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With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

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Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#411

Post by dmd »

jraby3 wrote: post #318
lsc wrote: post #67

Tuesday, this was the theme at my toastmaster's debate club[1] - I got stuck arguing that social media doesn't make you depressed. And... my problem with my argument wasn't that it was untrue, but that it was kinda mean. I don't feel jealous of the lives of almost anyone I went to high school with; quite the opposite. A lot of them post "racist memes with spelling mistakes" - which is sad on many levels; If nothing e…

I'm not on social media aside from Reddit. But what I notice with my wife and others is a simple reason why I dislike it. If you have 400 friends, and they each only take one vacation a year, that means 8x per week, you're looking at other people taking a vacation. Even if you travel 4x per year, you'll still feel like you never do anything and everyone else is always celebrating their life. I realize this is a simpl…

> If you have 400 friends

Wait. Stop. What? I have 82 friends on Facebook. Probably half of those I could easily drop. I'm completely baffled where anyone would find 400.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#412

Post by zbentley »

gkya wrote: post #386
spuz wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a fallacy, it's just a question.

That is a fallacy, whether worded as a rhetorical question or explicitly as "faulty generalisation" or "fallacy of defective induction". The fact is that the subjective observation is generalised without any buttressing evidence whatsoever. "That's not my experience, so that's doubtful."

It absolutely is not a fallacy, nor is it an inherently rhetorical question. Inquiring as to whether others share your experience isn't illogical; it's the root of most human learning and understanding thus far, and I suspect it precedes most other methods of claim-buttressing. And, to be pedantic, the fallacies you mentioned are specifically in terms of drawing conclusions from that faulty logic; not asking questions.

Also, faulty evidence for a claim is not the same as false evidence for a claim. If I have zero other information besides "other humans exist and act similar to me", and "that object is grey", I can infer that it is more likely than not that other humans see the object as grey. This is faulty in that it is subjective and not rigorous (I could be colorblind), but it is not inherently wrong or invalid reasoning. This is a common annoyance of mine when the terms "fallacy" or "faulty logic" are bandied about: the presence of insufficient logic is only problematic when an insufficiently-premised claim is evaluated against a more-sufficiently-premised claim without considering the differences in the quality of the evidence/premises.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#413

Post by Momquist »

abusoufiyan wrote: post #343
Momquist wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your example is extremely odd and disturbing. Facing other mindsets and cultures at a young age as a reason, or at least contributing, to depression? That's really a stretch. Are children also at risk when meeting with other kids of different religions? It could shake their own faith too, by the same logic.

Facing other mindsets and cultures is wholly different in real life versus solely online. Why do you think racism / anti-Semitism / anti-Muslim sentiment is so prominent online and so much less prominent in real life? Why does so much research show that actual, in-person interactions with people of other backgrounds reduces the strength of racist stereotypes in people's minds?

> Why do you think racism / anti-Semitism / anti-Muslim sentiment is so prominent online and so much less prominent in real life?

Mainly because speech isn't regulated online, and there's little to no repercussions when going beyond what's acceptable in "real life". Online discourse has become a way to show what's behind the facade that many feel forced to adopt when talking face to face. Basically there's less hypocrisy online, at least for a vocal minority, for good or bad.

> Why does so much research show that actual, in-person interactions with people of other backgrounds reduces the strength of racist stereotypes in people's minds?

That's the Intergroup Contact Theory. But I still don't see why it's useful to explain an increase in depression in young people. The primary "tribe" of a kid is close family, anyone else beyond is an outsider: they have different values and perspectives; even your neighbour may be of a different religion, another race, another economical class, etc... Meeting this otherness is simply life and unavoidable. Online social life just displays this otherness in a harsher light, the extremes are more apparent.

Or are you proposing that we should lock up kids in their house for fear of their minds not being able to cope with what's outside? I'd argue that this overprotective mindset might actually be one of the reasons kids are more prone to depression these days, similar to how allergies are more prominent because we are less exposed to normal pathogens in early childhood. Kids falling back on online activities may be merely a side-effect of this, not the real cause of their anxiety/depression.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#414

Post by gkya »

zbentley wrote: post #412
gkya wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a fallacy, whether worded as a rhetorical question or explicitly as "faulty generalisation" or "fallacy of defective induction". The fact is that the subjective observation is generalised without any buttressing evidence whatsoever. "That's not my experience, so that's doubtful."

