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Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

theglobeandmail.com

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Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#71

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

darkerside wrote: post #17
chickenfries wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that I wish social media was full of more posts like this, but foodgrams and humble brags as you put it are also one of the reasons I avoid social media these days. Seeing a feed of the best moments of other peoples lives leaves me feeling depressed. "Comparison is the thief of joy." I'm happy for my friends, but seeing it all collected in one place makes my own life feel inadequate. I'm much happier…

It's strange... I thought we were wired as a species to live vicariously, to feel joy when others are blessed, and feel pain when they suffer. You're not the only one that doesn't get that out of Facebook... Why? Is it the quantity? The format? What turns it into a place of covetousness and bitterness?

It's one thing to feel joy when others do. But when everything's joy, then it's just normalcy. But when you know it isn't really the case that everything's joy, then the appearance of it comes off as fake. Because it is fake. Then you feel jaded. But we also can't help but have a part of us that thinks "no, this is normal."

There's also the asynchronous nature. If you're out with friends and hear about their engagement after the fact (among other catching up), that's one thing. But when you're sitting on the couch lonely and see photos from moments after the engagement (and nothing else), it's just that much more of a gap.

Then throw in everyone's highlights with their outrage and some random shared clickbait (fwd:fwd:fwd:fwd:You won't believe what this evil politician did!), and it's just toxic.

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#72

Post by 999900000999 »

I'm so happy to see awareness around the negative mental health effects of social media. You also don't get all that much from it, back when I was heavy into social media I was miserable, online dating never brought me a worthwhile person. The rare times I'd actually meet a real person, it was almost certain to be someone who was 30 plus and not interested in working.

Deleted all my online dating profiles, limited my social media usage and I was making fantastic friends and meeting amazing girls in real life. This was very good for my mental health, during some of my really dark moments I'd spend hours per day on Reddit and Facebook arguing with other angry people. We don't need to be angry, you don't need to argue.

You don't need to give the Match group $60 a month to chat with bots. You can still wave at someone at a concert and ask if they want drinks after the show.

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#73

Post by palidanx »

What I've realized about Facebook is that there is no way I can convey a really convey anything really meaningful in such a short post.

What I started doing is writing a quarterly e-mail newsletter to about 80 of my closest friends and family about details thoughts I've had about life, travel, and personal experiences.

Some friends have told me I should write a blog and put all my thoughts out there on the Internet, but I think this kind of defeats the whole purpose to share something intimate to a smaller crowd that the general Internet will never see.

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#74

Post by SavantIdiot »

greenail wrote: post #57
SavantIdiot wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can choose not to use Facebook You're looking at this from a western perspective. Some non-western countries are entirely linked by Facebook products. When Facebook went down last week, some people couldn't access their BANKS . You OK with that? That's what Facebook wants: to become something you simply MUST use to survive. It goes deeper in the US as well but not as deep: some restaurants and small shops don't…

> You're looking at this from a western perspective. Some non-western countries are entirely linked by Facebook products. When Facebook went down last week, some people couldn't access their BANKS. You OK with that? I'm not ok with that at all however I would guess that those decisions are being reevaluated as we speak! >That's what Facebook wants: to become something you simply MUST use to survive. But if you choose…

> But if you choose not to use the platform they will never have the power

It is far too late for that. Facebook is too big.

I'm guessing you don't know that there are countries in the world where Facebook is the only internet, am I right? Free Basic is a service that they offered with free internet in poor countries, but Facebook is the only internet. It has changed a little as governments have realized this is a problem but it is still the dominant form of internet in some places.

There are 2.8 billion monthly users, but only 200 million are from the US, yet it is a US company. [1]

> You just move the power from Facebook to the government, it doesn't solve the core problem.

You are assuming Facebook and the government are the same thing. (US I presume.) They are not the same. A government isn't a corporation. This is a totally different discussion.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/268136/top-15-countries-...

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#75

Post by monkeynotes »

keewee7 wrote: post #38
flycaliguy wrote: post #19

Yeah, I mean, this is among Canadians willing to fill out a survey online. Frankly it feels like another push in the media world to shift blame to FB. As far as specifically Canadian factors, maybe don’t survey us in October when the days are getting noticeably shorter? I feel like we are all a little melancholy right now preparing for our lightless morning commutes.

What I don't understand is the selective outrage against Facebook/Instagram. Why not Twitter, YouTube, reddit and TikTok?

I don't think YT or Reddit are any where near as insidious as FB, Twitter, and TikTok.

