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

rgbrenner
332 replies
13h20m

The author had it right in the first paragraph. In the 90s version of this hysteria, Congress passed a law that would have prevented access to education medical information, dirty curse words, and other filth from being published on the internet to protect the children. The federal government fought a case all the way to the Supreme Court to enforce it. If they had won that case, the internet would look very different today. But the Supreme Court got it right when they said it would squelch free speech.

You may not like FB, IG, TikTok, etc.. I certainly don't care for any of these products. But these are communications platforms. Restricting the right to free speech does have negative consequences... from the development of critical thinking skills; development of technical skills; and limiting of educational information. Being exposed to shit on the internet teaches you there's bullshit on the internet, and not to believe everything you see.

And just like the Supreme Court wrote 30 years ago, the answer is the same today: if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them. Restrict your children's access to these platforms.

I certainly dont believe anyone should be forced to use these platforms. I don't use any of these products, and havent since they launched. That's a freedom you and everyone else can take advantage of also. But those who advocate censorship aren't advocating for freedom... they're advocating for their personal parental decisions to the be decisions of the entire nation.

raziel2p
143 replies
11h29m

if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them

It's really not that simple. The products have become so widespread and influential that they change the very culture of our society for the worse. It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not, some of your friends will still be more or less subtly influenced by its existence in your social interactions.

There's a nice quote from Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media, which IMO hasn't aged at all in 60 years: "Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the 'content' of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind... The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance."

epolanski
76 replies
11h15m

I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

I for one deleted all of those platforms and my life is definitely better (I'm way less distracted for once, but the list is longer).

What do I care what others do?

kredd
32 replies
10h30m

If you have children or niblings, you’ll realize how ostracized from the community one gets if they have no access to social media. It would work if parents banded together and nobody in school would get access, but otherwise it just becomes a “there’s a giant club and you’re not a part of it”. As a child, that really hurts.

When I was in high school, Facebook was just opening up access to everyone. I remember literally everyone getting on it, and swapping between messages in MSN, and some posts on FB. We had whole school wide conversations, planning and etc. on social media, and on days when I didn’t get in front of the computer to check things, I remember feeling left out. It’s just so much worse now, because every kid expects every other kid to be on the loop of things 24/7. I think that’s where we screwed up. Having just casual access without mobile phones was the sweet spot, in my opinion.

rTX5CMRXIfFG
31 replies
10h16m

But why do you make it sound like it’s not an option to teach kids to not have fear of missing out and having meaningful ways of spending their time in the real, offline world? I guarantee you that there is nothing of value that other teens are saying that your own children need to be updated 24/7

gommm
11 replies
10h4m

I also guarantee you that a teen who is not in the loop is much more likely to be ostracized and bullied in the offline world.

So, yes you might try teaching your kid that they're not missing out that they can find more meaningful way to spend their time in the real offline world but, the fact is, they go to schools with kid who overwhelmingly are not taught that and who will dislike your kid for being different. Your kid doesn't live in isolation, he lives in society and, during school years is when social pressure to conform to the group norm is strongest.

I'm speaking from experience here, I've been bullied as a teen, I definitely would rather avoid my son going through a similar experience.

rTX5CMRXIfFG
10 replies
9h51m

Eh, that’s not necessarily true. Other kids might bully your child for having a healthy set of offline interests and for not being like them who are all plugged in online, but I don’t see how it’s not an option to teach your kids to have a strong sense of identity and not give in to peer pressure while also assuring them that you’ve always got their back.

What you’re describing doesn’t sound like parenting to me, it’s giving in to peer pressure. From kids. And you’re supposed to be an adult who already knows what’s right and wrong. If your kid’s peers all gain a liking for drugs or gambling or some other vice and they bully your child for not partaking, are you going to tell your child to participate? No, what you should do is show them the right way and to what’s good for them in the long term, even if it’s difficult for them to see it now because of their youth.

gommm
4 replies
9h24m

I had a strong sense of identity, I had good results, a good family life, my parents had my back, etc.. That didn't stop me from being bullied or pissed on while being held down by fucking assholes. So, I'd say, you either don't know what bullying is like or you're overly naive. And by the way, having my parents having my back and telling my teachers about the bullying just made things worse. It only improved when I changed school and punched the first guy who namecalled me.

Anyway, to respond to your points:

What you’re describing doesn’t sound like parenting to me, it’s giving in to peer pressure.

What I'm describing is knowing how society works and planning around it. It doesn't mean that I would give unrestricted access to social medias, it also doesn't mean that I would not be there to guide my child about how to use them, what the dangers are etc...

I'm saying that straight up abstinence is not a good idea and doesn't work if your child lives in a society that doesn't abstain. There are also perverse effects whereby preventing your child from completely accessing social medias, you end up with a child who just hides it from you.

If your kid’s peers all gain a liking for drugs or gambling or some other vice and they bully your child for not partaking, are you going to tell your child to participate?

I'd probably consider switching my child to a different school.

rTX5CMRXIfFG
2 replies
7h5m

you either don't know what bullying is like or you're overly naive

I was about to say teach your child self-defense and how to fight, and the last sentence of that same paragraph just proved my point.

Look, as a parent, your goal should not be to teach your child how to avoid bullying. That's not within your control, nor your child, and in the real world, even once your child is grown up, there's always some moron out there in the world who's going to bully you or want to beat you up, sometimes for no reason, sometimes for not being like them. That's not an excuse to teach your child to be like other children just for the sake of conformity because that is the wrong thing to teach. You teach them how to fight back when people beat them up for being the way that they are. None of your other points matter against that.

gommm
1 replies
5h20m

Fair point but I'd argue that self defense and knowing how to fight helps but I was a year younger than everyone else (skipped a grade) and was fairly small for my age until I hit a growth spurt (which coincided with when I changed school by graduating middle school and went to high school). I'm not sure I would have been half as successful when I first was bullied.

The thing too is that I'm also not convinced abstinence on something that's part of society and that your kid will have when they grow up is that useful anyway. Social media is unfortunately needed to function in society so learning to use it reasonably (and not in an addictive manner) has value too.

That said, yes I absolutely will teach my son to fight back, violence in some circumstances is a useful tool to have.

rTX5CMRXIfFG
0 replies
4h45m

Social media is unfortunately needed to function in society so learning to use it reasonably (and not in an addictive manner) has value too.

No, wrong again. It’s not necessary to function and there already are secure messaging apps through which kids and adults can communicate. You don’t have to have a Facebook page. You don’t need an IG profile of portraits where you pose like a model. You don’t need to make funny Tiktok videos.

This entire issue is being murkied by adults who are projecting their deep-seated bullying issues as value judgments on how to raise children when evidently they haven’t sorted themselves out and they are already having kids.

circlefavshape
0 replies
7h8m

It only improved when I changed school and punched the first guy who namecalled me.

fwiw fighting is the only thing that mitigated bullying for me too

zelphirkalt
0 replies
7h4m

Surely being a good parent and having your kid's back is very important when the kid is being bullied.

I have been bullied by losers the whole school time, because of something as simple as my name and being smarter. I managed to develop a strong resistance to certain things and learned to go my own way, questioning the mainstream, including dealing with network effect and peer pressure to do things I do not want to participate in. For children in primary school it can be terrible.

However, I can easily imagine, what can happen, if a parent does not support their child as much as my parents did support me. I think except for exceptionally strong independent children, there needs to be a balance in children's lives. If almost everyone in their social circles is basically telling them, that they suck, because they are out of the loop, then it needs parents to support them and make them feel that they do not suck.

unclebucknasty
0 replies
6h38m

You're missing the point. This is not peer pressure over what brand of jeans or shoes your kids wear.

It's at the heart of socialization itself, which is an important part of growing up healthy.

The analogies with drugs and gambling are also misplaced, because these things are illegal and/or generally frowned upon by parents, the legal system, and society as a whole. In other words, the exact opposite of what's happening here.

