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Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

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Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#91

Post by janeerie »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #57

At some point I thought it was still a thing because my wife was still kinda, sorta, using it. But years ago she quit. I hear about Meta and that they own WhatsApp and I see people using WhatsApp. But FaceBook: among my friends and family who used to post there, nobody ever posts anything. I don't doubt many are still logged in by default because they haven't updated their computer in years but they simply do not pos…

Facebook Groups are what keep a lot of people on. In small cities, that’s where the social organizing/news sharing happens. I have edited my feed down to where it’s just my groups and a couple of friends who only post photos of their cute kids.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#92

Post by kneebonian »

rgbrenner wrote: post #85

I agree with the article that it's not facebook. You're depressed, dont feel like doing anything but know you should, so you procrastinate on facebook, and then maybe the whole day passes, and the waste of another day makes it feel like nothing is going to change, helping feed your depression. Facebook really has little to do with this... if it wasnt facebook, it would be youtube, instagram, watching tv, or sleeping…

This is me with HN and Reddit. I have spent literal entire workdays just telling myself "5 more minutes" "one more post" it never ends well. I hate myself for it but we are doing better, i have a time blocker and if things get bad I can use my /etc/hosts file to block it. But I agree I think these may be symptoms that worsen something already there.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#93

Post by jayant_kaushik »

First they help users connect with each other then they make them pay with their attention, attention spans, memory and mood. Then they show you therapy ads as well. Loop.

A decade ago I used to think how difficult it would be to compete in this world when everyone around me was so smart at what they did. Fast forward, it has never been easier to progress as I see the matrix (sort of).

My experience with de-addiction: I left Facebook long ago(~10yrs), Instagram 1 yr ago, Twitter 1 month ago. No addictions now apart from reading hacker news once a day, TL;DR newsletter and morning brew at EoD.

I can not express in words how good life feels right now. There is just- no noise, absolute clarity and bliss - coupled with workout regime and balanced diet. I feel sad for my friends who can not get rid of those addictions and I know it’s difficult as I’ve experienced first hand. However, once you have left those apps and some time passes, there’s no going back. Instagram really is an addictive app but I have lost the urge to open it now in a year. In contrast, all I see wherever I go is people hooked to their phones and me staring at the utter cognitive chaos in the society today due to these petty apps that have actually disconnected the society the most ever. One should be mindful of what they put inside their body and into their brain as those are only things that stay with us till our last breath.

People have forgotten to enjoy reading fiction on a sunny day. Play with friends and family often. Throw surprises to each other.

Just last week I saw two diff posts on hacker news referencing these two beautiful articles which sum up what I feel:

1. Sam Altman: https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades...

2. Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/vb.html

Good day!

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#94

Post by johnfn »

rgbrenner wrote: post #85

I agree with the article that it's not facebook. You're depressed, dont feel like doing anything but know you should, so you procrastinate on facebook, and then maybe the whole day passes, and the waste of another day makes it feel like nothing is going to change, helping feed your depression. Facebook really has little to do with this... if it wasnt facebook, it would be youtube, instagram, watching tv, or sleeping…

> Facebook really has little to do with this... if it wasnt facebook, it would be youtube, instagram, watching tv, or sleeping all day.

…or you could end up doing something to improve your situation, like taking a walk outside or going to the gym. It’s kinda like saying vapes aren’t a problem because you would just get a cigarette.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#95

Post by barbazoo »

warning26 wrote: post #64
sokz wrote: post #60

This post made me finally uninstall Instagram from my phone. Though the network effects makes it difficult to completely chuck it from my life. The exodus of my peer group from fb made it possible for me to delete it completely from my life and don't need it anymore. I hope something like that happens for instagram too. It was not for the lack of trying. I tried hard to transfer my friends and family to Signal and wa…

Realistically though, even if you had succeeded in getting your friends to use Signal, wouldn’t you have the same social media problem as before? They’ll still be posting stories and you’d still be addicted to checking it.

