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The Collapse of Self-Worth in the Digital Age

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

#101

Post by passion__desire »

chuckadams wrote: post #95
passion__desire wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If causality holds, acting externally will have changes to internal assessments assuming good faith dialogue. Plus Marcus Aurelius was helpless in that it would take him lot of time and energy to give personal attention to each individual and clarify their doubts. He didn't have the technology to record his thoughts on a topic and refer people to it.

> He didn't have the technology to record his thoughts on a topic and refer people to it. He did and we’re still reading them to this day.

I could be wrong in this. But wasn't his writings only for himself and was published only later. How many people really referred to his writings? When was printing press invented? How popular was it compared to Bible? Was it possible for people to consume his writings in multimedia formats like video, audio? Were there meme-pages on tiktoks which contextualized his writings in different day-to-day scenarios so that the importance of his general ideas were imprinted on their minds? Did he have debate with others to defend his ideas watched by many, how would he respond to those counter-arguments? Would your mind change considering if his responses weren't that strong or on filmsy grounds?

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

#102

Post by fixedpointsnake »

herval wrote: post #87
fixedpointsnake wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I can see that. And your counterexample is also pretty apt.

I guess universally it may not be true, but I suspect for some it very well could be. Just depends on the value function you ascribe to (knowingly or unknowingly).

It should also be said that this topic is more complex than these simple models. I've heard it described that Narcissists essentially refute the evidence rather than allow it to poke a hole in their bubble of self-worth; All of that to say, there are many moving pieces beyond just how you value things that add up to your self-worth.

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

#103

Post by ryukoposting »

73kl4453dz wrote: post #25

I guess i am orthogonal to this article because: (A) i don't visit sites that have "Followers" which i can probably afford to do because: (B) unlike writing or waitservice, where one's market is huge numbers of people who each are only willing to pay a little, my skills interest few, but those few are willing to pay a lot.

> my skills interest few, but those few are willing to pay a lot.

We share this privilege. My wife doesn't, though, and she and I have fundamentally different interactions with social media.

For her, it's a necessary evil to some extent - the nature of her profession demands that she's tuned into hot trends. That's a visible connection between her profession and her social media relationships. The invisible connections are much harder to identify, and you bring up an interesting point. I can't conceive of a company looking up your instagram account just to see how many followers you have, but maybe that's a thing. I wouldn't know.

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

#104

Post by detourdog »

didgetmaster wrote: post #44

Every user on HN has a score (up votes vs down votes) based on reactions to comments and submissions. How many of us will not be our authentic selves in a comment because of fear of how others might react? I know that I have done this.

How one views karma is funny. I take comfort in my aggregate score due to implied comradely. I noticed down votes happen no matter what is stated.

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

#105

Post by herval »

harimau777 wrote: post #92
herval wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

schools imprison kids now? really?

Kids can't just leave schools in the middle of the day, so basically yes.

You can’t leave your job in the middle of the day, so basically you’re a felon too?

This kind of meme nonsense belongs to reddit, not here

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

#106

Post by tejohnso »

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…

I was confused by this part of the article: For Marx, the poet of economics, when a person’s innate value is replaced with exchange value, it is as if we’ve been reduced to “a mere jelly.”

What's wrong with basing your worth on something like value provided professionally plus value provided personally, to myself and others?

Are we supposed to think that we are valuable (worth something) just because we exist?

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

#107

Post by 23B1 »

zztop44 wrote: post #22
23B1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens everywhere in marketing, at all levels. Strippers, movie stars, ballet dancers. Anyone whose job it is to reach eyeballs and build a 'brand'. It is nigh on impossible to get a literary manager these days unless you have a sizable social media following, for example. It's absolute brain rot.

But that simply follows on from a shift in consumer behaviour. It’s nigh impossible to sell literary prose at any significant volume unless you have a sizeable social media following. The only exceptions are people who have a sizeable traditional media following and a specific personal reason for not being on social media.

"that simply follows on from a shift in consumer behaviour" feels hand-washy.

chicken/egg of course, but the question people – especially technologists – should be asking is: is that really helping society progress? I would argue, like this article does, that it isn't and is indeed harming society by atomizing and attempting to quantify behavior in the name of 'choice' which of course is a non-sequitur. The commercial engines should be in service of humanity and enrichment, not the other way around. A brilliant writer isn't a social media maven, nor should they be.

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

#108

Post by lordleft »

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…

I am a Christian. Something I have found within my faith tradition (and something I find is lacking in the culture around me) is a sense that I am in possession of an infinitely durable source of dignity and worthiness that is not tethered to who I am or what I have done. I have found this conceit enormously consoling.

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

#109

Post by AmericanChopper »

nahimn wrote: post #8

Call me unempathetic, but how would this be any different in a non-digital era? You’ll still have a market (albeit significantly smaller, IE: lets say a small locale or village). But you could have easily said the same thing in a non-digital age, with just more rudimentary metrics and a market that is a community that either values or doesn’t value your work. Much like the proverbial school playground (which could al…

If you can convince yourself that your problems are caused by modern novelties, then you don’t need to address the tricky problem of what’s actually causing them (it’s probably yourself). Any sort of scapegoating like this is going to have a lot of popular appeal.

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

#110

Post by s1artibartfast »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #99
BelleOfTheBall wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology amplifies this, greatly. In a non-digital era our field of view was narrow, expanding either to our immediate physical surroundings or, when we went beyond them, limited by what we could read in a newspaper or see on TV. When I was little, I didn't know who was the most skilled person at my hobby or how popular it was or whether beautiful people online also happened to excel at it, while my teenage hormone…

How did the child of a random peasant family 300 years ago 'formulate self-worth'? I don't see how digital technology diminishes that in relative comparison.

A random child peasant might be the best at sewing, strongest, wisest, or most handy in their village of 40.

When compared with a pool of 40 million, that doesn't seem like much to be proud of.

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