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Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

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Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#491

Post by pelagicAustral »

skilled wrote: post #337

I'm no saint when it comes to addiction and being on my phone for more than I should be, but I have a sister who is in her mid 20s right now, and for the last couple of years she has slowly isolated herself from life and her family, she spends most of her time in her room on the phone and does weird things like get cosmetic surgeries, ordering cosmetics, etc. It's bizarre. She does this and all the while never leaves…

My brother is essentially the male version of this, just swap the cosmetics for video game DLCs. He's early 20's, no job, no interest in work, no interest in getting out of the house, no interest on anything... talking to him is the most frustrating experience ever, nothing comes out of him, no emotion...

I talked so many times, tried to get an idea of what might drive him: travelling, learning, walking around in the mountain, making money, wasting money, drinking, smoking, drawing dicks on wall, anything! honestly, like "give me something to work with"...

He's been seeing a psychiatrist for a few years now... far as I can tell that is doing nothing...

He's a broken individual. I honestly do not know if there is a way back to reality for him (and so many others, these days)

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#492

Post by belorn »

myspy wrote: post #338
whstl wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not Yep. The other problem is that not having social media and mobile devices can be alienating and ostracizing, especially for teenagers. Avoiding the problems of social media requires skills and restraint that even most adults don’t have. It is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

That's true. We restrict access to Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, FB, they can use WhatsApp, YT, iMessage, Phone and Pinterest. I'm fucking annoyed by other parents that don't set boundaries that way. I have so much discussions about other platforms. Pushing them to physically meet is hard too. We grew up at a time where SMS was a thing when I became 16. I know that keeping up is cool, but social media is a disease. Th…

People tend to agree with expert advice when that advice align with their own personal views and values. Sadly both smart and dumb, educated and uneducated people falls for this and the pandemic demonstrated this in waves and continues to do so.

Take this study (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0?error=coo...). How many people on HN will agree with the ranking of those interventions? Early restrictions on travel and preventing people from gathering are the most effective measure to prevent an pandemic, but what people want to form sides around are the discussion around masks. Shutting down airports and imposing general self isolation are not in alignment of what either smart and dumb people believes in.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#493

Post by m_fayer »

rgbrenner wrote: post #145

The author had it right in the first paragraph. In the 90s version of this hysteria, Congress passed a law that would have prevented access to education medical information, dirty curse words, and other filth from being published on the internet to protect the children. The federal government fought a case all the way to the Supreme Court to enforce it. If they had won that case, the internet would look very differen…

If you think of them as communication platforms, you’re missing a big part of the picture.

These systems are the next step in the evolution of media. Media is a complex beast with tentacles into culture and politics and individual society. We’ve known this for a long time. What’s applicable here is Marshal McLuhan, media theory, and heck David Foster Wallace. A lot of this stuff was way ahead of its time, but that time has arrived.

“The medium is the message” was a genius insight. Extending it to algorithmic media has all sorts of (disquieting) implications.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#494

Post by rmbyrro »

skilled wrote: post #337

I'm no saint when it comes to addiction and being on my phone for more than I should be, but I have a sister who is in her mid 20s right now, and for the last couple of years she has slowly isolated herself from life and her family, she spends most of her time in her room on the phone and does weird things like get cosmetic surgeries, ordering cosmetics, etc. It's bizarre. She does this and all the while never leaves…

In my family, helping a sister in this sort of dead end is exactly what a brother is expected to help with.

It's not about 'telling my sister what to do'. It's about helping someone sick (my conclusion from your superficial description, reality might be different?).

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#495

Post by worldsayshi »

randomdata wrote: post #486
skilled wrote: post #337

I'm no saint when it comes to addiction and being on my phone for more than I should be, but I have a sister who is in her mid 20s right now, and for the last couple of years she has slowly isolated herself from life and her family, she spends most of her time in her room on the phone and does weird things like get cosmetic surgeries, ordering cosmetics, etc. It's bizarre. She does this and all the while never leaves…

> She doesn't share her actual thoughts That's where social media has been most damaging. You can't share your thoughts anymore. The 'Redditization' of the world means that sharing thoughts is met with hostility. No longer can you just throw something out there, no matter how stupid. These days you have carry an entire encyclopedia with you in order to back up every last thing you say and if you utter anything that i…

This is touching on something very important but I feel there's a lot more to it. There's a lot of mystery around this for me. Like why is social media inspiring us to such hostile nit picking on behaviour and ideals?