And, those things are illegal/frowned-upon for reasons you respect enough to use them as examples. That fact should actually help you see the point?

michaelt
0 replies
8h58m

> What you’re describing doesn’t sound like parenting to me, it’s giving in to peer pressure. From kids.

Are you a parent yourself? Just wondering.

desert_rue
0 replies
8h46m

I’d recommend listening to the Hard Fork podcast to answer some of these questions. In particular the March 22nd and 29th episodes.

coldtea
0 replies
9h5m

What you’re describing doesn’t sound like parenting to me, it’s giving in to peer pressure.

Parent, after an age, has very small influence in what kids do. Kids will be spending most of their time with peers, not with you.

searchableguy
9 replies
9h13m

Because people will not invite you if you are not in the group chat. Unfortunately, people have forgotten how to call and are afraid of receiving calls.

This is more prominent among people who grew up with social media everywhere compared to ones who did not.

JoshTriplett
5 replies
8h56m

Unfortunately, people have forgotten how to call and are afraid of receiving calls.

That's unnecessarily reductionist. Calling is less convenient and takes longer.

doublerabbit
3 replies
7h2m

That's unnecessarily reductionist. Calling is less convenient and takes longer.

No, I don't think so. The time for me to ring you, tell you this in voice would be far quicker than typing.

Calling conveys so much more than text ever can.

A call can take seconds, "hey mate, want to go to the cinema tomorrow? Ill text you the time" "yeah cool, see ya".

Voice expresses emotion, you can pick up the mood of your buddy if they're up, down, need cheering up.

Its real, you hear a voice and you know it's your mate. Text, you assume. Text leaves you on edge waiting for confirmation.

The only inconvenience is that you could be interrupting something and even if so, then send a text.

JoshTriplett
2 replies
6h45m

The time for me to ring you, tell you this in voice would be far quicker than typing.

The post you I was responding to was talking about "group chat". How long would it take for you to call 6 people? How long would it take for you to text 6 people?

I'm all for calls from one person to another person, if you know that person doesn't mind voice calls. Text and group chats are great for coordination of groups.

searchableguy
0 replies
5h22m

Apologies. I meant when you are the only person who is not in the group chat or messaging platform, then people won't call you to invite. It is much higher friction.

doublerabbit
0 replies
6h5m

Then apologies, I didn't clock on to that the discussion was regarding to group chats.

illegalsmile
0 replies
2h1m

I don't like calling because it's not like it used to be. Everything is so damned asynchronous these days even voice calls where it's supposed to be synchronous. When conversations were over copper/analog, yes I was younger, I enjoyed talking on the phone much more. Back then it felt like whether it was one person or three on the line there was actual presence and you could have two people talking on top of each other no problem.

Now, every conversation, whether it's by phone or zoom, feels like a struggle of who's going to take up the air time, trying not to talk over one another, dealing with delay, etc... It doesn't feel natural at all and there's little to no presence. Having smart phones makes it so much easier to tune out on a call and scroll reddit, check headlines or play a game. I agree that it's less convenient and takes too long for most things. I'd rather check in once a day with someone via text than have one longer phone conversation once a week.

ryandrake
2 replies
8h55m

If a friend is going to leave you out of an event purely because you do not use their preferred BigTech-facilitated chat tool, then I have some bad news for you: that person might not actually be your friend. Friends don’t treat each other that way.

nevom
0 replies
7h19m

For adults, sure. We're talking about children/teenagers, they're all insecure and self-conscious and don't want to hang around with the weird kid because they then become a weird kid by proxy. And the smallest unusualness makes you weird.

desert_rue
0 replies
8h43m

Something that causes some friction might absolutely lead to people treating others this way. Like if coworkers stop by your desk to invite you to lunch but you are in a meeting so they go without you. Should they have left a message? Track you down in the meeting? Waste their lunch time waiting for you? Friction matters in a social context.

raziel2p
6 replies
10h2m

You seem to be ignoring the fact that people plan things in real life over the internet. Conversations started online continue IRL, and vice-versa.

Social media can be really bad, and maybe it's actually mostly bad, but it does facilitate real life interactions and good things.

Imagine your child going to school but not being allowed to play with other kids in recess. Lots of bullying and physical violence can happen during recess, after all. Would you use that as an opportunity to teach them the dangers of FOMO, and to just read a book?

rTX5CMRXIfFG
5 replies
9h48m

It’s the perfect opportunity to teach them the lack of value of FOMO, especially when it’s validation from people who would bully you that you seek. I don’t see why what you’re recommending is a healthy response.

coldtea
2 replies
9h6m

It’s the perfect opportunity to teach them the lack of value of FOMO

Ever tried teaching anything to teenagers where their peers and society in general promote the opposite? Good luck with that...

short_sells_poo
1 replies
7h40m

I agree with you. It feels like some people here never interact with kids. It really is a very difficult problem to solve. You ban your kids from participating in social media, and you might end up hurting them much more by isolating them and getting them ostracized. In the end your cure ends up doing more damage than the illness would've. I absolutely agree that we should do something, and I'm trying my best. However, as long as a critical mass of young people are partaking, I cannot in good conscience force kids to stay off, because I know how bad that would make their life. So it's all about education and drilling the dangers into them as much as I can. Ultimately, this is a new world, with new rules and new dangers. The generation of millenials, boomers, etc - we are on the way out. We can advise the new generation, but they will have to find their own way to handle the dangers.

coldtea
0 replies
2h44m

Not to mention the kids over-compensating for your restrictions, and doubling down on the things you forbid/discourage them from - whether covertly behind your back, or after they grow up.

Like a strict parent whose kids end up doing drugs and partying as soon as they can leave the house, or even the opposite, some "hippie" all-too-liberal parent whose kind grow up and seek strictness and discipline, and e.g. turn religious or join a cult, or find some abusive partner who gives that to them.

varius
0 replies
8h30m

You haven't been around teenagers, or even humans in general much, huh?

Teaching another person, even an eager one, how to change their behaviour and mental patterns concerning validation and FOMO is a really hard task. It's not knowledge like math or something that you can just pass onto them. It can take months or even years even for pros (psychitrists etc.) to do that. Combine that with the fact that teenagers brains are wired differently (their need to fit it is greater than that of an adult) and their "natural resistance" to adults' teaching and it becomes almost impossible task.

raziel2p
0 replies
8h26m

I don't want children nor do I work with children, so haven't put any serious thought into how I would practically do it - I just don't think there's an objectively superior way to go about this. I won't judge anyone (parents nor teenagers) for surrendering to the peer pressure of social media, because it's so pervasive.

kredd
1 replies
8h58m

I’m sorry for sounding so harsh, but have you been through public or private school where you’re some sort of a group of at least 50+ children? Sense of belonging is so natural, especially at that age, that you can’t tell a kid that it doesn’t matter.

If your child just tells you “yeah I don’t care about others’ opinions”, then I’ll have a hard time to believe as well. As we age, and grow up, sure those things matter less. But come on, we’ve all been children, we’ve all wanted to be a part of some group. Some of us got bullied, some of us got ostracized, but we always wanted to belong.

watwut
0 replies
5h57m

If your child just tells you “yeah I don’t care about others’ opinions”,

This usually means "my close friends and peers have same opinions as I do and nobody else matter to us".

JodieBenitez
16 replies
10h15m

What do I care what others do?

example from real life:

My local musicians community decided to use only FB to communicate their gigs dates. I refuse to use FB. I no longer know when or where is the gig. I don't see my fellows anymore.

forgetfreeman
10 replies
9h37m

Maybe text or call a couple friends in the community once a week?

JodieBenitez
9 replies
9h28m

Been there, done that... "it's all on the page, just check it mate". And suddenly you're that annoying weirdo that refuses to do things like everybody else.

ryandrake
7 replies
8h44m

Maybe try explaining why you don’t use Facebook, and why it is not an appropriate, inclusive way to organize the group. Or, maybe Facebook has some kind of E-mail gateway that can notify people who are not on it (I have no idea, I’m not on Facebook either). You’re just one person, but if the group sees more people not participating because of their bizarre insistence on use of social media, maybe they can eventually be convinced to change.

