Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress • Hacker News Board

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#21

Post by gcr » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 1:46 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #7

gchamonlive wrote: post #6

> [...] Gen Z cannot go online or be a part of a social setting without being exposed to the sheer amount of horrors happening around the globe. You can’t turn on the television without being shown the terrors of school shootings, the sorrow in the faces of refugees as they flee their county’s with nowhere to go, and all of this happening while our political structure crumbles. Susan Sontag wrote about this in "Regar…

> It is not something one can run from and everyone will eventually be exposed to it. Oh you can. Just don't visit news sites or watch news TV channels. Paper news papers are way better and don't shove stuff down your throat the same way as rage baiting "this just in" news outlets -- who talks for a day about vague rumors. I think people zoning out from the spam one thing news cycle is the reason The Man decided to s…

Paper News is just as bad regarding this. You’re more likely to see shelves full of celebrity gossip mags at the checkout than you are to find spotlight journalism.

So it’s not the format. It’s our nature to want to understand what’s on the minds of people we care about.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#22

Post by safety1st » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 1:47 PM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #8

[flagged]

Early 40s man here who happily admits to indulging in grumpy, get-off-my-lawn rants from time to time.

Honestly, you are right on every point, A) you don't need to live your life on social media, B) once you do you get sucked into an increasingly weird and unhealthy point of view & behaviors.

The only way to win is not to play. Read books instead of doom scroll. Meet friends in meat space, don't text. If they get all unhinged about transgender Hamas rights or whatever the current Reddit/X tempest in a tea pot is, just go "Oh yeah that sounds serious, tell me more" and then change the topic after 60 seconds - that's going to be the upper limit of their attention span anyway.

It can be done, you can unplug, you lose basically nothing by doing so, and you gain the world, life gets better. Unplugging from endless online BS, simply refusing to participate, improved my focus, attention span, made me smarter because I read books instead, freed up time to start hitting the gym which led to a 15 point drop in my blood pressure, the list of positive benefits goes on and on. I once was an optimistic futurist, I now have serious, serious reservations about the impact our industry has had on society in the 21st century.

Tell the kids, it was better in the old days before Meta.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#23

Post by gchamonlive » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 1:50 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #13

gchamonlive wrote: post #6

> [...] Gen Z cannot go online or be a part of a social setting without being exposed to the sheer amount of horrors happening around the globe. You can’t turn on the television without being shown the terrors of school shootings, the sorrow in the faces of refugees as they flee their county’s with nowhere to go, and all of this happening while our political structure crumbles. Susan Sontag wrote about this in "Regar…

On the long run I believe it's a good thing. I just hope the take on it will be to understand the watcher is also suffering a lot, and the people you hate as well. Life is full of of suffering, for every body. Yes, even the person you are thinking about right now. And sure, we can always rank suffering by taking examples and saying a raped tortured 6 years old suffers more than your average tech billionaire. But the…

This is important. Life is not a contest of who suffers the most, but suffering brings us together. There also isn't a scarcity of suffering in the world, so we don't have to go looking for it. On the contrary, we as a society are failing to reduce the suffering of others. Maybe because we can't reconnect with people? They are just numbers and dates in political history?

In any case, welcoming pain as immanent in life while not being numbed and crushed by the sheer amount of it is a very important skill to develop.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#24

Post by GoToRO » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 1:55 PM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #8

[flagged]

The algorithm is forcing them. Stop beeing so naive. Even if you don't like or follow any of the controversial stuff, that stuff is constantly recommended "for you" by the algorithm.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#25

Post by tekla » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 2:03 PM UTC

gchamonlive wrote: post #6

> [...] Gen Z cannot go online or be a part of a social setting without being exposed to the sheer amount of horrors happening around the globe. You can’t turn on the television without being shown the terrors of school shootings, the sorrow in the faces of refugees as they flee their county’s with nowhere to go, and all of this happening while our political structure crumbles. Susan Sontag wrote about this in "Regar…

This is a self made problem. The news/internet today is sanitary compared to the early days and we mostly turned out fine.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#26

Post by ZeePelli » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 2:14 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #13

gchamonlive wrote: post #6

> [...] Gen Z cannot go online or be a part of a social setting without being exposed to the sheer amount of horrors happening around the globe. You can’t turn on the television without being shown the terrors of school shootings, the sorrow in the faces of refugees as they flee their county’s with nowhere to go, and all of this happening while our political structure crumbles. Susan Sontag wrote about this in "Regar…

On the long run I believe it's a good thing. I just hope the take on it will be to understand the watcher is also suffering a lot, and the people you hate as well. Life is full of of suffering, for every body. Yes, even the person you are thinking about right now. And sure, we can always rank suffering by taking examples and saying a raped tortured 6 years old suffers more than your average tech billionaire. But the…

And also be more kind, tolerant, wish others, and oneself.

