TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021) • Hacker News Board

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#191

Post by anotherman554 » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:23 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #7

overthemoon wrote: post #5

Tik Tok is the reason I've been told several times I have ADHD. Pretty sure I don't! This phenomenon is so infuriating. The only half-convincing defense I've heard of it is that it could, maybe, theoretically, disseminate information about illnesses to people who don't have the money to see a professional, but the other effects are so much worse it doesn't seem worth it.

Tiktok and pop-culture generally make me very skeptical on "ADHD", the so-called "spectrum" and "neurodivergence" generally. I'm not saying these things don't exist, but much of it seems very difficult to falsify -- which needs to be the gold standard of determining these sort of things; e.g. "By what process can someone reasonably determine that they are NOT neurodivergent?"

Medical diagnosis are man made labels created by committee. If I say having blond hair is a medical condition then I can absolutely do a falsifiable test of whether you have blond hair.

So the issue isn't so much falsifiability per see but instead the whether you trust the judgement of people who decide what is "normal" or "not normal".

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#192

Post by jimmar » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

bilsbie wrote: post #140

I wonder if you could find this same article about google in 2000-2010 timeframe?

Google search and TikTok differ on important dimensions. Google search makes you input the search criteria. TikTok learns what draws your attention and feeds you more of that information without you explicitly asking for it. On TikTok, all you have to do is flick up to see the next video, which for some, is going to feed them more information about mental illness if the algorithm says it will keep them engaged. Google search forces people to be more intentional about the terms they search for and the search results they view.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#193

Post by another_poster » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #15

For all of human history across every culture, parents would do what they could to keep their kids away from “bad influences”. You move to certain areas, go to certain places, are members of certain organizations etc. which serve to socialize your kids with kids from families that have shared values. You don’t talk to strangers. With the internet and especially media like TikTok parents are exposing their kids to unt…

As an example of “bad influences” being an ancient topic, in the 1st century CE, the orator and educator Quintilian gave advice to parents in the Roman Empire wondering whether public schools would be a bad influence on their kids.

Although Quintilian agreed that public schools can be a bad influence, he argued that parents were the worst influence on their own kids.

“If only we did not ourselves damage our children’s characters! We ruin their infancy by spoiling them from the start. That soft upbringing which we call indulgence destroys the sinews of mind and body. If a toddler crawls around in purple, what will he not want when he grows up? […] No wonder [why children have bad character]: it was we who taught them, they heard it all from us. They see our mistresses, our male lovers; every dinner party echoes with obscene songs; things are to be seen which it is shameful to name. […] The wretched children learn these things before they know they are wrong. This is what makes them dissolute and spineless: they do not get these vices from the schools, they import them [vices] into them [the schools].”

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#194

Post by anoonmoose » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

maxsilver wrote: post #146

freebreakfast wrote: post #46

I recently discovered "systems" people via Reddit (r/SystemsCringe) will searching for systems engineering. The core belief seems to be that the individual has "multiple people" living in the same body. They've devised a whole language for talking about it as well[0]. This reminds me of the "otherkin" fad that occurred primarily on Tumblr about a decade ago[1]. It was where teenagers believed themselves to not be hum…

Quoted post unavailable.

According to the first Google result on the topic, "In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque", which means that your "average American" is not actually reflective of the average American.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#195

Post by CapricornNoble » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:24 PM UTC

hardware2win wrote: post #112

na85 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how old you are but the internet of today is not the same as it was when I was growing up.

Indeed, it probably had more hardcore content

I dunno, I grew up when StileProject, Rotten.com, and Ogrish were in their heyday.....theync is just as bad, and IMO more accessible.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#196

Post by azemetre » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

qzx_pierri wrote: post #132

Ardon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an interesting phenomenon where the lower bound of "bad influences" has gotten much lower in a lot of places that used to be safe. Previously, bad influences were limited to what your local neighborhood kids were telling your kid. This could be bad, they could be torturing cats or something, but that wasn't likely. And that floor could be raised by society as a whole improving. Now, with TikTok, the o…

Banning "undesirable topics" isn't the solution, but only a band-aid. We need to teach children critical thinking skills and allow them to make their own decisions. The former might be easier, but the latter is the most beneficial in the long run.

