Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show

> You have to argue that there’s something unique about the not_the_United_States schools such that there’s something nullifying intrafemale competition.

Why do you think this? You only have your school experience to go on. You have nothing to base this claim on.

I think it’s entirely possible that the conditions of school create much of the competition you are observing, and that US schools are more extreme than others.

School intentionally creates behaviors. There is no reason not to believe that it has side effects.

And yes, to get any insight into which of is right, we’d need someone to have studied it.

> I think as a society we need to prove that we are smarter than these companies and are capable of discipline and self-control.

I think it's a losing game.

For as long as big social is allowed to be “free” with its paying customers being advertisers, it will keep benefitting from trolling and other unhealthy behaviours (narcissism?) that happen to drive up engagement and ad revenue. With user lock-in, full control over UI and algorithms at its disposal, big social has way too many tricks up its sleeve for your average tired-after-work-or-school, running-out-of-willpower, vulnerable user to consciously compensate for.

Normalising paid social (forcing interoperability, downgrading platforms to pipes) is probably the most straightforward way for us to finally gain the ability to vote with our wallet and to choose client software crafted with our needs in mind. (I’m not a proponent of regulation bloat or special rules for select big companies; I think a small but strategically focused general requirement could be enough for such a change to happen.)

> In some respects, "Say No to Drugs" seems out of date when some very advanced democracies have already legalised some drugs or are close to it.

I think there's a certain nuance there. Drugs (which ones?) can (should?) be legal - or at least their consumption decriminalized. We've made good progress already and yet much more is to be made.

But all this is not saying that drugs should be pushed hand over fist down people's throat and that billions should be spent on studying the ways people can be more encouraged to become drug users.

And this is what Facebook et al are doing. They are spending untold resources on devising the most efficient ways of making people addicted and ensuring that no other way exist of satisfying the cravings. They create echo chambers and push specifically topics that get the most response out of people.

And this is completely legal (currently). Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok etc... are allowed to be cool, hip, desirable and consumed in ways that the tobacco industry couldn't imagine in their wildest dreams during their heydays.

These companies can tap into the deepest secrets and desires of vast swathes of people in ways that is unprecedented.

I feel that the vices of the old world, like drugs, are chickenshit compared to the power that the new vices can wield over their captives.

Exactly, I hate seeing discussions about "peak fertility," especially since the people posting about it usually don't know it's more like 30. [0] And more than that, the risk of complications is much higher for teenagers. [1] A relevant quote:

> Adolescent mothers (ages 10–19 years) face higher risks of eclampsia, puerperal endometritis, and systemic infections than women aged 20 to 24 years, and babies of adolescent mothers face higher risks of low birth weight, preterm delivery and severe neonatal conditions. (4)

And just because you might be in the "peak fertility" period doesn't mean you should rush to have children. If you are not ready for kids, they will suffer for it, and none of the girls I knew who got pregnant in high school were mature enough to handle a child and finish school (much less the fathers), so their parents and grandparents had to step in and do most of the parenting.

These kinds of discussions, especially combined with the evolutionary biology pseudoscience, really remind me of the way incel forums talk about women. Especially with the interesting absence of any mention of men's fertility, which also peaks around 30. [0]

[0]: https://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm/2013/07/02/fertility-peaks-arou...

[1]: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-...

It used to be that if you were queer - in any sense of the word - and lived in one of the countless small, conservative, traditional communities in this country, you were shit out of luck.

Now, thanks to the internet, there exists inclusive and positive communities for people of every type of background and experience. This simply did not exist for most people just a few decades ago, but now it's accessible to almost every young person in the country.

I don't mind bashing the bad about social media and the internet, but I am kind of sick of people overlooking the good.