I think it's much less addictive than Instagram. It's most likely only people you know, no garbage ads, no garbage "influencers". Plus in my experience at least, people post stories much less often but obviously that varies.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#96

Post by hnaddict »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #80
hnaddict wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone's piling on FB and TikTok (and yes, they are designed for engagement/addiction). I think there's something more fundamental to it, though. I'm pretty sure the same mechanisms hold here on HN and on web forums and that its inherent in asynchronous online social fora. Other commenters so far seem to be overlooking this. I can't imagine any regulation that would address the root cause of the problem without com…

Overall, yes to your post, but it does not touch several related aspects that is driving the piling on ( and you do not expand on the fact that they are designed for addiction, which translated means that they are made to tailor made for any individual to be addicted to it ). I honestly question that assertion. I would venture to say that most people here are well aware of how social media operates and how general po…

> This is admittedly the hard part, but I can absolutely imagine appropriate regulation should social media get to the point it is actually destructive to the fabric of society. I am willing to sacrifice some of the internet for it too given how much of a cesspool it has become.

Reading this, I'd even rephrase it stronger:

I can't imagine any regulation that would address the root cause of the problem without violating fundamental human rights of private correspondence and access to general computation.

There is certainly room for potentially appropriate regulation of the cesspools of today and the adtech-surveillance-engagement machinery can go die but let's not open up for scenarios where it becomes legally unfeasible to run a phpBB instance for a community (yes, you can have addiction of those exacerbating depression as well).

> Yes, but ideally without making an attempt to go viral in the process. I would argue this is not a healthy way to do this.

Fo sho.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#97

Post by [deleted] »

oldsklgdfth wrote: post #47
maxfurman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not defending smoking, but > costly Cigarettes are really cheap in places that don't heavily tax them > doesn't offer anything Human brains like nicotine. It is mildly effective as a mood stabilizer. I think we both agree that the bad health effects are not worth it, but it's not accurate to say there's nothing on the other side of that equation.

I've heard of nicotine as nootropic and I've been meaning to get the gum. Also, I believe it's about the only thing in cigarettes that is not carcinogenic.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#98

Post by fwip »

deanmoriarty wrote: post #7
buran77 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might even be "sitting inside, looking through the window at other people sitting inside but surely having a better time than you" . Social media is for presenting the highlights of your life. For a lot of depressed or even just gullible people it is easy to generalize from that. I have acquaintances who blew up their personal lives in a search for that elusive "perfect life".

> I have acquaintances who blew up their personal lives in a search for that elusive "perfect life". Is this in the typical sense of spending beyond their means, or do you have other anecdotes? I am a highly compensated tech worker at a FAANG who overcame US immigration and other challenges to get here, and many people would trade their spot with mine. Yet, I am so unhappy and burned out by work that I don’t think ab…

Early retirement (including back with your parents) is a real option. You've worked very hard, and you deserve to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#99

Post by [deleted] »

wuiheerfoj wrote: post #82
vorpalhex wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nicotine is an anxiolytic. It helps anxiety. That can seem like a nootropic (some definitions even explicitly include them) especially if you have anxiety. The con of this is nicotine addiction. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, exercise and meditation all beat nicotine in effectiveness as anxiolytics and in strength of effect.

I can’t find the study from a cursory search, but my understanding that nicotine addiction per se could not be replicated without combustion - non-smokers using nicotine patches did not exhibit dependence, but smokers did get dependence relief from them. To that end, non-combustible methods of nicotine might give the benefits without the addiction negatives (but still risks of e.g. pancreatic cancer)

[deleted]

Re: Facebook addiction increases depression severity among already depressed people

#100

Post by ethbr0 »

curiousllama wrote: post #77
ethbr0 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see a frequency distribution for Facebook's engagement metrics...

I mean it’s probably just a power law distribution, right?

I'm sure it started that way, but they've been tweaking their drivers for 15+ years at this point.

That's time enough for them to skew their userbase's behavior if they could. And given the amount of money they've thrown at staff, I wouldn't bet against them having shifted it in their favor.

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