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Study: emotional support from social media found to reduce anxiety

news.uark.edu

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Re: Study: emotional support from social media found to reduce anxiety

#13

Post by stopwatch4619 »

Etheryte wrote: post #5
alistairSH wrote: post #4

Anxiety is the second leading cause of disability and mortality worldwide. Uh, what? That's a patently ridiculous assertion to lead with (and not support).

If you take anxiety to include everything from stress to a bunch of disorders, I'd believe it. Our bodies were not made to handle the permanent stress we see in modern life. The first place I imagine goes to cardiovascular issues?

may be true in some specific cases, but put like this it's just vague and impossible to verify

Re: Study: emotional support from social media found to reduce anxiety

#15

Post by zxcvasd »

starkeeper wrote: post #12

Yep, when I see those 12 ads in 5 minutes of browsing it sure lowers my anxiety! When I comment on something disturbing that I don't think I want to see again they think I love it and give me more. This is great for my emitional well being too!!!

[dead]

Re: Study: emotional support from social media found to reduce anxiety

#17

Post by esseph »

alistairSH wrote: post #4

Anxiety is the second leading cause of disability and mortality worldwide. Uh, what? That's a patently ridiculous assertion to lead with (and not support).

I can find data supporting the disability claim, but not precisely the death claim - however that depends on how you classify heart attacks and strokes.

Re: Study: emotional support from social media found to reduce anxiety

#19

Post by mjburgess »

I think there's a non-trivial probability that concern over social media is a moral panic, and it's being used as a scapegoat for larger social forces. I wonder if much of what it does is surface our neuroses and issues into public, and thus here we are only shooting the messenger.

This may prove out if after 5yr+ of it being banned or limited, nothing changes in the youth (et al.) -- that would be my prediction.

I think there are deeper long term trends causing psychological problems in the west: move away from physical to cognitive labour; increasing community isolation and lack of social institutions; various failures of the state; lack of meaningful wage growth in key brackets, and failure of the "aspiration engine" to create opportunities; lack of time for parenting, moving to dual working-parent households; helicopter parenting caused by breakdown of social trust; lack of infrastructure and provision of environments where children can be known safe in public. etc. etc.

The major forces here are: move to a services economy; dual parent working households; lack of social services in state provision; state infrastructure moving away from providing for the young to paying for the old. This means much of how children grow up in the world is unphysical, disconnected, time-poor, risk adverse, overly demanding, etc.

Re: Study: emotional support from social media found to reduce anxiety

#20

Post by sheepscreek »

Haven’t read the article (wouldn’t load for me) but what type of content you watch makes a difference too. I watch funny cats and dogs videos with my daughter all the time and they 100% make us feel better. But finding those said videos on social media is a “process” - it’s like going through a pile of rotting fruits to find something to feed your kid.

I can give an hour long monologue on YouTube’s continued exploitation of children. Their half assed attempts to fix this (by some well intentioned Googler’s, who I’m sure must have had a lot of pushback) aren’t enough. Just try unblocking a channel for your kid’s account (you can’t - the only option is to unblock EVERYTHING).

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