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

#991

Post by Shocka1 » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 2:12 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #511

whstl wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not Yep. The other problem is that not having social media and mobile devices can be alienating and ostracizing, especially for teenagers. Avoiding the problems of social media requires skills and restraint that even most adults don’t have. It is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

Florida has banned social media for under 14's starting Jan, 2025. Generally I am against government overreach and sometimes they make very odd decisions like campaigning to ban lab engineered meat in the state but on this I very much agree. Just remove social media as an option for those that are very young. Its easy to say, that's the parents responsibility and that is a correct statement but most families require…

I agree wholeheartedly, and sorry about losing your sister. It's too bad we won't see the results of Florida's new law for several years to come.

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

#992

Post by randomdata » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 2:12 PM UTC

rexpop wrote: post #807

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…

Providing rationales for your beliefs is hard work, but it's worth it. I'm not saying you deserve to be bullied, but I have no trouble saying what I think online, and supporting my positions with evidence—admittedly, behind a pseudonym, but that is necessary when one targets violent men for critique, which is 90% of why I bother going online in the first place.

> I have no trouble saying what I think online

Well, sure, you're just dealing with software. What trouble could there be?

The problem with the 'Redditization' of the world is that people fail to recognize that software and people are not the same thing, and start treating people as if they are software. That leads to social issues, just as treating people as if they were dogs leads to social issues.

And here we have proof positive of this happening: You weren't even able to recognize that the world and the internet are not the same place.

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

#993

Post by SirMaster » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 4:24 PM UTC

B56c wrote: post #889

SirMaster wrote: post #870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I did go to high school in the US. I didn't really care what people thought of me and my stuff then and so I guess I still don't now. I guess it's not so much that I don't understand why what you are describing would be addictive and compelling if one cared about those things like being popular. It's more of, I don't understand why so many people care so much about being popular haha. I guess I am really that ab…

To get anthropological about it, humans are very strongly wired to seek approval from our immediate social groups, as your social standing was one of the most absolutely critical factors in your survival and reproduction. Especially because social exile for most of human history meant simply death. It's not so much about people thinking that social media makes them happy. It's social media hijacking what our ancient…

This is why I sometimes wonder why I don't fit into that mindset at all.

What happened to me that makes me not care about social media/networking and showing/proving/advertising to others what I have or do etc.

The only validation I feel that I need is my own.

So naturally it just makes it hard to understand other people's motivations in this when I am apparently missing that piece.

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

#994

Post by s3p » Fri, Apr 12, 2024, 7:31 PM UTC

thegrim000 wrote: post #212

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…

It's funny .. earlier today there was a front page HN post about the federal government mandating safer circular saws. It seemed like the majority of users in the thread were in favor of the federal government mandating technology changes to prevent harm from being done to the population. Now for this issue, there's harm being done to children, and the majority of users in the thread seem to be against government int…

Well, circular saws can maim and rip off human body parts within a fraction of a second, and children can't use them ?

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

#995

Post by limbojunkie » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 3:24 PM UTC

The internet in general should return back to the old days when only somewhat educated and skilled people use it. Since it became mainstream because of smartphones things went downhill.

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

#996

Post by nmz » Sat, Apr 13, 2024, 10:30 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…

FB, IG, Tiktok etc are platforms/publishers, they're not individuals, free speech has nothing to do with them.

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

#997

Post by muddi900 » Sun, Apr 14, 2024, 5:06 AM UTC

Jonathan Haidt is the 21st century Paul Ehlric.

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

#998

Post by ashyaspen » Mon, Apr 15, 2024, 9:45 AM UTC

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #270

hackerlight wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them. Relevant bit from the essay: "But much of my book is about the collective action traps that entire communities of adolescents fall into when they move their social lives onto these platforms, such that it becomes costly to abstain. It is at that point that collective mental health declines most sharply, and the individuals who try to…

They meet their society in meat at school every day, how is that isolation? Also ban smartphones at school.

They use their phones when they are with each other, isolating themselves even when they are together.

Banning is exactly the argument against this. They are saying we should do that to protect the mental health of teenagers.

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

#999

Post by ashyaspen » Mon, Apr 15, 2024, 9:48 AM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #239

lvoudour wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An excellent point. Abstention = social isolation, which for young people is far worse than exposure. Restricting your children's access is not an option (lets' be real, they'll find a way to circumvent your efforts anyway) and moving the burden of restriction from society to individuals is not fair. So as a society do we let unrestrained exposure or do we take collective action? I lean on the second option, but I'm…

> Abstention = social isolation, which for young people is far worse than exposure. Restricting your children's access is not an option... "Everybody else is doing it" has never been, and still is not, a valid reason for anything. If other parents choose to let their kids ingest mental poison, that does not mean that one should allow their children to do the same. Abstention is not only an option, it is something whi…

It absolutely is a reason. Everyone else is doing it, meaning if you don't you feel isolated.

So, either you participate and feel isolated through your social connections by social media, or you don't participate and feel even more isolated because you don't have social connections.

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

#1000

Post by v-erne » Mon, Apr 15, 2024, 11:02 AM UTC

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…

I partially understand sporting events if people does not know each other, but birthdays? Which country is this and what kind of people do you meet in this events? I ask because here in Poland behaving like this still would be seen as major insult and such people would be marked as outsiders. And this label comes with social stigma that can be transferred to child (you can forget about ever being invited to other people homes for children meetups).