Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness • Hacker News Board

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#431

Post by BlueTemplar » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #167

softwaredoug wrote: post #113

As a parent. It's a hard topic. And not black and white. For the 10+ crowd, the days of kids roaming the streets, finding their friends and playing are gone. I think the causes for this are complicated, and social media (and screens) are just one part of the puzzle. Consider a few things: 1. The percentage of households with kids has gradually declined over time, while the percentage of retirees has gone up. So you j…

This is the inevitable conclusions of stranger danger and car-based suburbanization. When people only access the world via car and avoid walking around, they never build familiarity with their own neighborhood. All locations worth stepping out of the car for, are miles away and behind security gates. Low density also means that 1 stranger can actually do damage, unlike dense areas where there are at least a few stran…

This doesn't explain why teenage girls are suffering from increased mental health issues not only in the USA, but also in other Anglosphere countries, Nordic countries... (etc. ?)

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#432

Post by BlueTemplar » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #113

As a parent. It's a hard topic. And not black and white. For the 10+ crowd, the days of kids roaming the streets, finding their friends and playing are gone. I think the causes for this are complicated, and social media (and screens) are just one part of the puzzle. Consider a few things: 1. The percentage of households with kids has gradually declined over time, while the percentage of retirees has gone up. So you j…

As already pointed out on the other blog posts, pressure to "get into whatever good college" can't be the explanation when it is only affecting a statistically insignificant minority : even in the USA, roughly half of people don't go to college, and roughly the other half is getting accepted into one that is not hard to get into.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#433

Post by max51 » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 10:06 PM UTC

BlueTemplar wrote: post #418

max51 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The lumping of these together might help explain the gender imbalance in the mental health effect. I never thought of it that way but it makes a lot of sense in retrospect. It would also explain why the only people I know who developed IT skills on their own were boys. Running videos games or trying to create them back in 2004 required you to learn a lot about how computers work and how to use them. There were no fr…

In my perhaps anecdotal experience, the risk of getting a virus from a crack is and was hugely overblown. And we now know that copy protection came with malware too, most infamously with Sony's SecuROM (same group also seems to have made Denuvo).

I got a few viruses myself. There were no free easy to use like we have today to sandbox an application or run a VM and it was well known that almost all cracks/keygen gave false positive. We just rolled the dice and hoped for the best.

The viruses I have seen myself were really not that dangerous. Ransomware were not popular yet and our life not was tied to our computer as much. It was also easy to detect with task manager/services compared to today and it was possible to remove them yourself with your AV or manually. There were far less things running on your PC in the background and internet traffic was minimal.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#434

Post by BlueTemplar » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 10:08 PM UTC

freework wrote: post #118

If you ask 10 different people why they are depressed, you'll get 10 different answers. This illustrated why I think the scientific method is the wrong way to go about understanding the human mind. Also, if you ask a depressed person why they are depressed, they may not know exactly why they are depressed. I spent my entire high school years depressed. It wasn't until a few years after I graduated college before I re…

While some psychologists might not be aware of this (like the Reason criticism suggests... though mostly has the overworked angle), it seems to be almost insulting to suggest that researchers at his level are not ?

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#435

Post by MisterBastahrd » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 10:15 PM UTC

Let's assume that it's hurting girls.

Why would that be?

Because we raise children wrong.

Women often complain that when men post photos of themselves on dating sites, that they do so either with buddies, or holding some trophy of some sort.

But that's simply because men are taught from a young age that their value is measured in what they can provide or achieve. Girls, on the other hand, are taught that THEY are valuable. We can go back hundreds of years and find evidence for this, as arranged marriages were usually a transaction between the parents of the couple: usually livestock, goods, and land for the hand of the maiden. Nobody's paying for a new son. Likewise, there's no show called Groomzilla where bridegrooms lose their minds attempting to plan a wedding.

In 2012, the "thigh gap" started becoming a popular trend among girls and women in the US. For many women, attaining such a thing is a nigh-impossible feat. Their bodies simply aren't built that way. Very few of my male friends thought that thigh gaps were even attractive at all. But women don't dress and exercise and eat for men, they do it for women and womens' perceptions.

Compare that to today. Our popular media is dominated by a rainbow of ethnicities with bodies to match. The Kardashians are bobbling around with breast augmentation, butt lifts, botox, microblading, and lip filler to seem more "exotic" and women are following suit. Nowadays it's not such a bad thing to have a naturally big butt with thick thighs, and many more women are on the internet proclaiming their weight to the public to show people what XXX pounds looks like on a X'XX" frame.

It's been 9 years and the thigh gap girls would be out of place today. Many would consider it unattractive.

It's not social media.

