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Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance

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Re: Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance

#61

Post by emeraldbird »

dekhn wrote: post #24
hardwaresofton wrote: post #20

The way this is titled makes the relation seem directional, and in the wrong direction... Basing self worth on social acceptance definitely predates Facebook, and Facebook addiction is a pretty obvious consequence of the positive feedback loop that you'd get form using Facebook to feed that part of yourself. Not defending Facebook or any other social network here, I personally think Facebook is likely toxic -- but I…

in any scientific article, if you reverse the causation in the title and it makes more sense, the author probably made an error. As a wise professor sitting in the audience said to the lecturer: "Normally we put the dependent variable on the Y axis".

That is not correct. There are many processes which are self-augmenting. It is scientifically valid that heat causes fire. It is equally valid that fire causes heat.

Other examples: A reduced reflection of sunlight on the Earth surface causes the surface to become warmer. In places where the surface is covered with ice, a warming surface reduces the reflection. Climate change is caused by an increased amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Climate change is also very likely causing the amount of carbon dioxide to rise further, by releasing methane from methane hydrate on the seafloor, by releasing methane from the arctic tundra soils, and by causing wildfires.

Another example: Poverty causes a lack of access to education. But a reduced access to education also causes poverty.

All these are self-augmenting processes. This kind of feedback loop is also something typical for addiction.

Re: Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance

#62

Post by s-shellfish »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #53
roflc0ptic wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, as much as people complain about hacker news' negativity - and it certainly is around - there's still a high concentration of thoughtful people interested in having respectful conversations.

Also you will get scolded in a meaningful way if you screw up or say really dumb things with no evidence here.

One has to grow to not react to it. If explanations don't make sense, you need to be able to find the right questions to ask, to be able to know what is meaningful from what is nonsense.

That's just tech in general. Or business. Anything that deals in hard facts. Hand waving bullshit without evidence or at least, validity in reasoning - that's just bad long term.

Of course the real truth though is no one can know everything. To me, that implies there's a limit where people say 'this is the line we stop thinking at, when we hit this line'. I'm curious to know whether the belief that the line exists there to begin with is there because it retains some tolerable amount of bullshit, or because some people just really aren't used to actually being aware of their own occasional idiocy.

I dunno. I don't think it's a positive long term to make people feel dumb. Probably something that gets retained because it just works, an evolutionary heuristic, not necessarily one planned for, designed, selected.

Which.. (the universe truly does have a divine sense of humor) - intelligence can literally be stupidity. Therefore, it doesn't mean whatever intelligence designates most intelligent is actually the most effective way of getting to the truth, or defining the best way to do things. Just means, it's the way things get done, until a better way is revealed or found.

Re: Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance

#63

Post by emeraldbird »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #52
bdz wrote: post #14

Social media is the new smoking. Cancer destroys you physically but these sites destroy your mental health. Not just Facebook but Instagram too for example, it's even worse. And don't forget Twitter.

The "withdrawal" of them is bad too. You're essentially forced to create a new friend base because a lot of people just won't participate in a real meaningful friendship outside of Facebook. It's like you're not a person if you're not on some form of social media. I still type reddit.com into my browser just from muscle memory now 6-ish months after quitting.

This is another one:

An organization which when you become a member of it, has such a negative influence on your social life that you have to create your social life newly when you quit it.

Isn't that almost exactly the description of a cult?

Re: Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance

#64

Post by dustingetz »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #20

The way this is titled makes the relation seem directional, and in the wrong direction... Basing self worth on social acceptance definitely predates Facebook, and Facebook addiction is a pretty obvious consequence of the positive feedback loop that you'd get form using Facebook to feed that part of yourself. Not defending Facebook or any other social network here, I personally think Facebook is likely toxic -- but I…

yes! it is hard for me to imagine a wholesome social network existing. it is the toxicity which is driving the engagement. It would be like selling a drug that isn’t addictive - why on earth would that be a billion dollar product?

Re: Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance

#65

Post by FLUX-YOU »

austincheney wrote: post #12

How horrible. If I had a dime for every time somebody on the internet took a civil disagreement of opinion to an emotional level I would be a trillionaire. If this is how I qualified my self-worth I would be in a very bad place. This is also the reason I deleted my Reddit account. God forbid you offer technical advise or attempt to explain a complex subject and the answer somehow becomes extremely political. The bigg…

I know that some people do have real emotion behind their posts, but I also know some people who read emotion from text when there isn't any at all.

e.g. "Javascript is fucking stupid" could equally be a screaming rant or just a casual comment with a group of cursing sailors.

