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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

#831

Post by draebek »

zarathustreal wrote: post #769
Anotheroneagain wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I share this viewpoint (is that ironic?), but it's almost entirely unhelpful when it comes time to make decisions, particularly decisions as a society or within a government, right? One powerful person's subjective reality that "all people who look like X should be executed" can most likely become the "subjective reality" of those X people real quick.

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

#832

Post by RiverCrochet »

zarathustreal wrote: post #769
Anotheroneagain wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Inaccurate.

> The fact is, every person occupies unique physical space and thus has unique life experiences and a unique perspective of each “event”.

#000000 and #000001 are unique, but most would simply call both colors "black", and not lose any advantage whatsoever. The fact we can communicate using common words and obtain desired effects most of the time disproves that uniqueness created by differing perspectives makes truth an "illusion" or meaningless.

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

#833

Post by pessimizer »

abustamam wrote: post #830
hbn wrote: post #767

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you provide some examples? There have always been companies where certain opinions were deemed "controversial" and could get someone fired. I think it's more common now though, and with more opinions being considered controversial, but I can't think of any that would be considered scientific facts. I wouldn't want to work for a company that considers science controversial anyway.

> There have always been companies where certain opinions were deemed "controversial" and could get someone fired.

Can you provide some examples?

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

#834

Post by doctorpangloss »

luzojeda wrote: post #544
doctorpangloss wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the author isn't doing a good job. He's complaining about social media on a thing we're only reading because of social media. Media critics: the biggest hypocrites.

But it's a post in substack. Not an Instagram reel or tiktok video.

The downvotes are interesting to me. Apparently Hacker News readers think Hacker News isn't social media. The ratio of user generated commentary to content on this site is 1000:1.

Is Substack social media? I don't know. We can't measure (don't know) what percentage of Jon Haidt's audience came from people who heard about his books or saw him on TV appearances. He should have a dashboard showing what audience comes from Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and syndicated news (like Business Insider). Substack is social media in all the ways that matter - it wouldn't exist in the absence of Twitter and Facebook, surely, and syndicated news like Business Insider which would cease to exist in the absence of Twitter too.

This is to say that the reason media critics are hypocrites is because they're really saying, "Anything that amplifies voices or ideas I like is good, especially mine, and everything else is bad." Like yeah, sure Jon Haidt, maybe your opinion about TikTok would be different if you were a successful influencer on it. You would simply say that there are more good things than bad, and that you shouldn't throw the baby away with the bathwater with it, or whatever. Well I think Substack is just a bunch of low effort syndicated opinions, but I have the wisdom to not say we should get rid of it, or that because Substack is stupid, people reading it are stupid. It wouldn't be true, but it would be a vibe.

I'm not sure if anyone is immune to media criticism hypocrisy, even Alexandria Ocasio Cortez criticizes Facebook while in the same breadth spending millions on political advertising on it. What can we do?

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

#835

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #39

If parents really want to set a good example, they ought to also quit their smartphones and Social Media--or at least hide it better. Kids are really good at identifying hypocrisy. When they see their parents glued to their phones and scrolling Instagram all day, after being told "Oh, don't do that, it's not good for you" they know their parents are full of shit. And, the trouble is: Most of these adults are addicted…

[deleted]

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

#836

Post by mcronce »

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…

> No longer can you just throw something out there, no matter how stupid

Obviously this is not the context you're talking about, but I find this issue with brainstorming type sessions these days as well these days. Not just work sessions either, as another example, I'm on the advisory board for a local club, and the first meeting was really barren for quite a while.

It's gotten to the point that I always make sure to voice my philosophy early on - "not all ideas are good, but many good ideas start out as bad ideas and become good through conversation" - and proceed to throw a few incredibly stupid ideas to the group to break the ice. It seems to help.

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

#837

Post by abustamam »

zarathustreal wrote: post #769
Anotheroneagain wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This appears to be true in a vacuum, but practically it's not for many "truths." For example, we can all agree that the holocaust was an atrocity that should have never happened. Certainly there are folks who don't believe that, or who don't even believe that it ever occurred, but the vast majority of reasonable people would consider those folks irrational (to put it mildly).