Children literally don't have the developed cognitive capabilities to critically think, nor should they be making their own decisions every time. This is an absolutely inane suggestion.

I don't know when it started happening, but why do we continue to let these companies off the hook for their absolutely terrible externalities? Banning these topics if your platform allows children, preteens, etc is absolutely an effective solution if said companies refuse to rectify the problem.

Why should society bare the costs because a company wants to make money at the costs of a child's mental health? How is that just or even fair? Have we truly devolved into a new feudal age where no company can do wrong and we simply have to blame ourselves for their faults? These apps are designed to be psychologically addictive and fuel outrage/fear to drive advertising revenues... why is this acceptable? Why are we blaming parents and not the executives who signed off on these decisions?

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#197

Post by cpach » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #50

Ardon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an interesting phenomenon where the lower bound of "bad influences" has gotten much lower in a lot of places that used to be safe. Previously, bad influences were limited to what your local neighborhood kids were telling your kid. This could be bad, they could be torturing cats or something, but that wasn't likely. And that floor could be raised by society as a whole improving. Now, with TikTok, the o…

Well, other bad influences were reading Bukowski or Ginsberg too young but I mostly agree. This is the change that has never occurred in human history. Every thread brings up that all complaints about this new media were applied to past forms of media.

I started reading Bukowski when I was around 13 or so. Many of the titles were available at the local library. I don’t think it was bad though. If anything, it was a cautionary tale of what substance abuse can lead too. And his poems were great.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#198

Post by DoctorNick » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

hi5eyes wrote: post #190

nemo44x wrote: post #15

For all of human history across every culture, parents would do what they could to keep their kids away from “bad influences”. You move to certain areas, go to certain places, are members of certain organizations etc. which serve to socialize your kids with kids from families that have shared values. You don’t talk to strangers. With the internet and especially media like TikTok parents are exposing their kids to unt…

Very evidently exposing children to toxicity like 4chan/racist gaming chatrooms is harmful to development, why would it be any different when letting them watch anything on their phones Normalize keeping children away from the obscene and stop letting grown adults normalize exposing weird shit to children, should be obvious innit

>everything abnormal is celebrated as cultural progress

That is a very curious statement.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#199

Post by noobker » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

Akronymus wrote: post #138

__s wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not too hard to pick up on multiple identities, tho I'm sure it can get out of hand when you pick out the people who are reinforcing each other as a trend My view of it, for my own personal reflection, is to first define identity. I opt to have two prongs to it, rooted in game theory: executive identity & motivational identity. Given a decision matrix executive identity is the actor being able to choose. Motivat…

> It's not too hard to pick up on multiple identities, you wear one mask with one group, another with a different group. Wouldnt say multiple identities though. But yeah, the mutual reinforcement is a BIG problem.

> you wear one mask with one group, another with a different group. Wouldnt say multiple identities though

You're just establishing that for a given persona there is a spectrum from 'Mask' to 'Identity' and insisting that there is an arbitrary threshold.

For a moment, embrace a worldview that there is no singular, core Identity -- in fact all personas are masks to some degree. An Identity may be a mask you're particularly dedicated to wearing, but it's still a mask. The rest of these "systems" people's perspective follows from this point and emphasizes certain experiences -- that you may suppress -- over others that you may hold on a pedestal.

Re: TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)

#200

Post by alexb_ » Mon, Aug 01, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

People are going to be blaming TikTok, social media, or whatever else for this, but it's important to note that this is not a new phenomenon at all. Tuberculosis was fashionable during the Victorian era and shaped a lot of our modern beauty standards today[0]. Is social media really to blame, or is a desire to be different just a part of being human?

[0]https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-tuberculos...