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Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?

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31–40 of 77 posts

Re: Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?

#31

No. In terms of pure Maslow, the tendency of modernity to destroy the transcendency of life, leaving the moral vacuum we see, is the central issue. Settle down; marry; enjoy parenthood; participate in a community of faith; ignore the haters and their ersatz noise.

What's a community of faith?

Re: Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?

#32
post #12

The answer seems to be yes, all the way through to a dose-dependent response [1]. I'm cautious to label people as evil. But Adam Mosseri working to addict younger and younger children to the dopamine hit of ad-driven social media challenges me on that restraint. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6278213/

C-level execs of SM companies heavily limit access to these services for their own children. They know much better than the general public knows by publicly available research. To them it's a cash cow, and who has the minds of the kids has the future. TikTok ans SnapChat specifically entered the market by attracting attention of ever younger users.

> execs of SM companies heavily limit access to these services for their own children.

Well, any responsible parent should do that actually...

Re: Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?

#33

No. In terms of pure Maslow, the tendency of modernity to destroy the transcendency of life, leaving the moral vacuum we see, is the central issue. Settle down; marry; enjoy parenthood; participate in a community of faith; ignore the haters and their ersatz noise.

This comment reeks of right-wing pseudo-intellectualism, from the likes of Jordan Peterson.

Marriage, religion and parenthood are not answers to teenagers social media addiction.

Re: Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?

#34
post #32
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C-level execs of SM companies heavily limit access to these services for their own children. They know much better than the general public knows by publicly available research. To them it's a cash cow, and who has the minds of the kids has the future. TikTok ans SnapChat specifically entered the market by attracting attention of ever younger users.

> execs of SM companies heavily limit access to these services for their own children. Well, any responsible parent should do that actually...

Parent trying to limit addiction vs. addiction-focused megacorp, and the irresponsible one is the parent who inevitably loses?

Re: Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?

#35
post #28

Suicide is the extreme tip of the iceberg, and thankfully still rare. But the rest of the iceberg, comprising teens suffering mental health and body image issues - not to the point of suicide, but still serious - is staggering. Teens are self-medicating and sorting themselves into echo chambers that reinforce their negative feelings, entering an illness-to-identity pipeline, where they cannot see any other way of bei…

This may be an unpopular opinion but I believe the constant focus on what we call mental health and body image issues is making the problem worse. I know those words are supposed to alleviate stigma and normalize, but if you're telling kids going through regular adolescent issues that they have mental health or body image issues, you're not helping them. And naval gazing is going to make things worse.

Maybe I'm a product of the 90s, but every issue me and my peers faced was waved off as teenage angst that I'll grow out of. I didn't have "anxiety", I was being a wuss. And they were right.

If someone told me I had mental health issues and made me focus and resolve those, through therapy or meds, I would have been much worse off. Brushing it off leaves some small percentage of teens worse off, but I would think the overwhelming majority would be better off not focusing on it. This doesn't even include things like "generational trauma" that people dump on kids.

Whatever you think about today's society, I think it's safe to say that across the board we have a lot more inward facing reflection on things like mental health, especially for children. And what do we have to show for it? Are they better off? Across the board, even kids who aren't as connected to social media are worse off. Which tells me this focus is net negative

Re: Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?

#36

The answer seems to be yes, all the way through to a dose-dependent response [1]. I'm cautious to label people as evil. But Adam Mosseri working to addict younger and younger children to the dopamine hit of ad-driven social media challenges me on that restraint. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6278213/

Well if you're giving sources it would be interesting to see the source on Adam Mosseri.

Re: Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?

#37
post #21
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That book is a fiction. We really really should stop using events in a work of fiction as arguments about real world.

Have you read 1984? It's quite useful for discussing the state of the real world.

"Brave New World" is what happened, while we all feared "1984".

Re: Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?

#38

When I was in college, we studied and analyzed the case of Megan Meier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Megan_Meier It was tragic how she was bullied and felt compelled to suicide in a method that's often invisible to parents and other responsible adults. Even more appalling, in Megan's case, is that a supposedly responsible mother posed as an underage boy in order to bully her, and wound up in federal court…

How disgustingly pathetic that a grown woman felt the need to harass a 13 year old.

Social media promotes immature behavior, over and over again.

Re: Has Social Media Fuelled a Teen-Suicide Crisis?

#40
post #3
post #2

Ever read, 'Lord of the flies', written ages ago - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies Now with social media we have all manner of bullying, both from the local peer group as well as any good/bad/perverted person who can type, ' yes, I am a 13 year old girl, just like you' Those who weather this are scarred by it, but those who do not are often crushed by it, badly scarred, even prompted to death. It woul…

Counterpoint: How much of these novels are imaginative paranoia driven by cynical consumers? The closest similar incident - the Tongan castaways (granted they were aged 13 - 19 instead of 6 - 12) had the boys create a more or less exemplary society. They worked in teams, hunted and fish, created instruments to sing songs - no where even close to what happened in the novel.

For others who hadn't heard of the Tongan Castaways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongan_castaways - I need to find 10 mins today to watch the documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHO_RlJxnVI
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