It's that we teach girls that their physical appearance and their wardrobe is what gives their lives value. That's what you have to fix. Everything else is just vigorous hand waving in an attempt to sound intelligent.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#436

Post by gloryjulio » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 10:16 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #417

asdff wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is unique to social media. Try dressing different from the norm in the 1990s before people even had cellphones in class and you'd definitely end up ostracized. It would be even worse because there's no way to find people who might be different like you, unlike today where there are forums and other websites.

I think being able to find others like you is actually what really sends mental health spiraling. Back in the day, if you were a pathetic loser, that’s all you were, and that’s how you had to navigate life. This would force you to take an honest look at yourself and see why you don’t fit in to larger society and maybe if you should try to be different. And eventually you might become a version of yourself a bit more…

I'd say that's not necessarily bad, more of a double edged sword. Many marginalized groups do need these kinds of support. They fall into the categories like 'I like playing games instead of sports, so what', 'I like watching niche foreign shows with subtitles'. At the end of the day, many ppl do benefit from increased connections. Many groups(both negative and positive) wont even exist with current technology.

Personally, it's a net positive for me.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#437

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 10:17 PM UTC

Veen wrote: post #168

woodruffw wrote: post #5

Just to levy a single criticism among several: I find Haidt’s rebuttal of the climate change hypothesis unconvincing: fears around climate change are not “energizing” in the way that prior crises are, in a significant part because public sentiment around climate change is that we’re already doomed in a way that isn’t really possible with social crises. Similarly: I don’t think most teenage girls were voraciously read…

It might be worth considering other crises and their impact on teen mental health. I grew up in the UK in the 80s during two crises. First, it was the Cold War and there was a very real risk of nuclear Armageddon; we were all aware of it because it was all over the media. Second, it was the height of IRA bombing campaign in the UK and we heard of children our age being blown to bits while out shopping with their pare…

But you also had Samantha Fox singing "Touch me now!" while surrendering to the spirits of the night ;->

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#438

Post by blululu » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 10:19 PM UTC

max51 wrote: post #363

softwaredoug wrote: post #113

As a parent. It's a hard topic. And not black and white. For the 10+ crowd, the days of kids roaming the streets, finding their friends and playing are gone. I think the causes for this are complicated, and social media (and screens) are just one part of the puzzle. Consider a few things: 1. The percentage of households with kids has gradually declined over time, while the percentage of retirees has gone up. So you j…

>Case in point, my son and his friends have a small discord server. And they play minecraft on a shared server. This not the same as scrolling TikTok / Instagram. But it's a degree of independence somewhat away from parental eyes. I think not enough people here are understanding the distinction between a communication tool (eg. discord), doom-scrolling platform like tiktok, and video games. A discord server can be ve…

Strongly agree, but the challenge is that it is not a hard and fast distinction within a single product/app. Take Snapchat for example (popular with the under 18 crowd). It is both a messaging tool to communicate with friends (great) and it also has a ton of other doom scroll/UGC feed services. I'm not sure what the break down in time and profits for the two services are, but I suspect that they make good money from the doom scroll stuff so it is hard for their executive leadership to be ethical on this issue. I would personally be very supportive if the Government would take measures to protect people under 18 from feeds without restricting access to messaging. Such a law will require a bit of subtlety in how it works.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#439

Post by mjevans » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 10:19 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #257

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is the case, is this reflected in the suicide rate of small, nosy towns? Small towns are notorious for everyone knowing everyone else’s business.

Suicide rates do go up the lower the population density. I can't say it's attributable to this dynamic, though. > suicide rates increase as population density decreases and an area becomes more rural. https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/disparities-in-suicide.htm...

Entrapment, and a sense that there is no path to a bright future. Both socially and economically.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#440

Post by MisterBastahrd » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 10:21 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #12

woodruffw wrote: post #5

Just to levy a single criticism among several: I find Haidt’s rebuttal of the climate change hypothesis unconvincing: fears around climate change are not “energizing” in the way that prior crises are, in a significant part because public sentiment around climate change is that we’re already doomed in a way that isn’t really possible with social crises. Similarly: I don’t think most teenage girls were voraciously read…

Climate change is now climate catastrophism. It's unfortunately many times more doomer today than ever. And while climate itself is not energizing, "doing something about it to save the world' is because it's simple even if it's in-effective. A phenomena like Greta Thunberg wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for that. And wind and solar and tesla and other avenue that doesn't really do anything other than let us waste…

If we weren't pulling oil out of the ground from the sea floor then my old fishing haunts would be available to me today and people wouldn't be worried about stepping into BP-branded tar balls that routinely roll up onto the beaches. There's more to climate change than wind, solar, and tesla.