Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness • Hacker News Board

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#211

Post by dtauzell » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

peanutcrisis wrote: post #172

msla wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There has been a complete loss in any interest in meeting a middle ground There's no middle ground between wanting to kill someone and wanting to let them live in peace. If a person thinks someone is a born child molester (a "groomer" in the modern Newspeak) and that person thinks the punishment for child molestation is death (as is fashionable in Florida of late) there's no way they can meet that person in the mid…

A contra-narrative to your point is that there exist a minority of people who hold very specific and very dogmatic views about gender. These people are pushing their views through the education system (I do not know the extent of it, just that it exists), and seemingly without the consent of parents (i.e., social transitions without informing parents). While I deeply disagree and detest the use of the term "groomer",…

The reaction became a chain reaction and now the details don't matter and the "dogma" could be anything. For example, singing the sone "Rainbowland" at an elementary school concert is now considered pushing some dogma of shaming on kids.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#212

Post by RugnirViking » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

Entinel wrote: post #70

iamerroragent wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay but how are we supposed to get teen girls not to compare themselves to the looks of global stars? This existed before social media. At best I can see it being a catalyst here and so sure limit or ban social media (at least for under 18s ~ 25s, whatever we agree on is a developed adult brain). Lowering the percentage of teens with mental health issues is a good thing. However that doesn't stop teens from comparin…

No one really talks about it but I think it is a symptom of bad parenting. How many times have people sat their kid down and explained these Hollywood types are not the average looking person?

I'm pretty sure the people suffering are well aware of that. This sort of mental illness isn't the kind of thing thats rooted in logic-brain, and simply "explaining" it doesn't make it go away, else society wouldn't have as much of a problem.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#213

Post by klooney » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

Paul-Craft wrote: post #161

donkeyd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the social plaza belongs to cooperate and the state I think it's too easy to just blame corporations and governments for this. They are definitely part in this, but a large part of lack of activism around climate change is also the people themselves who don't want to change. The Netherlands is a great example where, in recent elections, nearly half of votes went to political parties that want to reduce response to…

> Even the most environmentally aware people around me pretty much just eat less meat, but they haven't actually changed their ways. So I don't expect the average F150 driving steak eater to suddenly start changing their ways. What do you expect people in general to do? Granted, driving an F150 is not an environmentally friendly activity, but suppose they all cut their "carbon footprint" [0] by 50%. How much would th…

The 100 corporations thing is silly. They aren't out there polluting for the fun of it, they're making stuff for people and organizations.

If people and governments and companies stop buying gas, the pollution on Chevron's ledger for oil extraction and refining will plummet as they get stuck with smaller markets like plastic manufacturing.

Those dastardly 100 corporations are emitting to make stuff for you.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#214

Post by RugnirViking » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 2:29 PM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #199

kuschku wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that social media didn't cause the fears, but that social media ended the millenia of social pressure to just accept everything the way it is. Cities once did the same, by increasing the population density you could hang out with people that had the same thoughts you did. But many countries successfully ended that through suburbanisation, isolating people once again.

Sounds like you could make an argument that cities make people depressed as well then. I wonder if population density is a driving force for depression, both online and offline. I'd buy that. I find cities miserable.

oooh thats an interesting thought, I really like that.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#215

Post by fallingknife » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

DrThunder wrote: post #194

bradleyjg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter really is the worst. At least the other platforms have some good mixed in with the bad. It is nice to stay vaguely connected to people in a sort-of holiday card way. Twitter has nothing to redeem it. Even in communities where there’s attempts at substantive conversation the medium makes a horrible mess to follow.

Nah, LinkedIn takes the cake in that regard. If you wanna feel full on narcissism and a bunch of meaningless fake posts with people trying appear as something they're not... LinkedIn is the place to be.

Linkedin is the only social media which has ever been of any tangible benefit to me, though. It makes getting jobs trivially easy, and I only have to login once every few years.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#216

Post by mehlmao » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 2:30 PM UTC

dbrueck wrote: post #202

msla wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There has been a complete loss in any interest in meeting a middle ground There's no middle ground between wanting to kill someone and wanting to let them live in peace. If a person thinks someone is a born child molester (a "groomer" in the modern Newspeak) and that person thinks the punishment for child molestation is death (as is fashionable in Florida of late) there's no way they can meet that person in the mid…

> There's no middle ground between wanting to kill someone and wanting to let them live in peace. A big part of the problem, though, is that the extremist voices/views get amplified the loudest, and then get trotted out as a typical example of the "other" side. And thanks to modern communication, you can always find bizarre extremist voices to amplify, so it leads to this narrative that the extremist view is held by…