This seems so weird to me. I help organize some local groups centered around hobbies and games, and none of them use Facebook because we know not everyone will be there, and we don’t want to exclude people. Sorry, but that musician group seems pretty poorly run.

raziel2p
3 replies
8h15m

I'm a meetup organizer and sometimes get this but the other way. People insist that our current platform is not appropriate or inclusive because it requires an email signup, or the group chat is on a Meta-owned platform, or whatever. Who are you to say that your opinion on what's inclusive or not is correct? Choose something other than Facebook and you'll get others saying you're not inclusive because you're not there.

No one has "bizarre insistence" on use of social media, they're just there and it's the easiest option for all parties. People like you and me are the ones who are perceived as the ones bizarrely insistent on not being on social media. This doesn't make it wrong, and it's luckily slowly becoming more and more accepted, but it is important to keep in mind.

You are right that ideally groups like these should cater to all audiences but that's a lot of effort, and many organizers do it on a voluntary basis, not as a job. In my case, I know that 98% of people are included in the media that I use for my audience, and catering to the last 2% would double my workload. Not happening.

ryandrake
2 replies
8h3m

Since as far as I know, an E-mail address is required in order to sign up for Facebook and other social media, E-mail users must be a strict superset of Facebook users. It is clearly more inclusive of people.

As far as workload goes, we have not found anything lighter weight and less maintenance than an E-mail list.

rchaud
0 replies
1h31m

You need an email and a phone number, so that makes it a no go for a lot of people.

JodieBenitez
0 replies
6h52m

You (and I) are right. Now for others to realize... it can be a long road.

phpnode
1 replies
8h14m

To those people you are the weirdo refusing to use the convenient platform that everyone else is on. This stuff just does not enter their brains because it has become utterly normalised. To them it's not bizarre to insist on using social media, it's bizarre to insist on not using it.

boppo1
0 replies
7h2m

This is accurate. disdain for social media is such a norm here that people don't realize it's the opposite almost everywhere else.

JodieBenitez
0 replies
7h17m

Again: been there, done that. Good for you (and others, even if they don't know) that it worked, but in my case it didn't. Part of the reason is that FB is also the place where events get promoted. The integration is so tight that any other solution is an inconvenience to the normies, ie. the 99%. You have your events, your communication tools and your audience, all in one place, it's effective. FB is eating the world really... convenience for the masses.

Luckily, I have other hobbies that are less prone to this, mostly because they don't involve much event promotion if any at all and don't need any audience to exist. Example: my local shooting range uses a mailing list for communication and you can always hang with fellows at the club-house.

forgetfreeman
0 replies
8h21m

Ugh, that's what I was afraid of. Was a time folks were happy to get a call from a friend regardless of topic. No going back I guess.

10729287
2 replies
9h54m

How hard is it to discuss this topic with other people that have access to fb when you meet them around the city ? Honest question. Sure, it require more involvement than opening the Facebook tap and getting everything instantly, but at the end of the day, isn't your goal to getting involved in the community ? This will require some energy.

boppo1
0 replies
7h7m

You are out of touch. Scenes and events really are that reliant on facebook. "Hey man, when/where's the next show?" "We dunno yet, but we'll post an event about it for sure."

There are some small, insular scenes where everybody knows everybody and word gets around, but those are getting fewer every day.

JodieBenitez
0 replies
9h15m

See above

graemep
1 replies
7h39m

That is very similar to why I use FB. It is what people use.

I even admin and moderate FB groups.

In my case it is home education in the UK. It is what everyone else uses, so its where you can discuss things or ask questions. I just asked about parking at the exam centre where my daughter is doing her GCSEs (UK exams typically taken at 16). It is where I found a GCSE classical civilisation tutor for her. It is where I can use my experience to help others. It is where I can find out about local events and activities.It is where people find resources and courses and can discuss them with others. It is where discussion of approaches and how to do things happens.

not using FB would mean giving up all that.

JodieBenitez
0 replies
6h48m

Bite the bullet, I guess.

EMIRELADERO
7 replies
11h10m

The commenter is arguing from a broad "what's good for society" sense, not on strict individuality. While I disagree with the whole idea of legislating access to social media/internet services in any way (RIP anonymity), I do think there can be valid places and times for regulation that seeks to change society itself, not just individuals.

unclebucknasty
6 replies
10h55m

RIP anonymity

Maybe anonymity has had a good run and is actually at the root of the issue in many contexts. After all, people don't (generally) walk around IRL wearing ski masks so they can say crazy shit or troll people without consequence. And we also get the courtesy of knowing who the people we're talking to actually are.

And if you say, "yeah but doxxing and death threats" or "my employer might fire me", etc then maybe these are the actual problems that need to be addressed.

And, yes, I realize that's coming from someone who's IRL neither Uncle Buck or Buc Nasty, as his handle might imply. But, obviously that's where we currently are, which is the point.

AlexandrB
2 replies
10h27m

IRL nobody is running facial recognition tech and uniquely identifying you. And, despite what your teachers told you, no one is keeping a permanent record of the minutia of your life. So I know my neighbor is "George", but I don't know anything about his political opinions, where he shops, how he treats waiters, or what kind of porn he watches. Thus he's not anonymous, but his daily activities are generally private and ephemeral.

The internet flips this on its head because pseudonymous handles can be linked to reams of online activity that's retained effectively forever but can't be connected to a specific person. This is why "doxxing" is such a big deal online.

If online activity was like IRL activity and ephemeral, I might agree with you. But the internet never forgets.

Edit: By the way, this is not universally defined:

say crazy shit

"Crazy shit" is very culturally and contextually dependent. If I condemn China's treatment of Uyghurs, that's fine in North America but considered "crazy shit" and can land you in jail in China. That's an extreme example, but there are plenty of other more banal differences in culture and what's acceptable globally.

unclebucknasty
0 replies
6h38m

First, it's useful to separate things like watching porn and other explicitly private activity from actual speech and interaction, which are deliberate forms of engagement.

The anonymity we're talking about here is WRT the latter.

With that in mind, my point is that it's a social problem that people have to worry about death threats for expressing political opinions. It's not solved by people becoming anonymous at scale to offer up their opinions. In fact, this adds to the problem, in that anonymity tends to lead to increasingly offensive forms of expression (absent the social governor and accountability that are present IRL). Anonymity can change the motivation for engaging and remove constraints that have social utility.

It also makes it easy for bad actors to do their work.

Put simply, if people don't feel comfortable offering an opinion in person, then maybe it's not a good thing to give them an opportunity to offer it anonymously at-scale.

Crazy shit is very culturally and contextually dependent

No. I'm speaking WRT the context of our discussion. That is, saying things anonymously online that one would not say in-person for understood social (or legal) reasons. e.g. threatening people, being overtly snarky, trolling, etc.

Y_Y
0 replies
9h5m

IRL nobody is running facial recognition tech and uniquely identifying you.

Maybe this is true in some places. In big cities in Europe and the Americas this is definitely the case. It's done by law enforcement, commercial retail, and private security. It's more or less trivial nowadays to buy a cheap IP camera and collect an database of faces across your camera network.

My guess is that there's more of this going on, but I'm only listing stuff I have personal knowledge of.

everdrive
1 replies
8h28m

Anonymity is not to blame here, but rather proximity. People with real real identities tied to their online avatars are just as bad if not worse than anyone else on the internet. ie, they're not anonymous. Internet hostility is more analogous to road rage.

unclebucknasty
0 replies
6h20m

People with real real identities tied to their online avatars are just as bad if not worse than anyone else on the internet.

So-called "edge lords" and people for whom provocativeness is their brand, perhaps.

