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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

#911

Post by jandrese »

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.

Some people expand this to "ok boomer" to really rile them up.

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

#912

Post by benjovi »

genrilz wrote: post #696
giarc wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the majority of the evidence seems to point towards it not causing large well-being problems." I can't see how this is true. Anecdotally, everyone I talk to, and you most comments in this thread (and any other thread) is full of people admitting that they A. use their phone too much B. wish they didn't and C. it makes them feel bad. Again, n of 1, but I've never met someone that openly wants to use their phone more…

I at least skimmed all of the meta-analyses that both of them cited. It seems like social media has both positive and negative effects on people, and these average out to fairly near zero. From this, I can make a hypothesis about why you are seeing what you are seeing: Assuming you are in a society which values hard work, (like the US) then the people around you probably think of social media based screen-time as bei…

[flagged]

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

#913

Post by disambiguation »

hartator wrote: post #484
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…

Maybe she thinks the same thing about us doom scrolling HN.

she just needs to learn2code

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

#914

Post by sn9 »

riskable wrote: post #608
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…

My kids watch a lot of YouTube/TikTok and playing computer games... Yet I don't. I sit in front of my PC all day for work and after work (after dinner) I also spend a ton of time in front of my PC doing things like learning how to make circuit boards, learning new programming languages, OpenSCAD (CAD) design work, and more. I tell them they spend too much time watching videos and playing games and should "branch out"…

I can't tell if this comment is satire.

In case it isn't, you're spending all your time on screens and not being present with your kids.

You're parenting by example that screen time is more important than family time.

Why would they listen to you when, to them, it probably seems like you're telling them to do what you won't?

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

#915

Post by sn9 »

WheatMillington wrote: post #77
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…

Ugh as a parent I know I need to be doing this, but I'm so bad at it.

Highly recommend the recent book How to Raise a Healthy Gamer: End Power Struggles, Break Bad Screen Habits, and Transform Your Relationship with Your Kids [0].

It goes over many of the issues adjacent to social media usage and how to resolve them, starting with how to understand them.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Healthy-Gamer-Relationship/...

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

#916

Post by nuancebydefault »

mindcrime wrote: post #688
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…

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 opinion. This is something it's taken me a while to come to terms with. I used to want to fully engage with everybody and everything. It was anathema to me to just "br…

I'm curious. You say what to say. What's the incentive to do this? Educate people or...?

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

#917

Post by amatecha »

khazhoux wrote: post #908
gosub100 wrote: post #874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is not hostile as long as you only parrot back ideas that the hive mind agrees on. And the reward system is mis-aligned. I'd call it a Twitterification, because the karma points are awarded to succinct, snarky/funny conversation-ending quips. Nobody has time or attention span to debate an issue, and even if you did you risk being shut out of the group for wrongthink.

That's right, there's no debate, except on the rarest of occasions. It's actually an odd feeling whenever some discussion with divergent opinions ends amicably.

In my experience, genuine "clashing of views" with amicable discussions happens pretty frequently on Mastodon. It's pretty astonishing to see sometimes, because it's so unusual for the past X years in online social spaces. Like, potentially-multi-day-threads of max-character-count messages discussing topics that people fundamentally disagree on but are trying to hash out each others' perspectives and "get somewhere" with it. Very interesting, and great to read. Sometimes it goes the other way and the people talk past each other, but that's pretty standard lol

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

#918

Post by pms »

makeitdouble wrote: post #700
giarc wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the majority of the evidence seems to point towards it not causing large well-being problems." I can't see how this is true. Anecdotally, everyone I talk to, and you most comments in this thread (and any other thread) is full of people admitting that they A. use their phone too much B. wish they didn't and C. it makes them feel bad. Again, n of 1, but I've never met someone that openly wants to use their phone more…

This article's threads are also filled with people talking about being on their phone too much and wishing they/other people weren't. It's all self declared though, the same way people will complain they don't exercice enough, they don't eat enough vegetable, they don't read enough books, they didn't stick to their new year's resolution etc. We can't take people's guilt or self loathing as an indicator of an actual c…

There is a difference you neglected: nobody optimizes our society to eat less vegetables, or read less books, or to disregard new year's resolutions, so the responsibility is on us, whereas social media platforms do optimize for engagement, which implies showing us sensational and shallow content that grabs our attention, without giving us enough ways to control it, so responsibility is divided...

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

#919

Post by v7oTC0cYel81C »

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…

people are endlessly fascinating. I know nothing about your sister, or you, or anyone else on HN, yet here is a hive of tech oriented individuals trying to crack the nut of human nature. I guess it's something that resonates with many here, either by first hand experience or second like yourself.

What can be done? Does anything need to be done? Is she doing harm to herself and others, or is that just your perception? Maybe she doesn't share your values. Maybe she senses your judgement. Do you really have her best interest in mind, or are you projecting an idea of what a good sister should be? As in you can't be proud of who she is. But why not? And why do you want to be? To what extent are you responsible? Should you feel guilty if you fail to change her? Should you feel dread if she is unable to change? Does she owe it to you to change herself? But who knows what the next thing will be that you find disappointing about her. Must she walk the tight-rope of your approval? What is your true opinion anyway? Is it truly good, and should anyone truly care?

Everyone has an idea of how life is and how it should be. Oh the problem is so very clear. If only everything was exactly the way I imagine it, oh if only, then there would be peace, happiness, and harmony for all! right? And yet we're endlessly frustrated by the life that could be, the life that should be, perpetually occupying the space beyond our finger tips.

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

#920

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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