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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

#311

Post by JCharante »

causalmodels wrote: post #302
jjice wrote: post #278

I was addicted to Twitter in high school. I spent hours on it at night, getting no sleep. I spent so much time and mental bandwidth thinking of funny things to say or memes to make to get more likes. I was addicted to the likes and keeping up with everyone I knew. First semester of college, I stopped using Twitter. My sleep got better, I had more free time, and I was noticeably happier and freer. I no longer spent ti…

This comes shockingly close to my experience growing up playing WoW.

I went from playing 8 hours / day (well, per night truthfully) of Eve Online during high school to logging in every few months when I began college. The new environment of college made me too busy with "IRL" stuff.

I wouldn't say that social media is inherently bad because it can be addicting, because games aren't seen as inherently bad because they can be addicting.

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

#312

Post by ryandrake »

Zelphyr wrote: post #107
mumblemumble wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my experience. I disconnected from social media, and my social life immediately died. Friends only communicate with each other through Facebook, so I'm really only staying in regular contact with my very closest friends anymore. Most of it I don't miss, because social media has also reduced the quality of communication to the level of gossip, but what I do miss out on is any sort of invitations to social gath…

I deleted my social media almost ten years ago and I feel like I have a stronger social network now than I had before. The key thing I think I may have done differently is that I got involved in things that provided opportunities to be engaged with people. For example; I joined my local Masonic lodge and started doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Between those two things alone I find I have regular enough interactions with a…

My view is if people stop contacting you just because you dropped off of some social media platform, they weren't really friends to begin with. When I ditched Facebook about 10 years ago, I lost contact with a whole bunch of people who weren't really part of my life anyway, they were simply "names I recognized." On the other hand, it had no effect on my actual friendships or family connections. We all know how to contact each other and we do. My social life is probably better after dropping social media simply because I'm spending less time scrolling in front of a screen.

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

#313

Post by sibeliuss »

jjice wrote: post #278

I was addicted to Twitter in high school. I spent hours on it at night, getting no sleep. I spent so much time and mental bandwidth thinking of funny things to say or memes to make to get more likes. I was addicted to the likes and keeping up with everyone I knew. First semester of college, I stopped using Twitter. My sleep got better, I had more free time, and I was noticeably happier and freer. I no longer spent ti…

Getting off of Facebook and Twitter was the best thing I ever did - I can't believe how much more mental space I have now that I'm no longer stuck in conversation loops with strangers.

Interestingly, it was a mushroom trip that did it. The mushroom spirit (or whatever you want to call it) lucidly explained how I was wasting my life on those websites. The next day I quit, and its been years now, though I def felt withdrawals for a few weeks being off of twitter. Now it's like I was never even there.

I feel so bad for all of the young people who can't understand, due to peer pressure, just how bad it is for them. And shame on parents for not making more of an effort to ask questions.

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

#314

Post by macNchz »

pietrovismara wrote: post #214
nyanpasu64 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote @mumblemumble: """ There's another side to this, though. Letting kids roam the internet can give ones who might otherwise be doomed to become misfits an opportunity to find community. Being a queer kid pre-Internet, for example, sucked, and the Web rolling out to households changed a lot of kids' lives. And we have a poor cultural memory of what that experience used to be like, because, before the rise of on…

Social media are not the internet. If Facebook, Instagram and tiktok disappeared tomorrow, the internet would keep existing. In my opinion we would all be better, queer kids included.

Yes I think this is an important distinction. In my view the most salient divider between modern social media and other social things that use the internet is the presence of activity feeds. The model of pushing everything you do to everyone you're connected with was a huge shift.

I was on the internet communicating with friends and strangers on forums/message boards, IRC, AIM, and pre-feed Facebook well before the news feed was the default model. The "stalker feed", as it was known in 2006(?) when it was first launched, totally changed things, both in terms of the volume and ease of scrolling through content and the kinds of "news" that would be brought to your attention.

