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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

#201

Post by superkuh »

tgv wrote: post #173
superkuh wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't use words that have a real medical meaning in such an inaccurate and casual way. Calling things addictive has real consequences in terms of legislators taking these confused public sentiments as fact and then trying to use force against the groups that are "addicted". Addiction has never been proven in this context. Addiction is a a real, serious problem with drugs that effect the brains reward system (o…

If it was just opioids or ampthetamines, alcohol or nocotine wouldn't be addictive, would it? Please don't use incomplete or irrelevant factoids when you contradict. But prediction of reward might very well be a concise description of the drive behind social media use.

>If it was just opioids or ampthetamines,

Obviously it's not. I gave examples of two drugs and their direct mechanisms of action.

>But prediction of reward might very well be a concise description of the drive behind social media use.

No, that's a description of a living mammal brain. Addiction is when that system is hijacked directly, not when it is doing it's normal thing in response to stimuli.

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

#203

Post by hhh »

mhh__ wrote: post #196
antihero wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Or at least they should be if we both detach the stigma and stop lumping in things like Cannabis in with Crack

Absolutely, cannabis is leaps and bounds worse than crack.

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

#204

Post by waterhouse »

Zelphyr wrote: post #82
kreeben wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Social media damages everyone's mental health It may seem that way but don't believe it's 100% accurate. Mental pressure built up within yourself, whatever is their cause, get somewhat released after a good cry. Afterwards you feel a little bit refreshed. You feel a little bit less sad. The anger within you is not as prominent. Lashing out on people, starting flame wars in your favorite online forum, screaming, ye…

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…

> 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.

That ... actually sounds like it had the result of making you not want to do it again in the future, and if that's the case, one could say it was productive. And if lashing out online has less of a bad impact on the person on the other end than lashing out in person, then that seems like an improvement to me.

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

#205

Post by vlunkr »

Bakary wrote: post #84
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…

I recently saw a tweet that for once seemed insightful: "the internet did to boomers what boomers thought it would do to us", presumably posted by someone under the age of 25. Young people are vulnerable to social media, and your point still stands, but I am also under the impression that it has impacted previous generations to a far greater extent, breaking their link to reality altogether.

I have a theory that older generations are much worse at identifying fake information on the internet. I clicked a few bogus banner ads (punch the monkey and win 100$) and got my fair share of malware from limewire, so I learned that you should treat everything on the internet with skepticism. Older people grew up with media that wasn't always accurate, but at least wasn't directly lying or trolling you.

Now the internet has been delivered right into their pockets and they aren't prepared for it. They see a video about ballet boxes being stuffed, and of course they believe it. Their friend Gladys shared it on facebook, of course it's real!

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

#207

Post by enkid »

dav43 wrote: post #186
antihero wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lots of things have been around for 1000's of years. Rape, murder, clothes, but that doesn't mean they are a good thing.

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

#208

Post by Person5478 »

simias wrote: post #65
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…

I've always been a bit extreme on this but I more than ever believe that it's insane that we consider that leaving teenagers with unsupervised internet access is reasonable. Maybe I'm prude or naive but I remember vividly when I first saw a pornographic movie at like around 17. It really shook me at the time. I wasn't traumatized or anything but it made a strong impact on me. These days I expect that most teens exper…

I had certainly viewed my first dirty magazine long before the age of 17, as well as seen my share of violent movies and video games. When does this end? When cursing around anyone under the age of 18 becomes illegal?

The issue with the internet as is currently is more about societal pressure. Every device for the last umpteen years has come with parental controls that include filtering out NSFW-esque material. If your position is that platforms such as FB should also include these sorts of parental controls I agree, but if your position is that we should restrict kids access to the internet as a whole because they might see a boob, then I wholeheartedly disagree.

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

#209

Post by mtippett »

It cuts both ways.

One child (reserved/shy) - has had probably more negative impact than anything else in her life. From the very first access to tech has continually found opportunity to find toxic, negative communities (hentai, r/teenagers, edtwt, sh, bdsm). Any attempt to reduce results in hiding and lying. The speed that a kid can change window or swipe away is ridiculous. Literally can't find a way that tech has benefitted her.

Another child (shy too), enamored with anything that teaches her more (tik tok, youtube, etc).

The big difference is that the second child isn't looking for community. The first child is looking for community but can only find community in echo chambers that reflect back teenage angst, and those echo chambers run deep.

I can only hope that the first child grows into an well adjusted adult, and while not social media, toxic and negative online communities are just simply too easier to slide into.

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

#210

Post by Person5478 »

simias wrote: post #174
NalNezumi wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Im 29 and share the same experience. And we can even go further back; have people checked, old black & white cartoon? Some of them are so blatantly propaganda/politica/visual horrific that they wouldn't even be aired for 15 y.o today. If you take a closer look, even Tom & Jerry is quite violent, and most Japanese animation that air on kids TV-channel back then also, very sexual. And these things were airing on…

Of course there was always violence and sexual content on TV and elsewhere, but comparing Japanese anime and Tom and Jerry to stuff like https://www.reddit.com/r/DeadorVegetable/ (NSFL) or the hardcore porn you can find basically everywhere online is disingenuous. I don't think I'm very squeamish but there's stuff online that still profoundly disturbs me in my mid thirties. Meanwhile, and at the risk of bragging a li…

No one is comparing it, the other poster suggested completely restricting access to the internet because this content exists.
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