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Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents

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Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents

#181

Post by antihero »

csallen wrote: post #102
titzer wrote: post #24

Social media (and the attention economy) are worse for young brains than drugs. If you came up with a substance that caused young people by the millions to become totally addicted, cost them multiple hours per day, pushed them into depression and suicide, and contributed to inactivity, obesity, loss of attention span, and overall ennui, it would be banned almost immediately. Heck, if you proposed a tracking system th…

Amusingly, you could analyze anything this way if you ignore the benefits and only look at the costs. "Planes are an outrage! Imagine if you proposed a system that required hours of everyone's time, cost them hundreds of dollars, forced them to sit in cramped positions, and subjected them to invasive scans and searches of their personal materials." "How are schools allowed! They literally imprison our kids for upward…

I mean if you want to factor in the benefits of drugs, be my guest, because spoiler alert: They are fucking awesome.

Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents

#182

Post by Zelphyr »

kreeben wrote: post #162
Zelphyr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think about the times I've lashed out, screamed and yelled at someone and you know what? It felt pretty good. At first. Then I felt worse. WAY worse because I knew I had hurt the person I had yelled at. So I think you're right that while it is a release, it's an anti-productive one. One analogy I saw once likened it to having a balloon. You forgot to take out the trash this morning--the balloon got blown up a littl…

I suppose you're right. Lashing out is not a slow release of the pressure within that will save you from popping your balloon, it's the pop itself. Not all people have set up a structure in their lives that allow them to slowly release that pressure. We do not all have people in our lives that we can talk to about our feelings. Social media might help these folks. If I were to lash out at you during lunch or while we…

To take your analogy a little further: if we all started saying to someone who started lashing out online, "Hey dude, what's going on? You're acting irrational. Where's this anger coming from? What can I/we do to help?" would it subdue the flames and vitriol that exists on social media? Maybe. I don't know. It's worth a try.

What I suspect would be better would be to pick up the phone and call that person and say those things. The release of venting verbally with a person who is understanding and prepared to accept the venting is likely significantly more productive and healthier than over text.

Then again, 99% of the time, we don't even know that persons name, much less their phone number. Therein lies, I think in part, the crux of the problem: I'm a tribe member who is able to throw stones at a member of a different tribe without immediate or clear consequence.

Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents

#183

Post by kibwen »

lovecg wrote: post #179
deeeeplearning wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't know if the downsides are worse for Facebook or Twitter (engineered for eyeballs and ad clicks), than forums, or where Discord lies on the spectrum. They're clearly worse. Forums don't have algorithms constantly running trying to hijack your brain stem to keep you scrolling and clicking links...

Neither does HN, but I personally find it as addictive as anything else on the Internet.

There are options in your HN profile to help with this.

"Like email, social news sites can be dangerously addictive. So the latest version of Hacker News has a feature to let you limit your use of the site. There are three new fields in your profile, noprocrast, maxvisit, and minaway. (You can edit your profile by clicking on your username.) Noprocrast is turned off by default. If you turn it on by setting it to "yes," you'll only be allowed to visit the site for maxvisit minutes at a time, with gaps of minaway minutes in between. The defaults are 20 and 180, which would let you view the site for 20 minutes at a time, and then not allow you back in for 3 hours. You can override noprocrast if you want, in which case your visit clock starts over at zero."

Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents

#184

Post by tux1968 »

reaperducer wrote: post #148
devlopr wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are upsides. From providing self estem from a different source from the local. It has raised awareness like never before. It has provided an income for some. It allows new peer groups not available locally It provides a safer space to interact with strangers. Where we got it wrong was connecting these profiles to real life names. That has ruined people's lives.

None of the things you list are unique to social media. They all existed before the rise of the socials. Many of them existed before the internet.

Yes, but the increased availability of such things around the globe and across social strata is unparalleled.

Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents

#185

Post by Descensus »

whatshisface wrote: post #159
conradev wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is this weird balance because I owe literally everything I know about programming to unsupervised internet access: asking questions in IRC rooms, finding random programs on random websites, posting on obscure forums, etc. I was able to find some wonderful communities, like the iPhone jailbreaking community on IRC, which completely changed my life and put me on the path I am on now. I was also on Twitter in the ear…

To strongman the OP, would your parents have stopped you from talking about programming on IRC if they had observed it? Would you stop your kids, if you observed them? Watching your kid's internet use doesn't mean not letting them use the internet, it means applying your developed adult discernment to judge between healthy and unhealthy uses.

I'm not OP, but it's not entirely about the content being viewed. A lot of unsupervised online access takes the form of large swathes of time.

Not every parent would necessarily want their child online for 3 - 5+ hours, especially doing things like participating in communities.

Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents

#186

Post by dav43 »

antihero wrote: post #181
csallen wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly, you could analyze anything this way if you ignore the benefits and only look at the costs. "Planes are an outrage! Imagine if you proposed a system that required hours of everyone's time, cost them hundreds of dollars, forced them to sit in cramped positions, and subjected them to invasive scans and searches of their personal materials." "How are schools allowed! They literally imprison our kids for upward…

I mean if you want to factor in the benefits of drugs, be my guest, because spoiler alert: They are fucking awesome.

I must concur. There is a reason taking drugs has been around for 1000's of years - within reason.

Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents

#187

Post by f430 »

What I found shocking about the latest trend in video consumption on social media is that they are 10 seconds long or less. This is only one of the many ways to keep a person locked to the screen (ex. youtube)

It's not hard to imagine what this sort of exposure does to a young person's brain and attention span. You are essentially creating addicts and social media users all show withdrawl symptoms of any prolonged psychotropic drug use:

- irritability

- depression

- physical restlessness

- overwhelming need for redose

- tolerance build up

Something has to be done. We cannot rely on the generosity or moral guidelines of the companies that produce these apps well aware of the link between serotonin and screen time.

I'm all for small government but this is a matter of public health. We needed regulation, and we need regulation, and will need regulation.

Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents

#188

Post by hiimtroymclure »

hollerith wrote: post #163
hiimtroymclure wrote: post #160

I left all social media just after xmas after I couldn't take the constant flood of politics. I miss the memes but overall i've loved my decision. Ill never go back

"Constant flood of politics" also describes HN between late Dec and now IME. Have you considered leaving HN over it? (I have.)

I have not. I get a lot of value out of HN as it relates to my interests. I really don't get any value over what someone I went to college with who I no longer speak to anymore is doing with their lives. But I understand your frustrations. Its hard to find any place that escapes it all

Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents

#190

Post by lovecg »

linuxftw wrote: post #89
titzer wrote: post #24

Social media (and the attention economy) are worse for young brains than drugs. If you came up with a substance that caused young people by the millions to become totally addicted, cost them multiple hours per day, pushed them into depression and suicide, and contributed to inactivity, obesity, loss of attention span, and overall ennui, it would be banned almost immediately. Heck, if you proposed a tracking system th…

It's called "parenting" which is not in vogue right now. Currently, people treat children like adults, expecting them to navigate the world as an adult would, and that's dumb. Reject a failed society. It's okay to be an individual, you don't need to be part of the collective.

Do they? I keep hearing how college age students are “coddled” and the whole helicopter parenting thing. Your comment is the first time I saw the opposite view expressed in a while.
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