Pretending you know what emotions someone's expressing from plaintext is basically the opposite problem of what you're talking about and is equally flawed.

I wasn't there though, so if they were leveling personal attacks because of your dissenting opinion, you were likely correct about the emotional part.

Re: Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance

#66

Post by emeraldbird »

logicchains wrote: post #25
bdz wrote: post #14

Social media is the new smoking. Cancer destroys you physically but these sites destroy your mental health. Not just Facebook but Instagram too for example, it's even worse. And don't forget Twitter.

That's just absurd. Maybe people with underlying psychological issues are somehow damaged by Facebook, but in my experience the majority of users (at the very least the people I know who use it) just see it as a convenient way to keep up with what friends are up to and share interesting jokes/memes, it's certainly not destroying their mental health. If someone suffers when they see other people doing well, because th…

I do not agree. Some things are clearly addictive and it is much easier to stay away from them. Maybe it is a character flaw that I do not think I will avoid to become addicted if I start smoking, but the fact is that smoking is so addictive that most people become addicted in very short time. There are other things less addictive but more damaging when you become addicted. Drugs like Meth or crocodile do exist, and they cause horrible things. I do not think that Facebook addiction is as bad as these, but when I see parents with babies on their street which pay much more attention to their phone than to their baby, I cannot see how this is going to cause something good.

Re: Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance

#67

Post by hfdgiutdryg »

austincheney wrote: post #12

How horrible. If I had a dime for every time somebody on the internet took a civil disagreement of opinion to an emotional level I would be a trillionaire. If this is how I qualified my self-worth I would be in a very bad place. This is also the reason I deleted my Reddit account. God forbid you offer technical advise or attempt to explain a complex subject and the answer somehow becomes extremely political. The bigg…

/r/programming is the most toxic programming-related group/forum/board I've ever seen.

Incidentally, I think part of the communication problem is that commenter #2 read commenter #1's comment, plus a bunch of other people's comments that color the interpretation of commenter #1's statement. It only gets worse as your comment ages and whole discussions evolve around it.

Re: Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance

#68

Post by mindgam3 »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #20

The way this is titled makes the relation seem directional, and in the wrong direction... Basing self worth on social acceptance definitely predates Facebook, and Facebook addiction is a pretty obvious consequence of the positive feedback loop that you'd get form using Facebook to feed that part of yourself. Not defending Facebook or any other social network here, I personally think Facebook is likely toxic -- but I…

Not disagreeing that this predated Facebook. But the problem is that Facebook took this known vulnerability in human psychology and exploited it to the absolute max.

The product has been meticulously engineered to push all your social acceptance buttons. It would have been possible to design a product that helped people gain awareness of and transcend the deep underlying insecurities that give rise to addictions of all kinds, including social media. They deliberately chose not to build that product because it would be less lucrative, at least in the short term.

Giving Facebook a pass on this is like giving a heroin dealer a pass because opioid addiction predated their business. It’s true but it doesn’t absolve any of the moral responsibility for profiting off a product that causes harm.

Re: Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance

#69

Post by emeraldbird »

matz1 wrote: post #34
ekianjo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but in my experience the majority of users (at the very least the people I know who use it) just see it as a convenient way to keep up with what friends are up to and share interesting jokes/memes, it's certainly not destroying their mental health. It's a distraction. And a lot of people are addicted by it, so much they feel they need to "share" what they are doing or what they are thinking at least once a day. Thi…

Like any other thing in live, facebook can made your life better for some people, can make your life worse for some other. It what you make of it.

If we are right now discussing whether something is actually causing more harm than good, this statement seems to avoid the core of the issue. Does it usually help people to be and stay happy? If it does not make them happy - why do they use it?

Re: Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance

#70

Post by hfdgiutdryg »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #53
roflc0ptic wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, as much as people complain about hacker news' negativity - and it certainly is around - there's still a high concentration of thoughtful people interested in having respectful conversations.

Also you will get scolded in a meaningful way if you screw up or say really dumb things with no evidence here.

You'll get downvoted for expressing unpopular opinion, just like every other similar site.

HN used to have a general rule in the community that you don't downvote without explaining why. It was a much nicer place back then.

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