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The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

thewalrus.ca

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Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#81

Post by fixedpointsnake »

herval wrote: post #50
oliv__ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is definitely related to self-worth, because the contract you make is not with another person, it's with yourself. And when you respect it, it increases your self respect and worth.

I don't see how that's the case at all. A sense of obligation (how much you value someone else) has nothing to do with self worth (how much you value yourself). If this was the case at all, a great treatment for low self esteem would be to commit to stuff for others, since that'd automatically make you valuate your own self more

>If this was the case at all, a great treatment for low self esteem would be to commit to stuff for others, since that'd automatically make you valuate your own self more

How do you know this is not true?

If your sense of obligation is seen as a value function for people, it follows that your self-worth is the value when you plug-in "self". Helping others and volunteering is indeed something that brings satisfaction and could help heal your sense of self-worth. If you value another person higher than yourself, by helping them you would establish a connection between their worth and your own. You potentially went from lacking any evidence of positive self-worth to having concrete first-hand evidence that you are worth something to someone.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#82

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

delusional wrote: post #10
skissane wrote: post #4

The other day I was talking to a psychologist about [difficult personal situation which I am unable to discuss publicly] and she said to me “This must be really damaging to your self-worth.” And, my honest internal reaction to her statement (although I didn’t say it out loud to her) was “Self-worth, what is that?” Because I’m not sure if I have any? I don’t mean that in the negative sense that I think I am worthless…

That sounds like a question for your psychologist, not randoms on the internet. To interact a little more with the substance. I don't think I understand what you're saying. You're clearly using the concept when you write >I don’t mean that in the negative sense that I think I am worthless or anything That's what negative self-worth is. You seem to understand it fine. self-worth is your subjective assessment of how mu…

You missed the distinction between "I don't feel I have any worth" and "I don't see the world in terms of quantifying worth."

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#83

Post by s1artibartfast »

wpietri wrote: post #70
d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only depends heavily on the up vote if you depend on the up vote. Sometimes it's nice just to formulate thoughts in writing. If others see it, great. If not, no big deal.

Because upvotes control visibility, you are still describing a reward function that depends on the upvote.

I think they explicitly said the opposite. That the writing is their reward, and comments are always visible to the author. Visibility to other humans is incidental, or at least a secondary concern.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#85

Post by stonethrowaway »

I haven’t read the article yet but I’m hoping to read one that attempts to elucidate a possible connection between the plummeting of self-worth of women (and the whiplash effect of their behaviour thereafter) and their exposure to social media that shows them every day, and I’ll put this in a shrewd way, the lives of other women that they will never have. A non-stop daily mental torture session for a good deal of the human race. I want to read such an article because I want someone, and someone with writing flair at that, to go for the jugular of the sick and twisted human nature that we pretend does not exist.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#86

Post by detourdog »

maroonblazer wrote: post #58
daymanstep wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that "people" tend to be attracted towards things that they think will increase their self worth and avoid things that decreases their self worth. Though from a stoic perspective the only thing that can affect your self worth are your own actions, not external events which you have no control over.

And of course from a Buddhist perspective the self is an illusion, making all this 'self-worth' chasing akin to tilting at windmills.

I don’t think the notion of self-worth is rejected by Buddha. I think the expectation of achieving it through actions is rejected. The expected results are the problem not self-worth or actions.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#87

Post by herval »

fixedpointsnake wrote: post #81
herval wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that's the case at all. A sense of obligation (how much you value someone else) has nothing to do with self worth (how much you value yourself). If this was the case at all, a great treatment for low self esteem would be to commit to stuff for others, since that'd automatically make you valuate your own self more

>If this was the case at all, a great treatment for low self esteem would be to commit to stuff for others, since that'd automatically make you valuate your own self more How do you know this is not true? If your sense of obligation is seen as a value function for people, it follows that your self-worth is the value when you plug-in "self". Helping others and volunteering is indeed something that brings satisfaction…

> How do you know this is not true?

years of therapy :-)

the opposite is also demonstrably false - there's people with huge self-esteem who are known for their complete disdain for others or their opinions.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#88

Post by detourdog »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #18
daymanstep wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is that "people" tend to be attracted towards things that they think will increase their self worth and avoid things that decreases their self worth. Though from a stoic perspective the only thing that can affect your self worth are your own actions, not external events which you have no control over.

I think most people use other people as a kind of mirror, to try to see who they are and how they fit. (Autists may do it less than others, or even none at all.) If everybody thinks well of me, then I should probably think well of myself. If everyone thinks badly of me, then I'm probably not worth very much. So goes the logic. So social media is tearing up peoples' self image, not just because of put-downs and delibe…

I think social media broke my partner’s self-worth. I’m not on social media beyond HN and found no way to communicate with someone so engaged in remote relationships.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#89

Post by tgdude »

card_zero wrote: post #28
graeme wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way of looking at it is how you assess yourself in things and take pride in or feel regret about that. For example, you wrote this comment. It is a well written comment. You likely have some belief roughly along the lines of "I write reasonably well". You have probably received feedback along those lines throughout life, and that reinforces that belief. This is perhaps mildly pleasing or at least seems correct. N…

This begs the question because it starts with "how you assess yourself". Why assess yourself, the self, the whole person, at all? So, you're not good at writing. Perhaps you're not good at anything. In that case, you probably shouldn't attempt things except as practice. But why give yourself an overall score as a person, what are you even supposed to do with that information? You can't be anybody else, so it's useles…

My theory based on nothing but internal reflections

A lot of people's minds are raised from a young age to make judgements and comparisons with others. Their minds are told that one must be useful to be valuable, and that simply _being_ isn't enough.

Over time those bad habits of the mind are so ingrained and automatic that we assume them to be part of "me". "My" thoughts, "my" ideas and so we don't question their assumptions or where they came from.

It takes conscious effort to be able to change those habits into something more positive, or to be able to center your mind to a point where those habits seen as just other thoughts and don't have the same "weight" behind them.

We're an ever changing process and being able to judge and adjust is a useful skill. It's just that doing that doesn't require all of the crap we put ourselves through due to unchecked assumptions.

Re: The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

#90

Post by wpietri »

detourdog wrote: post #80
wpietri wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two ways you can look at it. One is what I think of as the neurotypical way. They spend a lot of energy on social modeling, on fitting people into hierarchies of privilege. (E.g., "respecting your elders", older sibling vs younger, teachers vs students, the popular kids, and so many other things.) Then in the same way they're judging the worth of others, they fit themselves into the same primate sta…

I take comfort in seeing my experience described by others. I’m waiting on a neurological evaluation to see where on a spectrum I exist. I have been evaluated for a personality disorder of which none was found.

Hey, I'm glad to hear that. Some years back I came across a great online test, one created by autistic people. I can't find it now, but I strongly remember the graph, which showed a bimodal distribution and marked my place on it. [1] In the years following it was such a help, in that I could without judgement see how I and others related. It let me stop worrying so much about trying to be "right" and focus on being right for me.

As long as I'm mentioning things that helped, I'll recommend this online alexithymia test: https://www.alexithymia.us/test-alexithymia

It looks at ability to perceive one's own feelings. Once I realized that I was relatively bad at it, it was such a relief. And in the years since I've gotten a lot better, because I knew I needed to work harder at it than the average person.

[1] If that rings a bell for anybody, I'd love to know!

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