But, I don't think that's true for the average person at all. I think we all know this intuitively / empirically, but there have also been studies that bear it out. [0]

Internet hostility is more analogous to road rage.

No. Road rage is a function of losing one's temper and acting outside of one's self in the moment. Distinctly different from purposely shedding one's identity to engage socially.

Besides that, we're not just talking about hostility, but an overall disposition when one is acting without the social constraints of identity and accountability.

[0]https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/who-is-that-th...

LAC-Tech
0 replies
9h29m

For people who live in oppressive regimes where certain political speech is illegal, like China or the UK, anonymity is a powerful tool. I would not want to take that away from them.

josephg
6 replies
10h40m

What do I care what others do?

I’ve done the same, but it’s not without cost:

- Two hobbies I’m involved with have large local communities on Facebook. I’m not in the loop, and sometimes miss out on events and catchups.

- I’m not on Twitter, and there’s a massive amount of chat about my field (realtime collaborative editing & local first software) that takes place there. I miss out on what’s going on, and I’m reliant on other people to promote my work for me.

Im happier. But it’s you really are cut off from a lot of society - especially in the tech world - if you aren’t on social media.

ranguna
2 replies
10h24m

You can join those communities and discussions with "work" accounts. Instead of creating a personal twitter or meta account, you could create one that is only used to join those specific groups and discussion.

pjerem
0 replies
10h17m

Yes you can. But then, you have an account. Most people that dont have an account on social medias just don’t want to accept the TOS.

Also worth noting that it sounds like meta thinks like they already have all earth population in their products because new accounts are really easily banned for no reason. Any temporary account I made to access some information have been blocked minutes or hours after creation.

notachatbot1234
0 replies
7h33m

Those sites are designed to exploit you psychologically in various ways (ads, order of display, design, gamified interaction etcetera). The purpose of your account does not matter if you cannot access and consume the information in a reasonable and healthy way.

randomdata
2 replies
8h45m

Twitter is also where the discussion about my field takes place. What's not to like? I find Twitter's recommendation algorithm does a great job of honing the content down to just the relevant information I need and then I can go back to carrying on with life.

Before Twitter, you had to go to the coffee shop and listen to people ramble on with their inane political rants and conspiracy theories just to get at the occasional tidbit of useful field-related information. That was depressing.

josephg
1 replies
5h32m

What's not to like?

I left Twitter after it started showing me posts from people I don’t follow that I found annoying and in one case just straight up racist. I replied and he was as surprise as I was. He asked “why are you in my replies?”. I didn’t know why I was there either. I deleted the app and haven’t been back.

randomdata
0 replies
5h14m

The algorithm has definitely improved – or at least has been able to collect more information to provide better results. It wasn't always so well honed, granted.

Of course, we know enough about these algorithms to know that they are based on your action, not what you claim. Pretending that you find something annoying, but then contradictorily dedicating your attention to it is going to tell the algorithm to give you more of the same. If you don't want to learn the truth about yourself, I can see why you'd want to steer clear.

stareatgoats
2 replies
11h3m

What do I care what others do?

While a perfectly fine rule of thumb in general, I think you might find the sticking to "I don't care what other people do" as an overriding principle doesn't hold water in a substantial number of edge cases. One such case is where someone is willfully influencing others to act against their best interests, or against the best interest of society as a whole. That's when one needs to make a judgement call on a case by case basis. Is this such a case? Not sure. I just wanted to point out that "I don't care what other people do" can't be your guiding light, always.

epolanski
1 replies
11h1m

I might have expressed myself poorly.

I "don't care" what others do in the strict sense that I don't let it influence me.

But I can tell you that me quitting socials did impact relatives and friends to quit those too, and thus I absolutely do not relate with his statement:

It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not
raziel2p
0 replies
9h56m

I'm glad that you were able to convince all your meaningful friends and family to change their social media / internet behavior according to your values - but please don't assume that it's a viable option for everyone, with no downsides.

thinkingemote
1 replies
11h11m

Do you live or work with others? Do you have a family or children? Do you interact in meaningful ways with people online? I ask seriously (but no need to reply, this is to aid understanding) as many here on HN do not have all of these so the range of examples may be narrowed for some people.

I would however imagine you have some relationships of some kind that you care about. Can you imagine your relationships changing if these others you cared about changed their behaviours? Then extend this imaginary possibility to the relationships of these others. It's a network we are in we are not operating entirely alone.

Care of the other is wanting what is good for the other.

Sometimes this care is not forcing the other to change, sometimes it's encouraging them to change to benefit them as it benefited you.

XorNot
0 replies
10h33m

How is this not the OP's exact point? If you're not forcing people to change - by banning things with the violence of government - then you're simply making an argument to people and hoping they listen, just as we ever have to.

raziel2p
1 replies
10h9m

My life is also better, overall. However, I do miss out on important life updates from my friends because I'm not on Instagram. I could be a hardliner and say "well they don't care about me enough to share 1-on-1, so they're not real friends", but that's... stupid. I feel sad for missing out on opportunities to take part in their lives and life updates that way, and I know for a fact that there are rich connections/conversations that would happen if I were able to use these in a healthy way.

randomdata
0 replies
8h14m

What do you talk about with your friends if the important life events don't come up?

Perhaps I just have boring friends that we resort to sometimes talking about what is going on in our lives. I also wouldn't feel like less of a friend if they didn't tell me something, but important life events in their lives are usually important to them, which means that they ultimately end up talking about them in some way or another.

unclebucknasty
0 replies
11h11m

What do I care what others do

Because we live in a society?

Would you care if everyone around you was smoking crack, sociopathic or seriously mentally ill?

doktrin
0 replies
7h37m

What do I care what others do?

This is libertarian virtue signalling that simply does not stand up to reality.

coldtea
0 replies
9h8m

If you don't live in a society but in some remote wilderness and hunt for your food, then you don't need to care what others do.

If you do live in a society, you do need to care, as "what others do" affects society in general, including you in the end. Affects how they behave, how they vote, what causes they support, their mental health, and tons of other things, all of which end up also affecting those who don't use those apps.

abc123abc123
0 replies
9h31m

I agree. Same here. The only social media I have is mastodon and usenet. Yes, I live and work with others and email and phone is sufficient. If people try to get me to use slck I refuse. If I cannot refuse, I deploy my slck2email bridge and reply once every 24 hours and usually colleagues stop chatting with me when they realize they won't get an answer until 24 hours, or they drop by my desk, email or call me on the phone if it is urgent.

I think a lot of the complaints from people who "cannot stop" is just laziness. They need the government to construct an excuse so they won't have to man up and take control of their own lives.

That is also sad, because it means those people will never grow up but will be constant children in the eyes of the state.

Then I would say there are the 0.01% who do have psychological problems and they need to see a doctor.

whstl
37 replies
10h24m

> 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.

myspy
26 replies
10h6m

That's true. We restrict access to Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, FB, they can use WhatsApp, YT, iMessage, Phone and Pinterest. I'm fucking annoyed by other parents that don't set boundaries that way. I have so much discussions about other platforms. Pushing them to physically meet is hard too.

We grew up at a time where SMS was a thing when I became 16. I know that keeping up is cool, but social media is a disease. The amount of dumb and uneducated people that couldn't even listen to expert advice during a fucking pandemic is driving me up the wall.

I'm annoyed mainly because people around me make bad decisions that have an influence on my own life.

dimgl
10 replies
7h24m

The amount of dumb and uneducated people that couldn't even listen to expert advice during a fucking pandemic is driving me up the wall.

If you stay home and others don't, it doesn't affect you. If you're isolated and safe, why would you care if others go out and do what they want?

A commenter in a sibling thread asked why "people are so nitpicky" and "why people are so hostile to each other". This comment is why. It's exemplary even. You should look inward and figure out if you're part of the problem.

tsukikage
6 replies
6h54m

That's a fine stance if staying home is an option for you, but many people are not that fortunate with their logistical and financial situation.

