off of her privilege, and stop enabling her actions. You’re doing her harm, you’re doing your kid harm, and you’re doing yourself harm. You’re not helping anyone in this situa…

Yeah...definitely rubber ducking this right now and it’s pretty clear...I’m glad I posted something. Haven’t had many people to talk to about this who don’t have an emotional connection to the situation. But I mean seriously. I didn’t ask for this so I still love/d her. Tell the person you love, the mother of your child, that you’re done putting a roof over their head. It’s hard. I know that’s no excuse. I need to gr…

You’re not done putting a roof over their head. The courts will make damn sure about that.

The reality is that you’re contributing to your wife and kid’s long term demise even though in the short term you feel like and think you are helping them.

I can’t understand how difficult this situation is for you, but realizing that you are not helping at all with your money or your actions seems an important step to mentally take.

Think about the long term implications, not your short term attachments.

Read about the perspectives of children who had to suffer trough broken marriages where the parents stayed together for the kid. Nearly all of the kids say it would have been better if their parents had just broken up instead of keeping the facade going and fostering a toxic environment.

Re: Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

#153

Post by jpster »

Columbine, 9/11, the financial crisis and student debt were all mentioned in this article as possible contributors to teens’ depression. What about climate change? The young will bear the brunt of of it, they know it and they can see that “no one” cares enough to do anything substantive about it. This could be a strong dynamic in this depression trend, too.

Re: Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

#155

Post by seanmcdirmid »

senko wrote: post #139
hellos123 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope you are kidding. Books and newspapers have the power to enrich the mind with knowledge. Writing a book requires dedication and thought out arguments. Apps are designed to get you hooked on rewards. Twitter allows people to communicate with each others, but if its just garbage coming out, then it does more harm than good. Look at the president. Books are like fruits and vegetables. Apps are sugary drinks…

> Books are like fruits and vegetables. You may have an idealized notion of books. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulp_magazine There are literally tons of junk books out there.

Not to mention tabloid newspapers.

Re: Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

#156

Post by throwaway413 »

exodust wrote: post #151
throwaway413 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We moved to a new city. I work full time (from home) as a SWE. She is a stay at home mom. She met new people on IG in our new city, made friends. I thought it was great. My wife has a hole deep inside her from years of childhood abuse. She has no career, is early 20s like myself, and has yet to figure herself out. As the months went by, she filled that hole more and more with her connections on IG and less with our f…

> She has a girlfriend now. Social media can't be responsible for that. At least you didn't have kids. My sister's friend (a man) was married to a woman who left him for another woman. Two kids from the 6 year marriage. There was no "social media" element to the story. Sometimes people just change or snap, and is most likely because they get married too young in the first place. Another person I know, a man, got marr…

I don’t believe she is truly lesbian or bi now (no offense to those that are). It’s a phase. And I think the choice of outlet for this phase stemmed from the influence of what she was consuming on IG.

And we have one child.

Re: Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

#157

Post by exodust »

danschumann wrote: post #118

I think it takes a tiny bit of courage to look around the room, to have thoughts in public, and to have an image of "I'm not constantly busy". There are millions of George Costanzas, who are constantly acting busy in and high demand, not because they don't want more work, but.. well I don't know why. Maybe they actually ARE busy with social media, but I always look at them like they're pretenders. Being free is bette…

Actually I think in this case the problem is yours.

Imagine if you were actually doing something on your phone, somewhat important or necessary in some way. And you found out the person near you was assuming you were pretending, that you were acting, in other words you are fake. Not very nice of them to assume that is it?

Re: Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

#158

Post by YaxelPerez »

nostromo95 wrote: post #115
ifdefdebug wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think more dangerous than social media is the omnipresence of image recording devices. When I made a mistake as a teenager, people might laugh at me for a day or two, sooner or later it was forgotten. Today's teenager make a mistake and if they are unlucky, their shame gets immediately exposed to the whole world, forever. I think this has to contribute a lot to today's anxiousness of teenagers - who hasn't been cau…

Hopefully “don’t take pictures/videos of your peers/friends without their (implied) permission” becomes a more widely distributed social more for the next generation. Can’t believe it isn’t already.

Why would any teenager pass up the opportunity to post a video that will garner lots of attention?

Re: Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

#159

Post by mnr »

I have always felt that seeing other people’s success and happiness is not the cause of this type of behavioral change. I think that social media causes damage in two ways.

First of all, the feed/timeline/wall delivery system of information delivery must have some play in this. On instagram, I follow friends, family, coworkers, artists, creators, meme curators, technical brands, etc. They all deliver very different content, but I’m generally exposed to them in the same feed. So while I scroll through my feed, I do so much context switching that I get attention-motion sickness. I enjoy the post as I scroll though but I don’t retain anything. I could scroll through hundreds of posts in just a few minutes, and I’ll hardly remember any of what I’ve seen. It’s like an exercise in half paying attention, or an exercise of forgetting. But, we do it every single day, all the time. The information highway has gone from an open platform for sharing to a fast lane of content mixed with brands and ads shooting right through my conscious.

Then, we have the nerve to call it social. Yes, there’s a lot to say about the amount of connectivity these platforms have given us. But they’ve also changed the conversation we have. Sure, when I directly interact with people on these platforms, I’m doing something kinda social. But you know what’s not social? Staring at, or talking to a wall. No matter who has wiped their shit on it. I’m no biologist, but I know humans have mirror neurons which fire when interacting with other humans/things. So, we have a mechanism(s) in the body that respond to actual face to face interaction. How does an abstraction of technology interact with those mechanisms? I can only assume that the iPhone does not account for this in their UX meetings.

It is a little silly to me to assume that the staggering rates of depression and suicide come from reflection on the content these kids are seeing on social media. Social media, when used as designed, does not offer the time to reflect.

(I want to say that there are obvious other dangerous aspects of social media that may lend themselves to dangerous behavior as a result of reflection, such as obsession and stalking, bullying, etc)

Re: Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

#160

Post by exodust »

dawhizkid wrote: post #83

I find instagram to be, by far, the most damaging to my mental health of all the social networks. The explore feed must be optimized to relentlessly show "all the people I wish I could be but will never be."

Are you saying that if you were unaware those people existed, your mental health would benefit?

I don't understand. "Ignorance is bliss" surely can't be an antidote to depression.

Post reply on HN