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Study: emotional support from social media found to reduce anxiety

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

#21

Post by coderintherye »

I took my own break from social media a couple months ago due to anxiety and made a side project BebopLoop [1] in order to try out having positive supportive social media. As a human you can post messages that are just private to you and then there are agents who check out your posts and reply to them as well as to each other's posts. I found it to be emotionally supportive.

[1] Beboploop.com if you want to try it out, invite codes below:

LJC37CPD89

SP8CMRQJQA

VUEOSASRHR

2FSCBYX4NE

FBBIQMYRCX

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

#22

Post by regenschutz »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #3

In men? The study claims half the participants were guys age 18-30.

No, in both genders. You have to click on the link to the paper [0]:

>Gender was approximately equal, with 50.8% being female.

If anything, the data is more accurate for females, since there are 1.6pp more females.

[0]: https://www.mdpi.com/3679792

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

#24

Post by regenschutz »

coderintherye wrote: post #21

I took my own break from social media a couple months ago due to anxiety and made a side project BebopLoop [1] in order to try out having positive supportive social media. As a human you can post messages that are just private to you and then there are agents who check out your posts and reply to them as well as to each other's posts. I found it to be emotionally supportive. [1] Beboploop.com if you want to try it ou…

So this is like a more closed-down and friendlier version of moltbook?

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

#26

Post by everdrive »

mjburgess wrote: post #19

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 t…

>dual parent working households; lack of social services in state provision;

These two feel interrelated :)

> 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.

Do you know if there are countries where the causes you laid out are not the case? (given demographics, I'm not sure if there are too many strict counter examples)

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

#27

Post by munchler »

> Anxiety is the second leading cause of disability and mortality worldwide.

I think this comes from WHO, but isn't consistent with other information from WHO, so it's pretty debatable.

I believe the source is this[0], which says "Mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression are highly prevalent in all countries and communities, affecting people of all ages and income levels. They represent the second biggest reason for long-term disability, contributing to loss of healthy life."

However, elsewhere on their site[1], WHO lists the top 3 global causes of death and disability in 2021 as heart disease, COVID-19, and stroke.

[0] https://www.who.int/news/item/02-09-2025-over-a-billion-peop...

[1] https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/theme-details/GHO/m...

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

#29

Post by whiplash451 »

mjburgess wrote: post #19

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 t…

> if after 5yr+ of it being banned or limited

We gave social media 20 years to impact the world, why give it only 5 for a rollback? It feels like long term effects would take much longer to surface.

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

#30

Post by dmje »

mjburgess wrote: post #19

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 t…

Here's my take: the bigger picture is one of "lessening humanity" - and it's death by a million paper cuts. Social media is one of the bigger cuts, but it's an awful lot of other things as well.

Being on screens all the time - especially when out and about (and whether it's social media or maps, it doesn't really matter) - means less casual conversation, less "hello, how you doing", less banter, less touch points with real people. It means toddlers look up out of their prams and can't meet their parents' eyes, it means you don't smile at strangers, or exchange a common glance about something trivial. It means kids don't get to sit in pubs with their parents and have to "do adult conversation". It means if you're in a situation as a teen and you're uncomfortable, you just reach for your phone instead of reaching out to the next awkward teen, who might just end up being your lifetime friend.

And then beyond that there are infinitely many takes-away-the-humanity cuts. Even something like this: once upon in our country you could buy a parking ticket for a space in a car park, then what typically happened when you got back to your car with time to spare is you then pulled up next to someone and offered them your ticket for free. This shit doesn't happen now - spaces are tied to number plates (because: profit), and so another little touchpoint with other humans is eroded.

Getting hold of many of the companies you use is becoming harder, through profit motives / AI chat / whatever - high street banks disappear, and immediately there's a whole source of contact that disappears.

We got a deal on our post-wedding train journey 25 years ago because we did it face to face with a guy in the station, and when we got chatting about the occasion and he discovered it was our wedding, he upped our ticket to 1st class. No such luck now, when you order all your tickets online, and the customer support is outsourced to somewhere a thousand miles away.

Real people are for the most part lovely people, and their motives are 95% aligned with each other - love your family, help people, be generous, be kind - but the more time we spend slipping behind digital facades, being taken away from human contact through these many papercuts, the worse things are likely to get. IMO.

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