Meanwhile, it transpires that the outside world is full of people who I am sure are upstanding and willing to self-sacrifice for their fellow man in theory, but will point blank refuse to bear the mild inconvenience of a piece of cloth over their face in shared spaces for the comfort of those around them in practice.

I mean, it's not news; most humans have never cared much about the welfare of strangers; people doing what they want and ignoring the externalities happens all the time - smoking in public spaces, drink driving... the pandemic simply served to viscerally ram home just how self-centered we all are.

And thus we come full circle to the start of the thread. Hell is other people. The more we interact with other people, the more obvious this becomes. As our world becomes more connected, no room is left for illusions on the subject; it's little wonder teens end up holing up in their rooms avoiding everyone.

dimgl
4 replies
6h44m

I think this view sucks. A core part of being a functioning human being is being able to interact with others whose views differ from your own.

The core problem is the ostracization of opinion on social media. It also doesn't play very well when social isolation has had other consequences, such as the proliferation of viruses and the broad economic impact. Plus, COVID is now integrated in our society, thus giving more ammunition to those who thought that social isolation was pointless (even if it wasn't at the time).

We need to move on from the isolationism and vitriol of others with differing opinions.

tsukikage
1 replies
6h17m

Personally, I think gp's "If you stay home and others don't, it doesn't affect you" sucks, but YMMV.

triceratops
0 replies
4h17m

You're responding to GP.

pokerface_86
0 replies
3h20m

i think THIS view sucks. some things are objectively true. why should we have to tolerate people who literally don’t understand basic statistics and harm reduction? at all?

evilduck
0 replies
4h27m

Brandolini's Law also comes to mind. Countering bullshit takes more effort than creating it. It's an understandable self-defense mechanism for an individual or even a community to just isolate and quarantine the source of a problem than to engage with them in earnest discourse. Trolling, astroturfing, and propaganda are real things, no amount of engagement will sway the opinion of bad-faith actors.

belorn
0 replies
3h9m

People should not go out when they are sick. That they do so because of a logistical and financial situation, trading other peoples health for economical gain, is a very bad situation for everyone involved. A piece of cloth over their face may be a symbol for "better than nothing" solution, but it is a very problematic starting point for a discussion regarding pandemics.

The best solution to this problem in general is social welfare. One such choice that countries did during the pandemic was to encourage or force work-from-home, and reducing the economical friction of sick leave. When the situation is so bad that people have to choose between externalities and major negative personal impact, society can help by stepping in by pushing the right choice while at the same time reducing that negative personal impact. It is a social solution to a social issue.

People as a group can be good and evil, just as an individual. Society can choose to ignore citizens logistical and financial problems while at the same time expect people to act altruistic. A major reason for that will coincidental also be the logistical and financial situation of that country, so they may as an alternative choose an better than nothing solution to it. Sub-optimal as it is.

watwut
0 replies
6h1m

It does, because the hospital is overloaded and I cant get access for unrelated health condition.

It does, because there are places I have to go to and I am at higher risk there.

triceratops
0 replies
4h17m

If you're isolated and safe, why would you care if others go out and do what they want?

Because they'll get sick and fill up the emergency room. If I have a heart attack or stroke at home, that's a problem for me now.

tnel77
0 replies
4h36m

It seems you are a good example of what they were talking about. Not understanding cause and effect such as using up medical resources that could otherwise be used for regular emergencies.

nicolas_t
5 replies
9h32m

One of the criteria I used when choosing my son's school is that mobile phones are not allowed at all in school. It's a primary school (until 12 years old) so you wouldn't think that mobile phones would be that common at that age but from what I've heard of other parents, smart phones are common already this early.

I don't believe in completely forbidding access to everything when my son is older but there's a time to introducing things like this and it's not this young.

RGamma
2 replies
8h42m

you wouldn't think that mobile phones would be that common at that age

Elsagate videos got many tens (hundreds?) of millions of views at the time. If you know where to look you can see the cumulative engagement of babies in front of their tablets.

TeMPOraL
1 replies
7h32m

There's this old stat about video games, oft quoted a decade or more ago in context of Zynga, etc., that one of the largest game market is casual games, and the players are predominantly working-age women.

There's also this hypothesis I saw the other day, that the above is a misattribution: it's not the working-age women who somehow have time to play so much, but rather babies and kids playing on their mothers' devices.

RcouF1uZ4gsC
0 replies
6h57m

There's also this hypothesis I saw the other day, that the above is a misattribution: it's not the working-age women who somehow have time to play so much, but rather babies and kids playing on their mothers' devices.

I also wonder what the breakdown of Netflix streaming hours is. I suspect a huge chunk of it is just toddlers and pre-schoolers watching the same episodes of Cocomelon over and over again.

srmarm
1 replies
8h2m

This sounds like a really good way of approaching it. From what I understand the argument against is clear but enforcing it in the face of peer pressure a little more complicated!

My nephews school allows basic 'dumb' phones but not smart phones which seems a fair compromise.

nicolas_t
0 replies
5h28m

Yes, the peer pressure is exactly the point. The older your child is, the more his peers will influence his behavior. I hope by the time he goes to middle school, I'll find a school with this kind of restrictions.

Dumb phones is definitely a smart compromise...

lynx23
5 replies
8h32m

You mean that "expert advice" which is increasingly questioned with passing time, and happened to change every Monday and Saturday? That expert advice which at least for Germany is now revealed to have been ordered by political forces, not based on scientific evidence? C'mon. Waving about with the pandemic as a good example is getting hilarious.

ripe
3 replies
7h17m

This sounds like post-facto justification for following rumors and disinformation during the pandemic.

Yes, expert opinions do change as new data comes in, and yes, public policy is as much influenced by politics as by science. But during the beginning of the pandemic, the OP is absolutely correct that a shocking number of people showed very poor judgment based on social media.

And this has not changed. Social media continues to be a cesspool of conspiracy theorists and deliberately provocative content that increases "engagement". Please don't dismiss this point by putting "expert advice" in quotes.

lynx23
1 replies
6h42m

I would agree with your take if we had a solution for the "who watches the watchers" problem. Since we don't, blanket criticism of critical thinking doesn't go down with me since I watched the pandemic unfold. Our state-controlled local media said 3 days after the first lockdown that we are supposed to only listen to them, and ignore every other media outlet because they are going to lie. This in a democratic country. I was schocked, and what followed didn't make me any more trusting in the powers that be. We tell our kids if they keep lying, nobody will believe them. This is what happened during the pandemic. And claiming experts are cool just because, doesn't make that deeply rooted distrust go away. We tell our kids they are not supposed to lie because after a while, nobody will believe them. But if we're being subjected to improsionment at home based on vague "scientific" experts who turn out to have followed orders from politiccians, we are supposed to forget all about it and more on? Nope, sorry. Trust has eroded, and just saying so will not reestablish it.

watwut
0 replies
5h59m

Replacing "watchers the watchers" by the sociopaths that knowingly spew lies and made up crap just to get what they want is not exactly a win.

batch12
0 replies
6h29m

A problem is people who are confidently wrong and hide behind science as a religion. If we were to admit a level of, I don't know, this is the best we've got right now, there would be more trust in expert advice. During the pandemic, this expert advice was abused to exercise control over some and not others which helped cast doubt over all information. For instance, political leaders hanging out in public restaurants without masks while others were directed to huddle in their homes made some wonder if this thing was as bad as those 'leaders' claimed.

Propelloni
0 replies
5h19m

Except that nothing has been revealed. The blackened protocols of the crisis meetings of the Roland-Koch-Institut (the public health organization funded by the FRG) are incomplete and the alleged political meddling is an insinuation by "alternative facts" journalists. Let's wait and see what happens when the full protocols are released. IIRC, there is a review board for Corona measures anyway and the journalists are sueing for a full release, too.

