Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

afterbabel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

891–900 of 1001 posts

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

#891

Post by trogdor »

klntsky wrote: post #782
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 either. You are a part of the problem.

Have you experienced family members in addiction? If you have, I’m interested in hearing your story.

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

#892

Post by stahorn »

fransje26 wrote: post #379
stahorn wrote: post #199

I grew up in Sweden, where strong alcohol is only sold in a state owned company and the same for gambling, so this probably make me have another view of this than people from other countries. I do believe that there has to be some sort of laws around how social media, or really "endless scrolling of content" is done. It's seriously addictive, I feel it myself, and just letting people "be free and choose what to do" r…

> I grew up in Sweden, where strong alcohol is only sold in a state owned company It worked so well, that alcoholism rates in Sweden are higher than in some countries where the sales of strong alcohol are not a state monopoly. A closer look shows that even the neighboring Scandinavian countries are doing better.. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcoholis...

Yeah, but you have to remember that people answer questions such as "are you an alcoholic" a bit different in different countries. Go to any polish person drinking beer every day and they will say they are of course not an alcoholic (real example).

On the page you linked there's another link to just alcohol consumption: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcohol-c...

It paints a different picture. Also good to know is that Norway and Finland has similar setup, with Vinmonopolet and Alko.

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

#893

Post by jononomo »

nmz wrote: post #885
jononomo wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is important to remember that freedom of speech is more important than having a functioning society of a healthy populace.

sarcasm?

Not at all. I'm just pointing out that freedom of speech is more important than anything else on Earth.

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

#894

Post by pixl97 »

2devnull wrote: post #676
pixl97 wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Like why is social media inspiring us to such hostile nit picking on behaviour and ideals? So I'd like to point out something I've not seen mentioned yet. That is what I call 'small down behavior', that is nit picking on those that don't fall into some small group that is acceptable. It seems that social media has not caused any new behaviors, but instead given a new and expansive venue for the behavior to spread.

I’d say a lot of that is genetic and or cultural. At the very least there are many of us who do not possess that instinct. We have much lower karma scores but we don’t care.

>but we don’t care.

Just because you don't care about something doesn't mean it doesn't affect you.

For example with many websites, high karma posts/users show up at the top of the feed. This means those addicts messages are the ones you're getting subjected too every day.

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

#895

Post by Xeyz0r »

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…

> The 'Redditization' of the world means that sharing thoughts is met with hostility.

Actually for me it's quite difficult sometimes to write thoughts on topics here. I'm just being afraid not to be understanded

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

#896

Post by Xeyz0r »

amplex1337 wrote: post #646
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…

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 lesson I learned quite recently was that I'm not able to satisfy everyone and it's OK

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

#897

Post by v-erne »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #92
api wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. It’s algorithmic “engagement maximizing” systems, specifically. (Engagement is code for addiction.) If those pocket PCs had useful and creative apps only and maybe some non-addiction-optimized games they’d be fine. The problem is the apps, not the hardware. With kids the absolute worst seem to be YouTube, TikTok, and Roblox. All three are banned in our house. The kids have their own devices (with monit…

My kids are 11 and 12. We have a YouTube time limit of 30 mins a day, and there are some videos that are just not allowed. Nothing with too much bad language, Nothing with people doing dangerous things to be funny, nothing with rich people buying stuff to break. I did spend some time in both my kids accounts blocking streamers I thought where just bad influences. It has given us a chance to talk about why some of the…

Any specific reason for hating roblox? I'm especially interested in game developer perspective (parent perspective is familiar to me being father of two and aware that most of roblox content is of rather poor quality)

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

#898

Post by Xeyz0r »

hbn wrote: post #767
amplex1337 wrote: post #646

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…

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.

Actually it's better to do that way nowadays

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

#899

Post by randomdata »

Sammi wrote: post #880
runamuck wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

I ALWAYS respond with the most infuriating response a troll could ever imagine getting. I just write the two letters: ok The fact that they cannot discern if I'm giving them agreement or the side eye is delicious.

Why would a troll care if you agree or are giving the side eye? Their whole existence is simply to see if they can goad you into replying.

(And yes, you succeeded!)

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

#900

Post by B56c »

gigatexal wrote: post #411

The claim of direct causal claim is bold and probably more likely a contributing factor but can it really be the singular or even most impactful cause?

I think Haidt would certainly say this is the most impactful cause, but specifically his research has shown a causal relationship for this factor, not that it is the only factor. It's quite likely there are other factors that have some impact, but so far no one has made a compelling case for any other major factor.
Post reply on HN