YouTube's feed basically shows me what I am subscribed to which is interesting shit I am legit interested in. I don't see any of my friends talking about their amazing lives, or any political BS, at all. The comments section is a 3rd class citizen in much of their UI and less toxic than friends all piling in and arguing about crap.

Reddit is global conversations, the topics and comments can be toxic but it's not an echochamber by design. I will say though, Reddit does make me sad sometimes so I have to work at it to use it in a healthy way.

Twitter, Tiktok, and unfortunately more and more Instagram are also sludge pools IMO.

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#76

Post by heurisko »

legitster wrote: post #30

I know Facebook is the great evil, but we really need to start looking at the mental health impacts of all social media. The unhappiest people I know are not on Facebook - they are religiously devoted to Twitter and Reddit. Heck, I'd like to know what sort of damage this post right here is doing to me. This is our generation's smoking but everyone only wants to know how harmful Marlboros are. Edit: Please upvote this…

I think twitter is the most toxic.

I have been uncomfortable on twitter to find enclaves where people are mentally ill, and have found others to exacerbate their behaviour and thinking.

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#77

Post by notatoad »

darkerside wrote: post #17
chickenfries wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that I wish social media was full of more posts like this, but foodgrams and humble brags as you put it are also one of the reasons I avoid social media these days. Seeing a feed of the best moments of other peoples lives leaves me feeling depressed. "Comparison is the thief of joy." I'm happy for my friends, but seeing it all collected in one place makes my own life feel inadequate. I'm much happier…

It's strange... I thought we were wired as a species to live vicariously, to feel joy when others are blessed, and feel pain when they suffer. You're not the only one that doesn't get that out of Facebook... Why? Is it the quantity? The format? What turns it into a place of covetousness and bitterness?

For me, it's the dishonesty of facebook and instagram. The whole culture seems to be based around lying about misrepresenting how good your life is.

I love seeing a post about something that made a friend happy, but so much of the content on facebook is so obviously not an honest post about something that made somebody happy, but rather something they felt should have made them happy, or something that somebody else would be jealous of, or worst of all a brand trying to co-opt the "something that made me happy" style of posting, that it's ruined the few honest moments of joy.

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#78

Post by pzo »

Minor49er wrote: post #46
SavantIdiot wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can choose not to use Facebook You're looking at this from a western perspective. Some non-western countries are entirely linked by Facebook products. When Facebook went down last week, some people couldn't access their BANKS . You OK with that? That's what Facebook wants: to become something you simply MUST use to survive. It goes deeper in the US as well but not as deep: some restaurants and small shops don't…

> You're looking at this from a western perspective. Some non-western countries are entirely linked by Facebook products. When Facebook went down last week, some people couldn't access their BANKS. You OK with that? Wasn't this because DNS servers were effectively DDoS'd when applications overwhelmed them with requests looking for Facebook without caching the response? Or are there actually banks out there that requi…

So many people these days instead of creating separate account to some websites (login/password) the use instead integrated Login via Facebook button. I tried to educate friends and family not to use this feature even for the reason that if their FB account will be blocked they will loose access to many other websites. However many people give up because it's not so convenient as to just clicking one FB button.

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#79

Post by bjt2n3904 »

cronix wrote: post #67

I'm getting kind of tired of the narrative that "x is evil/bad/harmful, but I'm too weak (we won't admit addiction) to not use x. Everyone I know uses x. Government needs to regulate x (so I don't have to change my ways)." I deleted my account over a year ago now, because I do view them as evil and do cause overall societal harm. It's not life ending. You'll adjust and then wonder why you didn't do it sooner. I made…

Slight nitpick.

The argument isn't, "so I don't have to change my behaviors."

The argument is, OTHER people are too weak to change their behaviors, so we need to have the government regulate THEIR behavior. (The greater good.)

It's bad enough to be lazy and want someone else to fix your problems. It's almost worse to decide you know what other people's problems are, and decide what needs to happen for them. (Or phrased differently... What needs to happen to them.)

Re: Most Canadians believe Facebook harms their mental health

#80

Post by LanceH »

keewee7 wrote: post #38
flycaliguy wrote: post #19

Yeah, I mean, this is among Canadians willing to fill out a survey online. Frankly it feels like another push in the media world to shift blame to FB. As far as specifically Canadian factors, maybe don’t survey us in October when the days are getting noticeably shorter? I feel like we are all a little melancholy right now preparing for our lightless morning commutes.

What I don't understand is the selective outrage against Facebook/Instagram. Why not Twitter, YouTube, reddit and TikTok?

The real crime is perpetrated by those choosing Twitter to tell a long story broken into individual tweets.
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