It is shameful that citizens had to sue for the release of the partial protocols in the first place, for sure, but the conclusions are more than hasty. Anyhow, you seem to have made up your mind, so I'm leaving you to it.

winstonprivacy
0 replies
2h18m

The amount of dumb and uneducated people that couldn't even listen to expert advice during a fucking pandemic is driving me up the wall.

The amount of dumb, educated people that blindly accepted everything that was fed to them during the fucking pandemic is driving me up the wall.

"Just two weeks to flatten the curve!"

mbesto
0 replies
4h50m

I'm annoyed mainly because people around me make bad decisions that have an influence on my own life.

So, like smoking in restaurants?

belorn
0 replies
7h35m

People tend to agree with expert advice when that advice align with their own personal views and values. Sadly both smart and dumb, educated and uneducated people falls for this and the pandemic demonstrated this in waves and continues to do so.

Take this study (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0?error=coo...). How many people on HN will agree with the ranking of those interventions? Early restrictions on travel and preventing people from gathering are the most effective measure to prevent an pandemic, but what people want to form sides around are the discussion around masks. Shutting down airports and imposing general self isolation are not in alignment of what either smart and dumb people believes in.

Andrex
5 replies
6h54m

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.

slothtrop
3 replies
4h53m

oh well? They'll get over it.

Alienation and ostracization is not something to be taken lightly.

SV_BubbleTime
2 replies
3h26m

I mean back up for second…

We know that kids on social media are suffering depression and etc.

So… if you keep your kid off of that drug, you are saying they’re not going to be accepted by the addicts and peers that are suffering?

Ok? Good?

We know what conformity to the group of damaged friends can do to a kid.

I’ll be okay raising the social outcast if the society is this damaged.

slothtrop
1 replies
3h17m

We know that kids on social media are suffering depression and etc.

We know it raises likelihood, that doesn't mean they're all depressed and anxious across the board, and those afflictions are on a gradient. Younger generations appear to be optimizing for it more effectively.

It doesn't make sense to cast society at large as "suffering and addicted". Downstream from that, the downsides of sheltering your children from society loom larger than their being socialized among peers who use social media.

I’ll be okay raising the social outcast if the society is this damaged.

You do that.

Andrex
0 replies
25m

> I’ll be okay raising the social outcast if the society is this damaged.

You do that.

You don't hear really about Amish kids killing themselves. Maybe there's something there.

bakuninsbart
0 replies
3h41m

Eh, no they won't really get over it. I interact with plenty of people in their thirties and fourties who still have a chip on their shoulder because they were "losers" in highschool.

wonderwonder
0 replies
7h18m

Florida has banned social media for under 14's starting Jan, 2025. Generally I am against government overreach and sometimes they make very odd decisions like campaigning to ban lab engineered meat in the state but on this I very much agree. Just remove social media as an option for those that are very young.

Its easy to say, that's the parents responsibility and that is a correct statement but most families require 2 working parents these days, most of whom are not tech savvy enough to understand how to limit social media or access to questionable sites.

Social media is an addictive, mind altering poison by design. Through the pervasiveness of echo chambers and intentionally addictive features such as endless scrolling and recommendations it seeks to do nothing except turn its users into revenue by keeping them online and seeing / clicking ads.

I lost my sister to it as she became so wrapped in the political side of it that any belief besides hers and those she followed meant you were a borderline nazi.

trgn
0 replies
2h15m

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.

tossandthrow
0 replies
10h11m

Avoiding the problems of social media requires skills and restraint that even most adults don’t have.

The parent commenter propose that you can not escape the negative consequences of social media, even if you fully restrain yourself, as you have the second order effects from your friends using it.

The parent commenter says that this is not an individual problem and cannot be solved on an individual level. It is a macro issue.

Just like you stopping eating meat will not really make a dent on global warming.

I think that is very insightful.

KaiserPro
0 replies
3h10m

It is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

if thats the case, then surely it would be reflected in the studies? (assuming that the studies are reproducible....)

signaru
10 replies
10h49m

And then there are also those companies/institutions/orgs/news/shops that make you left behind from otherwise useful information or services by not being on social media platforms.

davedx
4 replies
9h17m

It really annoys me how many services - even sometimes public services like our local police - are Facebook first, with all other mediums as an afterthought.

kredd
1 replies
8h49m

I completely agree, but one thing that bothered me since 2020 - local municipality posted some news on their website, and people on our neighbourhood group were genuinely complaining why they did not post it on Facebook, since that’s what the “internet is” for a significant (dare I say, majority?” of people. Unfortunately, we are in a minority in this situation.

mbitsnbites
0 replies
5h43m

People are ignorant. Companies are greedy. That's why we need regulation.

Children don't need social media, just as they don't need tobacco or alcohol. As long as all your friends are off social media, you'll be fine. It's when there's a choice that you get the FOMO situation that makes it more or less impossible for parents to dissuade their children from using social media.

wepple
0 replies
8h58m

I’d aggressively support legislation against this.

Luckily with Elon doing crazy things to X, NYC has divorced a bunch of public services from it.

But not enough

code_duck
0 replies
8h34m

Perhaps worse, in the places I’ve lived the main communications from emergency services and law enforcement are posted on Twitter.

zer00eyz
3 replies
10h19m

And then there's Therapist who keep saying everyone should be in therapy and drug companies with the latest in psychopharmacology.

Histeria (and the virbrator), ice pick lobotomies, electro shock therapy, Quaalude, Benzodiazepines (valium) as mothers little helpers, MAOI's, SRRI's (PSSD), Benzodiazepines again (Xanax, klonipin). <<< (Hint all of these things turned out to be DEEPLY fucked up)

And for good measure a few variations of adrenal Ritalin and other methamphetamines.

Maybe, just maybe, and hear me out on this, we have more people with mental health issues because "self diagnosis" and "self identifications" can get you a prescription. Maybe, just maybe more people have mental health issues because there is a whole fucking industry designed to profit off of problems that have a "diagnostic criteria" and not a "test". Maybe just maybe we should remember that the "reproducibility crisis" has some of its worst offenders in psychiatry and psychology.

Or you know blame social media, like we did for books, radio, tv, Elvis and rock, rap and metal, video games, 4chan and now....

liamwire
1 replies
8h14m

Your tirade against an almost ridiculously broad spectrum of drugs isn’t at all similar to what’s being discussed here, and reeks of a hidden agenda or bias. Many, if not all, of the medications you listed have been a net benefit for the individual and the world.

zer00eyz
0 replies
6h43m

ice pick lobotomies: Do I need to argue about this being bad?

electro shock therapy: were still doing this, there isnt good research to support it at all.

Quaalude addictive, banned in USA since 1984

Benzodiazepines, Valium, Xanax, Kolinapin: Addictive, withdrawal from these are brutal: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=benzodiazepines+suicide

MAOI: so well studied that we let them out in the public and then realized that taking them and eating leftovers could kill you.

SRRI: This is an entire class of drugs that is getting ripped apart by current research. There are studies that show they dont have greater benefit than placebo with therapy. There is new research that says they may be damaging in their own right and have massive withdrawal symptoms.

The term "replication crisis" started with psychology. And, though it has shown its face across much of academia, psychology on the whole looks particularly blighted. Modern research is having no problem turning over much of the last 30 or so years of drugs and research.

It. Is. Damming.

> Many, if not all, of the medications you listed have been a net benefit for the individual and the world.

The only medication I mentioned with a leg left to stand on anywhere is the SSRI group:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/jul/no-evidence-depression-c...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3130402/

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0... (hey better that we figure this out AFTER it has been on the market for 30 years right?)

To summarize all those links: A study that says serotonin isn't involved in depression. Another that is a meta analysis of SSRI research that says "no better than placebo" and the last one that says SSRI's have some gnarly withdrawal and you should taper off them (a multi month process).