I agree that this is the ideal response, but unfortunately this hasn't been the general result and I doubt it ever will be. When an animal learns (or is tricked) that its environment is more harsh and dangerous than it previously believed, its instinctive reaction is to become less trusting, less curious, more withdrawn, and very often more prone to anger and violence. Humans are no different by and large.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#27

Post by gchamonlive » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

maCDzP wrote: post #17

gchamonlive wrote: post #6

> [...] Gen Z cannot go online or be a part of a social setting without being exposed to the sheer amount of horrors happening around the globe. You can’t turn on the television without being shown the terrors of school shootings, the sorrow in the faces of refugees as they flee their county’s with nowhere to go, and all of this happening while our political structure crumbles. Susan Sontag wrote about this in "Regar…

For anyone interested in Susan Sontag I can recommend the POD “Philosophy this!” and the episodes about Susan. They are well worth a listen.

Got my first dose of Sontag from that exact same podcast. It is well worth listening and revisiting in its entirety, all the 192 episodes.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#28

Post by Podgajski » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

gchamonlive wrote: post #6

> [...] Gen Z cannot go online or be a part of a social setting without being exposed to the sheer amount of horrors happening around the globe. You can’t turn on the television without being shown the terrors of school shootings, the sorrow in the faces of refugees as they flee their county’s with nowhere to go, and all of this happening while our political structure crumbles. Susan Sontag wrote about this in "Regar…

The problem is not the suffering, the problem is hopelessness in the face of suffering. If people are comforted when they are suffering, or if we can end suffering, where is the problem with the suffering and horror of the world?

But…

We see the suffering in our cities, poverty, homelessness, drug abuse, but nothing is done. We see endless wars, propagated by the United States around the world, but nothing is done. We see ever increasing homelessness, but nothing is done.

I think we’ve slowly been conditioned that there is someone else that’s supposed to do something, either a politician, or an organization, or or some administrator somewhere, so we just sit back and watch and watch and watch.

If you want to better deal with the suffering over the world, you need to act.

But I’m afraid we’ve let the sociopaths tell us what the correct way to behave is. Look out for yourself! Survival of the fittest!

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#29

Post by Podgajski » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #7

gchamonlive wrote: post #6

> [...] Gen Z cannot go online or be a part of a social setting without being exposed to the sheer amount of horrors happening around the globe. You can’t turn on the television without being shown the terrors of school shootings, the sorrow in the faces of refugees as they flee their county’s with nowhere to go, and all of this happening while our political structure crumbles. Susan Sontag wrote about this in "Regar…

> It is not something one can run from and everyone will eventually be exposed to it. Oh you can. Just don't visit news sites or watch news TV channels. Paper news papers are way better and don't shove stuff down your throat the same way as rage baiting "this just in" news outlets -- who talks for a day about vague rumors. I think people zoning out from the spam one thing news cycle is the reason The Man decided to s…

You’re not supposed to run from it, you’re supposed to help. Only a sociopath would turn away from suffering and not try to help.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#30

Post by Podgajski » Sat, Dec 30, 2023, 2:31 PM UTC

gchamonlive wrote: post #23

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the long run I believe it's a good thing. I just hope the take on it will be to understand the watcher is also suffering a lot, and the people you hate as well. Life is full of of suffering, for every body. Yes, even the person you are thinking about right now. And sure, we can always rank suffering by taking examples and saying a raped tortured 6 years old suffers more than your average tech billionaire. But the…

This is important. Life is not a contest of who suffers the most, but suffering brings us together. There also isn't a scarcity of suffering in the world, so we don't have to go looking for it. On the contrary, we as a society are failing to reduce the suffering of others. Maybe because we can't reconnect with people? They are just numbers and dates in political history? In any case, welcoming pain as immanent in lif…

But I’m sure you want to help the person who is suffering more before you help the person who is suffering less yes? The idea that “suffering is suffering” is almost sociopathic.