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#496

Post by worldsayshi »

skilled wrote: post #478
heresie-dabord wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your frustration and -- perhaps -- a feeling of having no agency in the situation. But at the same time I find this sentence fascinating and scary: > It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either. Inverting the order of your explanations (to examine the weighting), we have: estimated low return for investment/effort avoi…

I understand what you're saying, but that's not how life works. If a person has no anchor and they deliberately avoid establishing that anchor in their lives, then how do you expect them to stay stable when going gets tough? I have to respect her as a person first and foremost, and I cannot enforce my own thoughts/ideas because I think that is what's best for her. She needs to find it for herself, and then establish…

I sympathize with this because as far as I'm aware there is no solution to helping an adult person that really doesn't want help. I would love to know if somebody has actually managed to help such a person.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#497

Post by Moru »

worldsayshi wrote: post #495
randomdata wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She doesn't share her actual thoughts That's where social media has been most damaging. You can't share your thoughts anymore. The 'Redditization' of the world means that sharing thoughts is met with hostility. No longer can you just throw something out there, no matter how stupid. These days you have carry an entire encyclopedia with you in order to back up every last thing you say and if you utter anything that i…

This is touching on something very important but I feel there's a lot more to it. There's a lot of mystery around this for me. Like why is social media inspiring us to such hostile nit picking on behaviour and ideals?

It's sadly not just one thing that goes wrong. But at the base of it, it's the human faults at play. It's just being amplified by social media and the easy communication on Internet.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#498

Post by raxxorraxor »

sloowm wrote: post #343
raxxorraxor wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I am against government intervention is the fact that governments seem to not be competent enough to solve problems like this and they would use content controls for their own purposes. It is vastly different and more complex than regulating saws. The comparison falls short by a huge margin and a false conclusion that any federal legislation would be desirable just because it is the case for saws. Some sug…

The government is never a passive actor. So non-intervention is also active policy. You can only choose what the policy is. The active policy for the last 15 years has been to consolidate a social media oligopoly with very few restrictions. Users are being tracked, advertisement laws are being skirted and are less restrictive than in other mediums, data is being sold, dark patterns are used to keep people from making…

Depending on where you live it is not true that there are no restrictions on false advertising and accountability for commercial content.

That said, a government can be passive and not regulate a field and non-intervention stays non-intervention, be it conscious or not. But that is besides the point. A government that tries to regulate all aspects of life is usually connected to totalitarianism, an that isn't only a libertarian position.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#499

Post by michaelsalim »

skilled wrote: post #430
yawboakye wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i find this to be, unfortunately, the current western stance on responsibility towards anyone: irresponsibility. for some reason, leaving people to go their way, wherever it may lead them, has been interpreted to be the good and the moral duty of anyone who understands what freedom (for intelligent beings) means. with all due respect, that’s cowardice and a neglect of duty. i explained to my sibling the other day tha…

I have tried being supportive on multiple occasions. I offered to help with building her a platform online since she spends so much time there. I offered to team up with her in case she wants to create an eCommerce site. The discussion always ends with, “I don’t know”. I have tried various approaches, including being provocative, and that is why I said it is not worth it. I am not abandoning her by any means and we t…

I don't normally comment on these kinds of topic but I thought I should chip in on this one. The things you have listed are all solutions to a problem that you think she has. Something in the line of "If you/we do X, you'll be happier. Trust me"

Honestly, it doesn't have to be that complex. I was shocked to read about the platform and the eCommerce site. That's such a HN solution to an ultimately human problem.

I believe the only thing you need to focus on right now is to understand where she's coming from. Do you know why she does the thing she does? Do you know what she feels about it?

That's it. Simple. But it'll be hard for sure. Because to you (and me), it's very clearly an issue that needs to be "fixed". But how would you feel if someone keeps telling you solutions to things you don't think are a problem? Like: "Hey, do you want a custom social media site so that you don't spend so much time on HN?" - the implication is that you're a HN addict. My first response would be defensive. "I think HN is good. You haven't even spent much time on it. How would you know anything about it? "

I think that unless there's this common ground of understanding and support, you'll never get anywhere.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#500

Post by dimgl »

myspy wrote: post #338
whstl wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not Yep. The other problem is that not having social media and mobile devices can be alienating and ostracizing, especially for teenagers. Avoiding the problems of social media requires skills and restraint that even most adults don’t have. It is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

That's true. We restrict access to Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, FB, they can use WhatsApp, YT, iMessage, Phone and Pinterest. I'm fucking annoyed by other parents that don't set boundaries that way. I have so much discussions about other platforms. Pushing them to physically meet is hard too. We grew up at a time where SMS was a thing when I became 16. I know that keeping up is cool, but social media is a disease. Th…

> The amount of dumb and uneducated people that couldn't even listen to expert advice during a fucking pandemic is driving me up the wall.

If you stay home and others don't, it doesn't affect you. If you're isolated and safe, why would you care if others go out and do what they want?

A commenter in a sibling thread asked why "people are so nitpicky" and "why people are so hostile to each other". This comment is why. It's exemplary even. You should look inward and figure out if you're part of the problem.

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