So no I did not have a tirade against a broad spectrum of drugs. I had a tirade against the "treatments" that have, or are, turning out to be worse than the diseases they were treating.

hibernator149
0 replies
8h0m

Why not both? Pharma and Social Media profit from depressed people. Nothing ever has a single root cause. There are always multiple causes often working together in a vicious cycle. Also, what's wrong with vibrators?

pjerem
0 replies
10h22m

This is a real everyday pain that anyone with social media accounts can’t fathom.

Most (like 90%) businesses don’t have a website or when they have, it’s a static website. All the news are on social medias behind nag screens.

anhner
5 replies
9h54m

Teenagers are so judgy about the color of the text message bubbles they receive, imagine how judgy they would be if one didn't participate at all in some digital platform most of them use.

firecall
2 replies
9h29m

Not around these parts!

They all use Discord and/or Snapchat here in Australia. No one I've every asked about this cares about Android vs iPhone. No one.

No one apart from the Parents uses the built in messaging and SMS.

But then the Parent groups all use Facebook Messenger for most group comms.

The whole green / blue bubble thing is either over played by the Press or purley a US Phenomenon.

But given the marketshare of the iPhone with teenagers in the US, it seems it's possibly less of an issue its made out to be due to the fact that most people have iPhones anyway!

satvikpendem
0 replies
9h18m

I think you missed the entire point of the comment above. It's not about iOS vs Android but about not being included socially, regardless of the platform. Imagine in your example where one kid in a group didn't use Discord, they'd be effectively cut off.

coldtea
0 replies
9h10m

No one I've every asked about this cares about Android vs iPhone. No one.

They wouldn't necessarily tell if they did though...

This is more like "I asked 100 men if they worry their D is small, and nobody said yes".

dpkirchner
1 replies
4h51m

It's less about the color and more about the lack of feature parity. If one person joins it can downgrade the experience for everyone. This isn't the teenagers fault, they're just responding to product behavior.

AlexandrB
0 replies
3h52m

When I was a teenager, I responded to shitty product behavior by switching products. But that was an era where you had a half dozen competing desktop messengers as well as third party client options for most of them. We need to make adversarial interoperability possible again so users are not at the mercy of tech companies and their marketing teams.

jascination
4 replies
10h13m

It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not, some of your friends will still be more or less subtly influenced by its existence in your social interactions

You could say the same thing about the Bible, or Harry Potter, or any number of things too

raziel2p
2 replies
10h11m

The Bible, I absolutely would, the negative impact of dogmatic Christianity has been pretty bad on society IMO. Harry Potter, not so much, but still some yes. I still have to argue with some of my friends that the books have some dubious morals that I wouldn't be comfortable ingraining in my children (if I had any).

The scale, extent and addictiveness of these two things are nothing compared to algorithmic social media though.

zer0zzz
0 replies
9h58m

That’s an interesting thought. I wonder how detrimental Christianity’s impact on society has been compared to social media? It kind of makes the argument pointless when you frame it that way.

abnercoimbre
0 replies
9h57m

Tangent: Children's literacy (and that of some adults for that matter) skyrocketed under the HP phenomenon, in profound ways that activists/scholars are typically grateful for. I wish I could find the studies done, sorry that I don't have them on hand.

I guess I'm saying that it was worth it, dubious morals aside.

yard2010
0 replies
9h19m

And you would say it as well about party/designer drugs

uconnectlol
0 replies
7h18m

It's really not that simple

except it is, because law is dumb, stupid, and slow-witted. if you ban facebook specifically, the next day it will think that means mailing lists should also be banned. btw ive witnessed lots of mailing list and then web forum addicted deadbeats before social media came out but whatever

the legal solution is nothing (i realize not all of you have asked for the legal solution yet but thats essentially the only point of this thread that is brought up routinely on places like HN)

teh fact that every techie and his mom seems to think the law will work out in his favor when it backfires each time (or they just ignores that downsides) is no different than how people keep thinking you can put a web server in every embedded device and they oh so surprisingly have the same RCE vulns as the 90s, every single time.

trgn
0 replies
2h18m

It's baffling to me, that despite how famous McLuhan still is today, that people somehow do not follow the implications of his criticism (and that of Ellul, Debord, Kaczinsky ;), ...). Technology, in and of itself, the actual physical _thing_, shapes the world, our dispositions, our aspirations, in its own image, and does so in absence of our judgement.

octopusRex
0 replies
9h33m

I remember when they taught mcLuhan in highschool - 1970s - in order to make us more aware of media manipulation.

I wonder if they still do. Ironically, this was in Florida - probably be considered too woke by Desantis.

karaterobot
0 replies
4h46m

It's really not that simple. The products have become so widespread and influential that they change the very culture of our society for the worse. It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not, some of your friends will still be more or less subtly influenced by its existence in your social interactions.

I suspect that a lot of the anxiety about how difficult it would be to quit is the mind's way of rationalizing a psychological addiction, like saying you can't stop smoking because things are just so crazy right now.

I quit social networks in 2008, it wasn't hard at the time and it's not been hard to stay away. Yes, there are consequences of being the one guy in the friend group who doesn't use whatever app everyone else is using, but to call those consequences meaningful is an overstatement. A minor annoyance, easy for everyone to adapt to.

You're right that other people are still influenced by social networks. Speaking from the outside, I wouldn't even use the word 'subtle' to describe its effects. But, I don't know that that really matters. You surround yourself with people you like, despite their flaws. You hope the good things about them grow, and that they work through their flaws. That's just having friends.

base698
0 replies
4h55m

If TV turned everything into entertainment, including discourse, then social media has turned every discourse into being an influencer. I frequently see people at a coffeeshop set up cameras like they are filming a TV show to talk about their latte or muffin for Instagram. This happens everywhere in all walks of life. Any hobby, no matter how esoteric, will be molded into the shape of good for instagram.

thegrim000
57 replies
12h1m

It's funny .. earlier today there was a front page HN post about the federal government mandating safer circular saws. It seemed like the majority of users in the thread were in favor of the federal government mandating technology changes to prevent harm from being done to the population.

Now for this issue, there's harm being done to children, and the majority of users in the thread seem to be against government intervention; you say: "well if you don't like it, if you think it's negative, just don't use it, don't let your kids use it".

Kind of a random parallel to draw between the two stories, but it's funny the same logic doesn't seem to apply in both cases. Why wasn't for circular saws the response "if you think they're dangerous, don't use them" or "just keep your kids away from them"?

ImPleadThe5th
20 replies
11h53m

While both paternalism. Requiring safety features on a saw does not restrict free speech. It's more akin to seatbelt laws. It's also made to protect everyone who uses a table saw and not just children.

Imo, I do think social media needs to be reeled in by policy. But I can see why it makes people uncomfortable and why there is a difference with the saw.

Capricorn2481
15 replies
11h42m

How does not having social media restrict free speech? Do you think free speech didn't exist before social media?

Arguably, the presence of social media homogenizes the speech we're allowed to have.

eviks
7 replies
11h34m

It restricts free speech in the most direct, literal sense - by... restricting your ability to freely speak.

The historical existence is simply irrelevant. Just like existence of pre-TV/newspaper speech is not a relevant factor in determining whether banning all TV/newspapers in 1950 restricts free speech

sammorrowdrums
2 replies
11h10m

Making publication easy on social media has certainly had an impact on public speech, but private platforms do not offer free speech by design.

Naomi Klein went into this in No Logo with shopping malls replacing public spaces where you also don’t have a right to free speech and can be evicted arbitrarily at the owners discretion.

You’ll find virtually all of social media platforms have moderation, usage policies and user banning practices that go well beyond allowing the fully legally protected free speech you are afforded in a public space (in many countries).

eviks
0 replies
2h9m

It (practically) doesn't matter what the moderation policies are, a legal ban on social networks will still be a restriction on free speech

cnity
0 replies
10h40m

If all spaces that attract the majority of people are private and have homogenous terms of use, then free speech ends in all ways except on this technicality.