It absolutely is not a fallacy, nor is it an inherently rhetorical question. Inquiring as to whether others share your experience isn't illogical; it's the root of most human learning and understanding thus far, and I suspect it precedes most other methods of claim-buttressing. And, to be pedantic, the fallacies you mentioned are specifically in terms of drawing conclusions from that faulty logic; not asking question…

I have interpreted the comment in question---which BTW I don't really recall ATM--as drawing conclusions, not as asking questions. That's why I thought is fallacious. I may well be mistaken in that, so sorry if that's the case.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#415

Post by novaleaf »

dmd wrote: post #411
jraby3 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not on social media aside from Reddit. But what I notice with my wife and others is a simple reason why I dislike it. If you have 400 friends, and they each only take one vacation a year, that means 8x per week, you're looking at other people taking a vacation. Even if you travel 4x per year, you'll still feel like you never do anything and everyone else is always celebrating their life. I realize this is a simpl…

> If you have 400 friends Wait. Stop. What? I have 82 friends on Facebook. Probably half of those I could easily drop. I'm completely baffled where anyone would find 400.

still, 40 friends would work out to a little less than 1 vacation/week. I think his general point still stands.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#416

Post by tboyd47 »

mykull wrote: post #407
tboyd47 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the nerdy kids, though. It's all kids. Smartphones are teen culture now. It all takes place online. It's kinda hard to imagine a society where all meaningful interaction takes place online that's not massively depressing.

I don't think that's hard to imagine. I'm imagining it right now. I don't think we're going to get there without some strange forces acting on us, and idk if that's a society I want, but we are more malleable than we give ourselves credit for. People seem to think that life as we know it is life in all it's possibilities rather than one permutation of an infinite mess of dissimilar outcomes. I think the things we str…

I'd be interested to know what that society looks like, if you want to share.

My own personal observation is people who are totally absorbed in social media are socially anxious and awkward, don't engage in conversation except about things that are in their very narrow areas of interest, and tend to suddenly get heated or "triggered" very quickly when exploring those subjects.

There really is no such thing as "casual conversation" with them. You're either engaging in total mind-meld or you're completely ignored. I don't understand that mindset, so I'm keeping an open mind, but I don't see how that can't trap a person into a rigid and boring life, where you're confined to your home most of the time and only engage with people who share 99% of your opinions about things that only affect you in a marginal way.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#417

Post by err4nt »

manmal wrote: post #345
lsc wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, even having a handful of very wealthy friends can eventually lead to feelings of envy. I.. huh. I really don't get this. Maybe it is because I am doing better than I thought I was going to for the first half of my life? or maybe I'm just less jealous than most people? but yeah, there are a few people I follow who you could say I am envious of; people who are super successful in all the ways I want to be succes…

If you are perfectly content with your life, then Facebook probably won’t be an issue at all. But if you have _any_ area where you don’t feel fulfilled - like bad life/work balance, insufficient funds, loneliness, unfulfilled baby wish - then Facebook is going to rub it into your face, daily, that others have what you desire, and does it in a misleading way. Let’s say you can’t have a baby and you have a colleague wi…

Your comments in here really resonate with me too, I think social media might be pouring gasoline on the fire of jealousy, but if you're not jealous to begin with all I think about is: "Oh wow, here's a photo of Kristy in mexico with a monkey, ha!" and that's it, no jealousy, no inner dialogue of "I wish I was there and not her" or anything. I could look at pictures like that all day and not be affected, but when it's someone I know personally I'm actually a little happy _for_ them.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#418

Post by lists »

zbentley wrote: post #412
gkya wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a fallacy, whether worded as a rhetorical question or explicitly as "faulty generalisation" or "fallacy of defective induction". The fact is that the subjective observation is generalised without any buttressing evidence whatsoever. "That's not my experience, so that's doubtful."

It absolutely is not a fallacy, nor is it an inherently rhetorical question. Inquiring as to whether others share your experience isn't illogical; it's the root of most human learning and understanding thus far, and I suspect it precedes most other methods of claim-buttressing. And, to be pedantic, the fallacies you mentioned are specifically in terms of drawing conclusions from that faulty logic; not asking question…

GP doesn't ask a question, he literally says I don't get it. The article is about post millennial teenagers' employ of technology and the effects therefrom, she/he doesn't even make comparative claims or mention this. It was a lazy post.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#419

Post by Balgair »

str33t_punk wrote: post #351
duskwuff wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that Reddit improves dramatically as you move away from the huge default subreddits and into smaller, more focused subs -- for hobbies you're involved in, for instance. For that sort of thing it's not half bad.

Until you realize ALL subreddits are almost entirely gamed by marketers. Why do you think the reddit hive mind in small hobby subreddits conglomerates on a few devices / items? Reddit is literally the most shilled platform. Easy botting + the up vote down vote system

Not really. The small city-based subs are alright and the hobby based subs are pretty good, bots don't really waste their time in the 'long tail' as of yet, but that will be changing in the next 5 years.

Re: With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

#420

Post by jm__87 »

Razengan wrote: post #400
spuz wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be the underlying cause of some suicides but it doesn't explain why depression and suicides have increased for teenagers in the last 5 years. Also, if we need distraction to survive the ultimate meaninglessness of life as you claim then why would technology make depression worse instead of better?

> why would technology make depression worse instead of better? I can only speak for myself, of course, and in my case, the ever increasing access to information and social contacts, actually eliminates the hope of finding any large-scale meaning in this world, ever-so-gradually, when you keep failing to see any point no matter what you learn and who you meet. Not exactly depression, maybe it falls under nihilism, bu…

So what if life objectively has no meaning? You can only experience it through your own subjective viewpoint, so why not find something that is subjectively meaningful to you?
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