Now, I notice that I use "we all agree" and "vast majority," which is no way to explain an objective fact, but what we all agree on as a community or society _is_ reality. A society or community that has a different reality(s) than us is probably not a society or community that we would associate ourselves with.

This operates on several levels and dimensions; the common realities I share with my local Islamic community are different realities than I share with my tech community, or Toastmasters community, or even family.

Going back to the original point, yes, there are no realities that the entire global community can agree on, not even something as seemingly incontroversial as medicine (Christian Science for example https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/religion-context/case-studies/mi... ), but no individual is part of the global community. We choose our communities based on the realities that we accept to be true.

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

#838

Post by tnel77 »

epolanski wrote: post #267
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

I feel so bad for teenagers/kids who we essentially screwed over with this tech experience. That said, I don't feel great for the rest of us either! I feel like my phone has become a significant negative in my life. And in general, I'm quite scared because we have put things in place that we know are bad for mental health: 1. Even if we may not like it all the time, there is tons of data that show that personal inter…

> With so much technology and so many things going remote it's harder and harder to just see random people and our friends without explicit planning. The average american adult went from socializing with friends and family 12+ hours a week few decades ago to less than 4.

One complaint I have is that it feels like I have to put in almost all the work to make plans with friends and family. Also, these plans must be well in advance. My immediate family and I might decide to go to a park and I’ll text a friend that lives nearby. “Hey, if you’re looking for an excuse to get out of the house we will be at .” No one has ever taken us up on this kind of invitation even though they’ll later complain about being bored or needing to get out.

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

#839

Post by intended »

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…

The situation you describe sounds familiar, but having dealt with these situations there are many potential root scenarios the facts can support.

Here are a few things that stick out. There is some motive force that animates your sister.

She travels to and from work regularly. Is able to go out and get surgery and cosmetics.

She has reduced interaction with immediate family - more precisely, she has reduced her interactions over several years.

You describe interactions as situations where “ ..doesn't share her actual thoughts and gets angry when asked about it”, / Emotional Upheaval.

There are many skills that are at play here. Decision making, planning, goal setting, even basic skills like getting out of the house. It will be tempting to “judge” and comment how those skills are being used - ignore that urge.

Secondly, you describe your efforts to provide assistance - suggesting Building sites, or expanding on her interests, which result in a “I dont know.” Of the methods attempted, loosely classified, they focus on action, doing things.

Assuming that you are helping in the manner you would expect to be helped - it may not be the manner in which she understands help or needs to be helped.

In the off chance that this extrapolation based on limited data is correct, then your sister may simply connect or need help in different ways.

From experience - some people dont need a plan or help, they need to understand themselves, this is sufficient information for them to make their own plans and act on their own. Others prefer concrete, actionable plans and dont really need this kind of help.

When two such individuals attempt to help each other, the usual outcome is either “You want me to do more, after I am already struggling?” Or “Why are you wasting my time when I need concrete solutions”.

If it helps - ‘thinking’ something through, is also a project. You are building yourself. Often people forget who they are, what their strengths are, become too tired, expect themselves to perform even though they are dead tired - they make errors in their projects.

In such cases some objective reassurance of their capabilities, a genuine analysis of their situation, helps. Often the best person to do this is a professional, because the emotional state interferes with the objective evaluation (“I will fail” vs “No shit - I cant be creative if I am this stressed”)

I dont have a solution, but I hope some of these thoughts aligned with the circumstances you find yourself within.

If it helps - I use something like this to work situations like this out.

Over engineered: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-KD6jm0l4c-thought-council

Base version: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-Cdq3drl87-two-guides

Non ChatGPT + version: https://chat.openai.com/share/d37ce786-20a4-482e-b348-87cd03...

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

#840

Post by vaidhy »

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…

> 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 eithe For someone not from US, this comes across as weird. She is your sister, so why is the emotional upheaval not worth it? Who is it worth for? Why is not your place to tell her she is going down? If not for family, who will you do it for?
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