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

#841

Post by asdf6969 » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

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…

I’m like this too except a man. It’s because I need to work on myself before I date or make new friends. I think it used to be easier to be happy as a loser before phones made us too self aware. It’s hard to be confident when I’m so aware of how much better things could be, and there’s really no excuse for failure when I can get a step by step guide on anything I want.

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

#842

Post by OkayPhysicist » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

brailsafe wrote: post #47

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…

Your points here are worth more emphasis. As a chronically unemployed software dev who's burnt out and crashed at least 3 times, I've spent a hell of a lot of time reflecting, and try my best to communicate these ideas to people who have the opposite problem; lots of work, but no new friends since highschool, and desperately single. People tend to rely far too heavily on the easiest way to convince themselves they're…

In my experience, most people are adequate at making setting-specific friendships, like "gym friends", "work friends", etc. What they struggle at is progressing those relationships to not being setting specific. Which involves inviting people places, and eventually progresses to full-blown planning, both of which are skills only learned with practice.

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

#843

Post by CMYKninja » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 5:29 PM UTC

Simple switch all screens to eink Displays.

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

#844

Post by asdf6969 » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 5:29 PM UTC

pelagicAustral wrote: post #491

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…

Does he have any reason to believe that things will get better? If he already feels like giving up on life then telling him that he needs to work even harder will make him retreat and give up. If his life gets any worse he might kill himself. I know I would.

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

#845

Post by unethical_ban » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 5:36 PM UTC

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…

Your argument is convincing if you ignore the studies cited by this author, or the fact these two phenomena (video games and social media) are entirely different and have social as well as individual impact.

I also disagree with the notion that limiting certain addictive communications tools from minors is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech.

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

#846

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 5:38 PM UTC

vlachen wrote: post #787

BadHumans wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone misunderstands or mocks you, let them. Very easy to say when you aren't going viral and 100,000+ people aren't trying to get you fired or hurling insults at you ranging from calling you an idiot to telling you to die. I'm not saying you're wrong but it's much easier said than done.

I think you brush across a couple of the important things to note about social media: 1) The disconnect between people that allows for such othering. Anecdotally, I can't imagine but a small handful of people I've met who would be willing to walk up to someone and verbally wish for the other person's death. I know we can point to many times in history where that attitude has resulted in the death of many people, but…

You, and I, and everyone else talking about this... we evolved to live in small bands of humans, never more than maybe 200 total. That we would have sane responses or reactions to a gather of 1,000 people haranguing us is impossible. A caveman who had 1,000 people mocking and insulting and screeching at him would shut down mentally. And you and I are still that caveman. 100,000? Brain explodes.

And that's what's happening right now, today. It's short circuiting any possible counter-reaction we could have to abuse. This is why everyone's sort of worried about cancellation, but we're also a little reluctant to talk about it too. I see no evidence that the problem is about to correct itself and end up being no big deal. I see alot of evidence that it's only just stumbling around and will become an even bigger problem... the people participating in this stuff, they're learning new tricks, learning to self-organize better. We'll have shit like anonymous tutorials about how to look someone up and ruin their lives perfectly efficiently ("Then, call and ask for the HR department between the hours of 10am and 11:20am local, because that's when they're most receptive. Please use this verbiage, in a slow and calm voice."). Even my example's bad, I can't keep up with the state-of-the-art.

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

#847

Post by toasterlovin » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 5:39 PM UTC

pelagicAustral wrote: post #491

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…

Something I saw in my own family (I have a family member who is a recovering addict) and in literally every single episode of Intervention is that THE prerequisite to recovery is to stop enabling the addict. Many (most?) addictions are only possible because an enabler prevents the outside world from acting as a forcing function on the addict. So typically this would be a parent who provides food, shelter, money, etc. Once an addict has to provide those things for themselves, it starts a cycle that results in sobriety. Of course, this doesn't always work and the people who it doesn't work for are often the people you see living on the street. But this has been the process for every recovering addict I know and my addict-in-recovery family member says the same about every recovering addict they know (a lot).

It doesn't sound like your brother is exactly an addict (although maybe...), but this snippet sure sounds like he has an enabler in his life (emphasis mine):

> no job, no interest in work, no interest in getting out of the house

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

#848

Post by SirMaster » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 5:40 PM UTC

As a 36 year old, I still don't understand what people find so compelling or addicting about social media.

OK you can argue that HN is social media, and so I understand the reason why I like to participate in this site.

However, I am just a username and comments. I don't understand the (bigger?) social media where you post all the details and photos of your life online like facebook, instagram, and twitter, etc.

I never seemed to have a problem keeping in touch with family, friends and making new friends with my hobbies by just using in person meeting, phone calls, and basic text messaging services.

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

#849

Post by patcon » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 5:42 PM UTC

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…

What are your feelings on production and propagation of "foods" rich in refined sugar?

To be clear, I find your thoughts interesting and worth understanding, but if you also believe that the government has zero business in public health decisions involving refined sugars, then we just fundamentally disagree about what good governance is. (nevermind the social media element, which is new and evolving and a higher-dimensional problem space)

And that's ok. I will likely vote and conspire against the interests of people like this (with that view of government) until I the day I die (or my mind is changed), and cultivate communities that openly resist building the world based on those assumptions.

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

#850

Post by patcon » Wed, Apr 10, 2024, 5:44 PM UTC

SirMaster wrote: post #848

As a 36 year old, I still don't understand what people find so compelling or addicting about social media. OK you can argue that HN is social media, and so I understand the reason why I like to participate in this site. However, I am just a username and comments. I don't understand the (bigger?) social media where you post all the details and photos of your life online like facebook, instagram, and twitter, etc. I ne…

I don't either. But I understand that different brains have different experiences with it, and many many ppl are "having a bad time". Just like how one persons reaction to being surrounded by unhealthy food choices is different than my own.