Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness • Hacker News Board

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

#611

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 1:38 PM UTC

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?

[deleted]

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

#612

Post by zelphirkalt » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 1:38 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #578

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…

That is not really possible. In the US you are required to send your children into public education unless you can afford private education. That public education requires students to use the internet. So you can't just opt out

Social media is not the Internet, but I think you are raising an important point. Schools are run by uninformed people, who introduce absurd policies, when it comes to prerequisites of usage of online services. It is hard for parents to get to their right of not having to participate in these disservices.

I imagine in the US there could be cases, where parents with the required pocket change can sue the school or something, to get it done, but if I think about my own home country, I have my doubts, whether anything would be resolved, before the time of a child in that school is over and in addition to that, there is no accountability for abysmal tech decisions in institutions such as schools. No one is losing their job for forcing children to use social media, unfortunately, even though every adult, especially one to work with children, should know by now, that this cannot be conforming with data protection laws. We simply punish incapable reckless behavior way too rarely.

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

#613

Post by lemoncookiechip » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 1:39 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #602

Funes- wrote: post #590

Social media has ruined society, indeed, but only because the exploitability was always there to begin with. Just look at everyone in this thread opting for letting their kids cave in to peer pressure and dodging responsibility for their upbringing because "past a certain point" you can't do shit about it, and God forbid they try to develop themselves into a worthwhile adult without using any of those time-sinking, m…

I’m curious, are you a parent?

Or a kid? The parent comment is either forgetting what it was like being a kid and doing things behind their parents back, not out of disrespect, but because they're young and it's what young people do, they are their own people as much as one might try to control them.

Also, good luck ostracizing a child from their peers for their "benefit"? (I remember a time where not having the same brand of clothes would get you ostracized, much less not being in the known of the current gen media)

This argument that social media is destroying the youth is the same old tale as old as time. Everything has been destroying the youth and rotting their brains since before anyone on this page was born. The devil music, violence in media, pot, unorthodox romance, (or you know, being a nerdy teen who spent a bit too long on their PC growing up in the 90s and their parents complained it was rotting their brain, which I'm sure a lot of people here can relate to and have made it their professional life) literally everything is destroying children, which we all were once.

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

#614

Post by sidewndr46 » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 1:40 PM UTC

zelphirkalt wrote: post #612

sidewndr46 wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not really possible. In the US you are required to send your children into public education unless you can afford private education. That public education requires students to use the internet. So you can't just opt out

Social media is not the Internet, but I think you are raising an important point. Schools are run by uninformed people, who introduce absurd policies, when it comes to prerequisites of usage of online services. It is hard for parents to get to their right of not having to participate in these disservices. I imagine in the US there could be cases, where parents with the required pocket change can sue the school or som…

I think you meant "way too rarely" in your last sentence.

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

#615

Post by klabb3 » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 1:40 PM UTC

Instagram is a social posturing platform. Kids compare themselves. We already acknowledge that kids have not yet developed a strong sense of protecting themselves. Including against soft influence, which is why advertising for children is highly regulated in most countries. “Social” platforms are next level and much better at exploiting attention than classical advertising.

I feel like in lieu of hard evidence, which naturally comes with a very high bar in social science, the safest path is to stay the hell away from excessive social comparison 24/7. This is, in my experience, medium-to-very unhealthy even for most adults (see exhibit A - LinkedIn). When you have an adversary that openly deploys recommendation systems optimized for engagement, it’s not rocket science to connect the dots. Sure, I guess there’s a theoretical chance it’s correlation. But as a parent today, are you gonna take that risk with your child’s childhood? I would definitely do everything I can to guide my children away from social comparison. I stopped using people-oriented social media years ago, for my own sake. Most of the SV elite keeps their children off that crap, even though they are have high-status potential in “succeeding” in this mindless game.

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

#616

Post by Funes- » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 1:40 PM UTC

lupusreal wrote: post #609

Funes- wrote: post #590

Social media has ruined society, indeed, but only because the exploitability was always there to begin with. Just look at everyone in this thread opting for letting their kids cave in to peer pressure and dodging responsibility for their upbringing because "past a certain point" you can't do shit about it, and God forbid they try to develop themselves into a worthwhile adult without using any of those time-sinking, m…

Even if parents tried to be fully responsible for keeping their kids off social media, it wouldn't actually be possible for them. What you are proposing is akin to a world in which it is wholly the responsibility of parents to stop their kids from smoking cigarettes and drinking liquor, but whenever the parents weren't around kids could walk into a store and buy them legally. Do you expect 24/7 unceasing parental sur…

>What you are proposing

I did not propose any of the straw-man nonsense that you wrote after this. Nothing in my previous comment implies such a thing. Come on, now.

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

#617

Post by numpad0 » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 1:41 PM UTC

nervousvarun wrote: post #504

worldsayshi wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

JMO, but an enormous part of it is this is the fundamental way teens now learn how to interact with the world. This disconnected, digital interface with other people that is rewarded at tremendous scale (popularity is now for some a worldwide deal...not just your high school). Older folks like myself (GenX) learned the "classic" way...face to face. There were checks and balances. If you said something that skewed hos…

> Kids today (even writing that makes me wince) have less accountability for what they write than what we had to have for what we said.

I think that's slightly different to what was said in GP:

> 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 isn't deemed 100% perfect by those listening, the social scorn will fall upon you.

IOW, `kids these days` are required full corporate PR level accountability whenever and whatever they express, (and zero when cancelling others following social codes). There absolutely won't be thousands at your side unless you're in a straight up proper conspiracy theory circle full of actually schizophrenic people until the entire circle is going to be cancelled dead.

You can't label your opponent as belonging in a category and encourage making harmful gases in a toilet and get 127 upvotes. At least not anymore. Your comment will be deleted, and one below yours that explains why you're automatically doubly stupid will. You can't even say, literally orally voice, the word "die" in some parts of YouTube without algorithmic penalties. Saying "died of injury" can be a soft violation.

That is what GP is explaining by "you have [to] carry an entire encyclopedia with you in order to back up every last thing you say", ironically the phenomenon I'm ending up being a contributing factor by typing this very comment, and part of what's making teens sick. I think it has to do with being correct being a cost and having huge unfortunate abuse potentials.

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

#618

Post by zelphirkalt » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 1:42 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #614

zelphirkalt wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social media is not the Internet, but I think you are raising an important point. Schools are run by uninformed people, who introduce absurd policies, when it comes to prerequisites of usage of online services. It is hard for parents to get to their right of not having to participate in these disservices. I imagine in the US there could be cases, where parents with the required pocket change can sue the school or som…

I think you meant "way too rarely" in your last sentence.

Thank you, fixed within edit time!

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

#619

Post by DHPersonal » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 1:42 PM UTC

Buttons840 wrote: post #149

The charts in this article are deceptive and cause me to not trust the author. Look at long term teen suicide rates and you will see that suicide rates were quite high around 1990, and then rates dropped until about 2005, and are now on the rise again but have not yet reached 1990 levels (I think). So, the author of this piece wants to make it look like suicides and self harm are on the rise because of social media ,…

The author has made a pretty big splash across the media in the past few weeks and has received some pretty damning criticism for his cherry-picking of stats, enough for me to doubt his claims as being accurate.

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

#620

Post by runamuck » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 1:46 PM UTC

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…

I have a good rule. I NEVER reply to someone who comments on my comment w/ hostile intent. For example: I made an innocent comment on a YouTube video, and someone completely misread the comment and posted a hostile reply. I wanted to explain to him that he misread my comment but I just let it go. You never need to defend yourself. If you want to post a comment, post it. If someone misunderstands or mocks you, let them.