Something that sticks out in my memory of when Facebook's feed launched (I was in college at the time) was the additional pressure surrounding the "relationship status" field. Suddenly it wasn't just people who actively looked up your profile who might notice that you were "In a relationship with X", instead the act of updating it was broadcast to hundreds of people. Low stakes for adults, perhaps, but genuinely stressful for teenagers!

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

#315

Post by T-A »

CountDrewku wrote: post #220
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 generally dislike banning things because a few individuals can't handle it. Punishing those people that have self control seems ridiculous and I hate sin taxes for that reason. However, I think putting restrictions on stuff for younger people that don't have fully developed brains seems perfectly reasonable. If you're under 18 (21 in some cases) you cannot drink, smoke etc. Social Media should be treated the same w…

https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/adult-brain

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

#316

Post by throwaway2245 »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #215
throwaway2245 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Phillip Morris didn't operate a sophisticated propaganda machine... What? Yes, it did, that's literally what it did do.

I wasn't using "machine" in the figurative sense of an advertising department, I meant "a literal machine", like Twitter's algorithms. I can't imagine Phillip Morris in its heyday having 1% of the influence that Twitter enjoys today.

I'm not sure why we have gone down this rabbit hole, but you're just mistaken.

Phillip Morris used its propaganda to lie to people about health risks and "benefits" of smoking, sold an addictive product to addicts, and used its resulting people power to subvert democratic decisions.

It didn't do this with transistor technology, sure. But cigarettes have hugely more Daily Active Users than Twitter, still today.

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

#317

Post by tester756 »

MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #280
bnralt wrote: post #18

I'm starting to wonder if mass media in general is bad for our mental health, and if we'd be better off unplugging as much as we can from everything - social media, TV, radio, Hacker News, etc. and spending more time with our community. I suppose the problem is, most communities are completely addicted to this stuff, so we're left in a situation where it's hard for most people to unplug for any long period of time wi…

The problem with totally unplugging is that you effectively put your head in the sand. You're less informed about what is going on around you. Sure you can read books, but you're increasing your risk of exposure to bias or falsehoods when you limit your selection like that. We may be getting pummeled with "fake news" right now, but at least we have the ability to discuss the matter and see more than one side. The ear…

> You're less informed about what is going on around you.

majority of things from the news has no impact on me at all

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

#318

Post by calebm »

ChrisRR wrote: post #8

Social media damages everyone's mental health it seems. For some reason it seems to bring out the worst in so many people, and people think it's now acceptable to post online the awful thoughts that they would've kept to themselves

Controversy gets more attention on social media, and if we focus on controversy, we focus on where we disagree.

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

#319

Post by kps »

tester756 wrote: post #317
MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with totally unplugging is that you effectively put your head in the sand. You're less informed about what is going on around you. Sure you can read books, but you're increasing your risk of exposure to bias or falsehoods when you limit your selection like that. We may be getting pummeled with "fake news" right now, but at least we have the ability to discuss the matter and see more than one side. The ear…

> You're less informed about what is going on around you. majority of things from the news has no impact on me at all

Some will, but probably not the ones that grab attention. For 99% of humanity's existence, if you even heard of ten people dying at once it meant that you were in extreme danger. (Or occasionally, had just finished putting the neighbouring tribe in extreme danger.)

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

#320

Post by xxpor »

II2II wrote: post #151
xxpor wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wondering, how old are you? I'm 30, so myspace and Facebook showed up only once I was in high school, but everything you describe was still available on the web before social media. Shock sites were huge (goatse, tubgirl, etc), and I remember watching a beheading with a chainsaw by a Mexican cartel. And of course porn was around too. The difference with social media is the "keeping up with the Joneses" except no…

Another big difference is constant availability. A decade ago, the moment you walked away from your computer the shock sites were memories. Twenty years ago, the moment you walked away from your phone most of the social drama were memories. The most that most of us do now is stuff it into our pockets. Aside from the psychological differences with teens, we also have to consider that they aren't being exposed to this…

This is true. We didn't even have wifi in school until my last year there (2007-2008). If you wanted to use a computer you had to go to the library or be in a classroom that had a few in the back.
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