Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

afterbabel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

961–970 of 1001 posts

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#961

Post by bigcaesar »

brailsafe wrote: post #47
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

I feel so bad for teenagers/kids who we essentially screwed over with this tech experience. That said, I don't feel great for the rest of us either! I feel like my phone has become a significant negative in my life. And in general, I'm quite scared because we have put things in place that we know are bad for mental health: 1. Even if we may not like it all the time, there is tons of data that show that personal inter…

Your points here are worth more emphasis. As a chronically unemployed software dev who's burnt out and crashed at least 3 times, I've spent a hell of a lot of time reflecting, and try my best to communicate these ideas to people who have the opposite problem; lots of work, but no new friends since highschool, and desperately single. People tend to rely far too heavily on the easiest way to convince themselves they're…

Makes sense, I feel something not talked about enough is the last point, most people spend the bulk of their day at work or doing work related thing like preparing for it, commuting and even winding down for the stress of a long day of work. This leaves the average person with little to no time, and definitely no energy, to pursue other interests, passions, hobbies, etc. Even if you are well paid, the money doesn't buy you the time nor the energy.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#962

Post by whstl »

trgn wrote: post #814
whstl wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not Yep. The other problem is that not having social media and mobile devices can be alienating and ostracizing, especially for teenagers. Avoiding the problems of social media requires skills and restraint that even most adults don’t have. It is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

> It is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. If you run against convention too much, even when convention is wrong, you become the zealot guardian, which conjures a family situation with its own distinct pathologies.

Exactly.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#963

Post by cutemonster »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #747
BadHumans wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone misunderstands or mocks you, let them. Very easy to say when you aren't going viral and 100,000+ people aren't trying to get you fired or hurling insults at you ranging from calling you an idiot to telling you to die. I'm not saying you're wrong but it's much easier said than done.

This is why I run multiple online identities. I learned back in the '90s when I got death threats because of my MUD character (a text based multiplayer rpg). I knew people who had their power pulled in real life by rival guilds so they could kill them when they disconnected.

> had their power pulled in real life

You can't mean someone physically disconnected their power cables?

How is that possible (aren't players in different cities, even countries, don't know each other's IRL identities?)

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#964

Post by whstl »

Andrex wrote: post #530
whstl wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not Yep. The other problem is that not having social media and mobile devices can be alienating and ostracizing, especially for teenagers. Avoiding the problems of social media requires skills and restraint that even most adults don’t have. It is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

> The other problem is that not having social media and mobile devices can be alienating and ostracizing, especially for teenagers. Sorry, I see this a lot but: oh well? They'll get over it. Social media on the other hand gets its hooks in deep. If every teenager were guzzling gallons of soda everyday and telling them to stop "alienated and ostracized" them, I'd still do it for the good of their health.

I mean, I'm not saying they should keep using it or stop.

I'm just saying what happens when you force "individual responsibility" onto parents and children, without addressing the root societal problem.

I agree 100% that using social media is unhealthy.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#965

Post by rldjbpin »

from most of the discourse here and even recent legislations in the us, it seems that people are taking the same approach for social media as the war on drugs.

i feel that we did not learn much from the failures in the latter. take the prawn site checks implemented by some states, which is being countered by use of vpn (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39955148).

the social isolation and other vectors of depression exists in society, whether or not social media exists. we need more discourse for the root causes.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#966

Post by dartos »

Lacerda69 wrote: post #776
mindcrime wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is full of people who disagree with you, but you need to learn more than ever to recognize and filter out what you don't care about. I don't even view replies to posts any longer, 98% of the time because I am not seeking validation sharing my opinion. This is something it's taken me a while to come to terms with. I used to want to fully engage with everybody and everything. It was anathema to me to just "br…

I no longer say things online except some rare occasions. Mass social media online discourse will slowly vanish in the next 15 yrs

Idk seems like you post comments on HN almost daily.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#967

Post by specialist »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

I feel so bad for teenagers/kids who we essentially screwed over with this tech experience. That said, I don't feel great for the rest of us either! I feel like my phone has become a significant negative in my life. And in general, I'm quite scared because we have put things in place that we know are bad for mental health: 1. Even if we may not like it all the time, there is tons of data that show that personal inter…

re #2: Yup. My solution is volunteering, creating urban forests. Digging out invasives, planting natives. It's surprisingly social. And helps my mental health.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#968

Post by runeks »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #579
nearbuy wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people don't think the government should always prioritize protection over freedom, nor do people think the government should always prioritize freedom over protection. It's like asking, if people are okay with the government restricting the sale of bombs to private citizens, why aren't they okay with restricting steak knives? They're also dangerous weapons. People judge the cost and benefit of each situation…

Playing the devils advocate: Isn't social media much more a "bomb" than circular saws?

There's clearly not agreement on that; hence this article from Jon Haidt.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#969

Post by mikrl »

randomdata wrote: post #486
skilled wrote: post #337

I'm no saint when it comes to addiction and being on my phone for more than I should be, but I have a sister who is in her mid 20s right now, and for the last couple of years she has slowly isolated herself from life and her family, she spends most of her time in her room on the phone and does weird things like get cosmetic surgeries, ordering cosmetics, etc. It's bizarre. She does this and all the while never leaves…

> She doesn't share her actual thoughts That's where social media has been most damaging. You can't share your thoughts anymore. The 'Redditization' of the world means that sharing thoughts is met with hostility. No longer can you just throw something out there, no matter how stupid. These days you have carry an entire encyclopedia with you in order to back up every last thing you say and if you utter anything that i…

>The 'Redditization' of the world means that sharing thoughts is met with hostility

Thankfully there are corners of cyberculture with a distinct anti-Reddit bent where hostility is almost a norm that you get desensitized to and you can see all manner of profound and stupid ideas and react with hostility in kind.

After spending time there, returning to Reddit feels like staring at pablum, and you start seeing gross inaccuracies get updooted, and the inconvenient truths get buried.

(you should imagine this was written by gigachad, and anyone who disagrees is a badly drawn wojak in some state of emotional distress)

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#970

Post by mindcrime »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #916
mindcrime wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is full of people who disagree with you, but you need to learn more than ever to recognize and filter out what you don't care about. I don't even view replies to posts any longer, 98% of the time because I am not seeking validation sharing my opinion. This is something it's taken me a while to come to terms with. I used to want to fully engage with everybody and everything. It was anathema to me to just "br…

I'm curious. You say what to say. What's the incentive to do this? Educate people or...?

I don't really put that much thought into it, TBH. I mean, yes, there are times when "educate people" is explicitly the answer, but not always. Sometimes it's just a reflection of some vague sense of desire to share and communicate with no particular purpose. That seems to be a sort of part of human nature for most of us, to some degree.
Post reply on HN