Sadly "effectively 0" includes a number of mass shooters.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#217

Post by donkeyd » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 2:31 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #135

donkeyd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the social plaza belongs to cooperate and the state I think it's too easy to just blame corporations and governments for this. They are definitely part in this, but a large part of lack of activism around climate change is also the people themselves who don't want to change. The Netherlands is a great example where, in recent elections, nearly half of votes went to political parties that want to reduce response to…

>Also, actually doing something about it takes effort/investment from everyone, not just government and corporations. This is pretty much the standard line corporations throw out to try and shirk responsibility. This is why they've always been so keen on recycling relative to other, more effective methods, for instance. The implicit message is that rather than the company being forced to change by fiat, "people" just…

> This is pretty much the standard line corporations throw out to try and shirk responsibility. This is why they've always been so keen on recycling relative to other, more effective methods, for instance.

Yes, but this is only part of it and once again is an easy way to blame corporations. It's not just easy for them to tell people to recycle. It's also really easy for people to recycle and feel good about themselves while not doing much.

To really impact climate change, we need societal change and that has to come from everyone. People, companies, government all need to change, we can't keep pointing fingers at each other, but that's what we're all doing.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#218

Post by warner25 » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

hasmolo wrote: post #57

mawadev wrote: post #40

It is truly remarkable to which great lengths people go to justify their unhealthy relationship with social media. It is nearly the same as telling an alcoholic they have an alcohol problem and then hearing excuse after excuse and re-framing and mental gymnastics to jump around the elephant in the room. I'm glad write-ups like this one are a thing. Maybe our parents were indeed right when they told us we are glued to…

this glued to devices meme is tired. look at a picture of folks on public transport from before phones. note that _everyone_ is reading a newspaper or magazine. i know it seems crazy, but humans reading information is a constant in public, and the only reason you didn't see more of it in the past is that you were part of the group consuming media, while also assigning intellectual value to the fact that a periodical…

I don't think the issue with phones is that people aren't engaging with each other in public spaces. I'll stipulate that it has never been the norm to engage with strangers on public transport. But I see a number of other differences between then and now.

For one, I don't think it was common for people to take a newspaper out of their pocket and look at it during social events with friends and family whenever conversation slowed down for a moment, or whenever it pinged with a notification. I observe my own wife spending far more time looking at her phone today than she ever spent reading a book before. Ten years ago, she might get lost in a book for a day or two, if it was a really good one. Now she walks around the house with her phone in-hand at all times. I had to pry myself back from that after starting to notice the same behavior in myself.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#219

Post by Paul-Craft » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

klooney wrote: post #213

Paul-Craft wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even the most environmentally aware people around me pretty much just eat less meat, but they haven't actually changed their ways. So I don't expect the average F150 driving steak eater to suddenly start changing their ways. What do you expect people in general to do? Granted, driving an F150 is not an environmentally friendly activity, but suppose they all cut their "carbon footprint" [0] by 50%. How much would th…

The 100 corporations thing is silly. They aren't out there polluting for the fun of it, they're making stuff for people and organizations. If people and governments and companies stop buying gas, the pollution on Chevron's ledger for oil extraction and refining will plummet as they get stuck with smaller markets like plastic manufacturing. Those dastardly 100 corporations are emitting to make stuff for you.

They're making stuff for people who get no input into how that stuff is made, much of which they can't just stop consuming.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#220

Post by kodah » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

discreteevent wrote: post #197

muyuu wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a powerful combination of safetyism and concentration in urban and suburban areas that has pushed the American political compass strongly towards collectivistic priorities this generation. Basically a strong "europeisation" in metropolitan America. Perhaps extortionate real estate prices and telework will put some counterbalance to it, but I don't expect this trend to buckle during my lifetime.

What has this got to do with collectivism? People can collectively decide to do whatever they want. Germany collectively decide to have risky playgrounds for kids. Sweden collectively decided not to lock down hard for covid. It sounds to me like America could do with collectively standing up against these channels and rejecting the rubbish they are peddling.

I don't know that I'd call Germany collectivist. Under your examples by the US having national laws and regulation, we are somehow collectivist, which is not true. It's a trait of society and government.

Collectivist societies are unique in that they punish individuality. The government decides something and everyone must comply or face extra-judicial and potentially judicial consequences.

Individualistic societies often celebrate individuality. It's not marked by the absence of collective decisions, but that there's tolerance to dissent, or even that dissent is given weight and merit philosophically.

I'd summarize this as, collectivist societies are a proxy for government cohesion; it looks like people have power, but they don't. Individualistic societies retain power in both large numbers of people, but also individuals. The government is at competition with it's power to groups of people, which theoretically plays a role in keeping it in check.