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Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

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Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#41
It's like imagine there's this force of nature that grants people astounding insight on all knowledge of the universe but causes the suicide rate to skyrocket because nobody is meant to handle that much information at once.

But when asked what people do about their innate insight they can only respond "Oh, I can only manage my finances telepathically and none of my friends have time to speak mouth to mouth anymore, their mental energy is always focused on something now."

And when asked about alternatives, "Oh, we can't just make it go away. We were born with it from the start and everyone relies on it to stay connected. And my children are given assignments where they exercise their PSI so they're obligated to use it. Then they spend a lot of time playing mind games after school with their friends. It will probably never go away, and I accept that."

I'm starting to think that successive generations will both live and die by advancing technology. It's a runaway force that no single organization is in control of, and that we cannot study the long-term effects of until everyone relies on it daily.

And just think about how many tech dependencies we don't have yet but are itching to give ourselves. A generation from now this could repeat itself when people generally consider LLMs useful enough to integrate into every fridge and ATM. Who will make that decision? It seems like when a few people make that decision for others, an acceptance loop begins where the tech is normalized over years until we stop asking ourselves how we got here at all. It no longer makes sense to wake up and see that you don't have a smartphone sitting on your nightstand anymore.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#42

> [...] Gen Z cannot go online or be a part of a social setting without being exposed to the sheer amount of horrors happening around the globe. You can’t turn on the television without being shown the terrors of school shootings, the sorrow in the faces of refugees as they flee their county’s with nowhere to go, and all of this happening while our political structure crumbles. Susan Sontag wrote about this in "Regar…

> It is not something one can run from and everyone will eventually be exposed to it. Oh you can. Just don't visit news sites or watch news TV channels. Paper news papers are way better and don't shove stuff down your throat the same way as rage baiting "this just in" news outlets -- who talks for a day about vague rumors. I think people zoning out from the spam one thing news cycle is the reason The Man decided to s…

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Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#43

It's like imagine there's this force of nature that grants people astounding insight on all knowledge of the universe but causes the suicide rate to skyrocket because nobody is meant to handle that much information at once. But when asked what people do about their innate insight they can only respond "Oh, I can only manage my finances telepathically and none of my friends have time to speak mouth to mouth anymore, t…

[deleted]

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#44

> [...] Gen Z cannot go online or be a part of a social setting without being exposed to the sheer amount of horrors happening around the globe. You can’t turn on the television without being shown the terrors of school shootings, the sorrow in the faces of refugees as they flee their county’s with nowhere to go, and all of this happening while our political structure crumbles. Susan Sontag wrote about this in "Regar…

The problem is not the suffering, the problem is hopelessness in the face of suffering. If people are comforted when they are suffering, or if we can end suffering, where is the problem with the suffering and horror of the world? But… We see the suffering in our cities, poverty, homelessness, drug abuse, but nothing is done. We see endless wars, propagated by the United States around the world, but nothing is done. W…

> I think we’ve slowly been conditioned that there is someone else that’s supposed to do something, either a politician, or an organization, or or some administrator somewhere, so we just sit back and watch and watch and watch.

I am under the very strong impression that "democracy" is what fixes such things, I've seen many charts and discussions asserting that claim.

Personally, I consider democracy to be mostly an obvious illusion/trick, so those who have fallen for it are kind of getting what they deserve for not listening to (if not outright mocking) warnings.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is important. Life is not a contest of who suffers the most, but suffering brings us together. There also isn't a scarcity of suffering in the world, so we don't have to go looking for it. On the contrary, we as a society are failing to reduce the suffering of others. Maybe because we can't reconnect with people? They are just numbers and dates in political history? In any case, welcoming pain as immanent in lif…

But I’m sure you want to help the person who is suffering more before you help the person who is suffering less yes? The idea that “suffering is suffering” is almost sociopathic.

> The idea that “suffering is suffering” is almost sociopathic.

I'm somewhat troubled by this line of thinking. Some people suffer due to war, climate change, hunger and so on, and others because their mother passed away peacefully at age 90. These are absolutely not the same and saying suffering is suffering greatly devalues the (somewhat preventable) suffering caused by unmet material needs, political actions and the like.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not something one can run from and everyone will eventually be exposed to it. Oh you can. Just don't visit news sites or watch news TV channels. Paper news papers are way better and don't shove stuff down your throat the same way as rage baiting "this just in" news outlets -- who talks for a day about vague rumors. I think people zoning out from the spam one thing news cycle is the reason The Man decided to s…

You’re not supposed to run from it, you’re supposed to help. Only a sociopath would turn away from suffering and not try to help.

That is not my point. I am all for helping those in need. The main problem with trying to help is that "trying to help" and "doing something" way to often is used as an excuse to drop bombs over people. Trying to help should be boring and long term and is not what is propagated in the spam news cycle nowadays.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ye well I didn't mean running away from eventually knowing something, but rather running away from the nagging propaganda spam.

Yes... This really is a problem. Coupled with the fact that big social networks are designed to maximize engagement, they work in a way that depending on how you interact with it you get fed only the worst most horrifying news articles. I see that with my parents. Talking to them and seeing their feeds it looks like the world is ending before we had time to prepare for dinner today.

My mother had her Iphone with all default app notifications enabled. It was a nightmare. I disabled them all except Whatsapp and Messenger at some point. But I imagine that is how most people phones look like?

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is not something one can run from and everyone will eventually be exposed to it. Oh you can. Just don't visit news sites or watch news TV channels. Paper news papers are way better and don't shove stuff down your throat the same way as rage baiting "this just in" news outlets -- who talks for a day about vague rumors. I think people zoning out from the spam one thing news cycle is the reason The Man decided to s…

Or you just dehumanize those suffering.

... it is an easy road to go down on. In politics you can notice politicians start blaming the voters for not voting in a way that they can get a majority but have to cooperate with other parties.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#49
post #24

[flagged]

The algorithm is forcing them. Stop beeing so naive. Even if you don't like or follow any of the controversial stuff, that stuff is constantly recommended "for you" by the algorithm.

I wrote forcing them /to be on/ Instagram. No algorithm is forcing the installation of the app or making their browser go to instagram.com. With that, I indirectly wanted to acknowledge it's better not to play, because of the algorithms.

Re: Memes and mental health: How teens are coping with increasing stress

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the long run I believe it's a good thing. I just hope the take on it will be to understand the watcher is also suffering a lot, and the people you hate as well. Life is full of of suffering, for every body. Yes, even the person you are thinking about right now. And sure, we can always rank suffering by taking examples and saying a raped tortured 6 years old suffers more than your average tech billionaire. But the…

And also be more kind, tolerant, wish others, and oneself. I agree that this is the ideal response, but unfortunately this hasn't been the general result and I doubt it ever will be. When an animal learns (or is tricked) that its environment is more harsh and dangerous than it previously believed, its instinctive reaction is to become less trusting, less curious, more withdrawn, and very often more prone to anger and…

> I agree that this is the ideal response, but unfortunately this hasn't been the general result

I think rates of poverty, starvation, rape, murder, etc. all disagree with you here.

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