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

afterbabel.com

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

#761
post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You certainly can just throw things out there, but if you are obsessed with making every single person satisfied with your thoughts, you are going to have a bad time. The world is full of people who disagree with you, but you need to learn more than ever to recognize and filter out what you don't care about. I don't even view replies to posts any longer, 98% of the time because I am not seeking validation sharing my…

Aren't most of the replies critic or posted by people disagreeing with you though? Especially on HN, where most users would promote discussion with a reply rather than «Agreed» or «lmao»

Agreed lmao

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

#762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some backward people don't understand that "being isolated and doom scrolling all day" or "getting tons of destructive cosmetic surgeries" or "Amway" can also be a torally fine purpose in life. I really can't tell if this is a sarcastic comment or not, so just to be clear none of these examples are examples of purpose. How one spends their time isn't purpose, it's just a description of their day.

I think the main point is that it isn’t anyone else’s business how an individual chooses to spend their time. Absence some other criteria for concern, “I don’t like that they do this therefore they must stop doing it” is a line of thinking that desperately needs to be eradicated from human culture.

There is always a other criteria for concern. Basically nobody understands their own desire to police the behavior of other people as merely doing something that they don't like.

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

#763
post #565

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…

I don't pretend to know your sister's situation but one thing I've become convinced of through seeing the effects of the pandemic is we have an epidemic of undiagnosed mental health issues, particularly ADHD and ASD. I bring this up for several reasons. First, such conditions are especially underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed in girls and women. Second, even now ADHD is still heavily misunderstood with people focusing on…

It's heavily underdiagnosed, even now

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

#764

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…

I went through that phase but with World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. And I'm now still in that phase but with programming. So I'm essentially your sister but smarter and cooler in every way. My condolences.

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

#765

I'm all about most of this. I disconnected from facestagramitter a while ago, and it was the best thing I've ever done for myself bar none. Got a change of career out of it and a vast improvement in my personal life. But... > Did life in America suddenly get that much worse during President Obama’s second term, as the economy was steadily improving? Yes. Yes it did. The bank bailout was one of the worst things to com…

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

#767

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…

You certainly can just throw things out there, but if you are obsessed with making every single person satisfied with your thoughts, you are going to have a bad time. The world is full of people who disagree with you, but you need to learn more than ever to recognize and filter out what you don't care about. I don't even view replies to posts any longer, 98% of the time because I am not seeking validation sharing my…

Saying things that were obvious scientific facts 5 years ago are now controversial and can now get you fired from your job -- and people are more gung-ho than ever to seek out anyone who says something "wrong" and try to ruin their life over it.

That's why I don't speak my opinions to anyone other than people I'm close with.

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

#768

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…

> You can't share your thoughts anymore. The 'Redditization' of the world means that sharing thoughts is met with hostility

I’ll add that people addicted to social media become insufferable to share novel (often silly) thoughts around because the focus becomes dropping a zinger versus meaningfully engaging with what was said.

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

#769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You certainly can just throw things out there, but if you are obsessed with making every single person satisfied with your thoughts, you are going to have a bad time. The world is full of people who disagree with you, but you need to learn more than ever to recognize and filter out what you don't care about. I don't even view replies to posts any longer, 98% of the time because I am not seeking validation sharing my…

The world is full of people who disagree with you, Don't you think it's worrisome that we can't agree on anything? And that includes things that are supposed to have objective answers. Why can't we find the truth? We now have instant global communication available almost 24/7, shouldn't it bring the period of unprecedented unity?

The notion of truth is an illusion, this has been a philosophical debate since the beginning of time. The fact is, every person occupies unique physical space and thus has unique life experiences and a unique perspective of each “event”. It’s the standard multi-sided coin phenomenon. Ask two people standing on opposite sides what is on the face and they’ll give you two different answers and both be right and both be wrong. It’s not a solvable problem because there is no observable objective reality that we can all agree on. Granted, I’m fairly certain there is an objective physical reality, it’s just not one that we can all observe the same and agree upon

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

#770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can you be a human being and cut him off? Who is this sick person enabling this? Who is passing out the money? This is no different than buying heroin for someone. Say hey, "No money, get job, bye". Let them begin the human experience. The video games will go away fast. Show humanity, cut them off.

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