Edit: removed unnecessarily inflammatory phrasing.

kristiandupont
1 replies
7h46m

The restriction that this freedom is supposed to save you from is that of prosecution. Nobody is promising everyone a megaphone.

eviks
0 replies
2h7m

And this whole conversation is about laws mandating something and the resulting prosecution with comparisons to safety standards in saws, not your made up megaphone

forgetfreeman
0 replies
9h29m

This is a telling argument. Newspapers and television broadcasts, while geared towards broad public consumption, were never wholly democratized platforms and that didn't run afoul of the first amendment. It stands to reason that management of content on social media platforms or outright banning the same wouldn't either.

RandomLensman
0 replies
11h17m

What access to tools or avenues for speech should fall under the first amendment then?

cnity
5 replies
10h42m

How does banning an individual from printing books restrict free speech? Do you think free speech didn't exist before the printing press?

forgetfreeman
2 replies
9h32m

How is access to a wholly privately owned walled garden in any way relate to printing books? Private networks are by definition not public domain and thus are totally irrelevant to any discussion of free speech.

cnity
1 replies
9h24m

I would agree if it weren't for the complete transition to privately owned communication platforms. The answer to your question is actually quite simple: because communication via privately owned walled gardens is humanity's primary means of mass communication, just as it used to be printed media.

It would be as if printing presses were so complicated and expensive that the barrier to entry was so high as to price out everyone but a few select publishers. I wouldn't try to over-extend that metaphor though.

forgetfreeman
0 replies
8h26m

That folks have opted to interact (or been manipulated into it if we're really honest) with modes of communication that are outside of 1st amendment protections doesn't change either the spirit or the letter of the law. That would be like saying that if folks suddenly decided to communicate over transcontinental distances via morse code utilizing geophones and large explosions as the transmission mechanism so now the first amendment demands semtex should be broadly accessible to the public.

fabatka
0 replies
10h27m

I guess if it's only specific individuals/groups that can't print books, it's restricting free speech, if nobody can, it's not.

Capricorn2481
0 replies
10h23m

Not really the same, because the article is not calling for banning any source of social media. How would you even classify social media? We are taking about ad infested hellholes with no incentives other than maximizing revenue, regardless of the content pushed.

The proper analogy would be banning books with certain content, which we already do. You can't distribute a book calling for a specific person to be killed or doxxing them. Doing this on social media in Ethiopia is encouraged, as it drives engagement and has lead to actual deaths of people I know. They have a policy not to moderate this content despite having the resources. Just like they have a policy to make the apps as addictive as possible.

More importantly, Facebook is not a "printed book", it is the printing press. It owns the internet. It's not remotely comparable. And that's why it is a threat to free speech

sambazi
0 replies
10h49m

good point.

a lot of ppl got reeled into the narrative that social media can democratize (free) publication of conversations and ideas, thou it is dominated by monetary incentives that mandate propaganda/advertising and in turn moderation and censorship.

Ekaros
2 replies
11h44m

I wonder how many would be for seatbelt laws if the addition of seatbelts say doubled the price of car.

throwaway2037
0 replies
10h53m

    > if the addition of seatbelts say doubled the price of car
Here is the problem: They didn't. So what is your point?

red_admiral
0 replies
9h59m

I think this confuses cause and effect.

Seatbelts are brought up so often precisely because they are an intervention with a huge benefit-to-cost ratio. Seatbelt laws were made long after the fact - seat belts for cars started to appear in the 1950s, with the common three-point variant in 1955; the first seatbelt law appeared in 1970 (in Australia). The US started introducing seatbelt laws for cars in the 1980s (though as far as I know, some organizations/insurers required them earlier for employees driving for business).

drawkward
0 replies
5h27m

Which of Haidt's 4 suggestions restricts free speech? Is free speech (for adolescents) more important than the well-being of those same adolescents? Has American jurisprudence aligned on the notion that adolescents have an inviolable right to free speech?

lynx23
12 replies
11h37m

Because it is the parents responsibility to set boundaries for their children. It can be complicated at times, granted. But that doesn't make it less of their job. Heck, I got my first CD player with 14. Yes, I felt left out at school, but... guess what, I didn't die. Children need to learn that there are rules, and someone else dictates them. Throwing tantrums is a typical reaction that needs to be weeded out as a part of growing up.

Besides, the "somebody has to think about the children" meme is slowly but surely getting old and tiresome. Not somebody... Their PARENTS. If you dont feel like setting boundaries for your children, please, with sugar on top, dont have any.

hgomersall
5 replies
11h13m

As is pointed out in the article, a huge factor is the collective action trap. An individual set of parents can do very little to deal with mental health if they are the only ones.

lynx23
3 replies
10h51m

I totally doubt this is true. Its a nice excuse though.

forgetfreeman
2 replies
9h25m

Tell us you don't have kids without telling us you don't have kids. Short of totally unplugging your children from broader society via homeschooling, joining a commune, or similar extremes, children are exposed to whatever other children's parents permit through nothing more complicated than their interactions with other kids. An example from pre-digital times would be that one kid who's dad kept a stash of nudie mags unsecured which invariably lead to hushed giggling in the back of the bus.

arkey
1 replies
8h20m

I was that kid (I mean one with boundaries set, with parents that acted against all of this, just to be clear) and now a father, with my second kid on her way. Still very young, so I can't claim to have much experience. But I am getting ready to stand against all of this, and I do intend to delay their exposure to social networks, mass information, etc. as much as possible.

At least until their character is formed and they have developed essential human traits like being able to read a book, being able to be patient, being able to communicate in person, and to hand-write. You know, that sort of ancient wisdom.

Edit for clarification.

forgetfreeman
0 replies
8h13m

Brace yourself for the day your kid comes home armed will rickrolls and starts muttering "deez nuts" under their breath. It's coming way WAY sooner than you think. ;)

arkey
0 replies
8h25m

No, they can do quite a lot, it's just VERY hard, for both the parents and the kids.

But if properly done, it can work. I was/have been the kid in this scenario, and now I'm being the parent and bracing for it.

Social pressure might be a tidal wave, you can either give up, or you can try to stand against it.

RandomLensman
2 replies
11h15m

You can say it should be on the parents here and reason why, but for a lot of things it is not just on the parents (children are not allowed to vote, drive a car, buy guns, go to bar and drink alcohol, gamble, ... - it is a long list).

graemep
1 replies
10h2m

Such bans are not clear and are contentious, and often leave room for parental discretion.

In most countries whether children drink alcohol at home is up to their parents. In some countries an adult can buy teenagers a drink (in the UK they increased the required age from 14 to 16 - and I think its a bad thing).

There are people who think 16 year olds should be allowed to vote.

Kids cannot buy guns, but can use them. I did a bit of rife shooting at school.

RandomLensman
0 replies
9h56m

Is it really contentious if 10 year old children cannot on their own buy liquor or guns, for example? I would not have put that high on the list of contentious issues.

There is a difference in being granted unsupervised abilities vs supervised ones.

m_fayer
1 replies
6h38m

As we make parenting harder and harder in lots of creative and sadistic ways, more and more people are taking your advice. That’s got its own problems, it turns out.

silverquiet
0 replies
6h27m

The recent proliferation of studies examining cross-national variation in the association between parenthood and happiness reveal accumulating evidence of lower levels of happiness among parents than nonparents in most advanced industrialized societies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5222535/

I never saw myself as capable of withstanding the stress of parenting and so I never even really thought about having kids. I thought I was a far outlier, but, given trends in fertility, I think I may have just been early in realizing this.

dotinvoke
0 replies
11h7m

I was one of the last people in my class to get a phone, which taught me that not having the cool new thing was not nearly as bad as I had thought.

maxioatic
8 replies
10h59m

It was about table saws, not circular saws. There’s a big difference between the two. Table saw accidents often result in losing fingers and it’s not that difficult to mess up while using one.

There’s a well known, proven, easy solution to table saw accidents called SawStop. It’s basically as obvious to use as a seat belt is if you want to be safe. The only problem is those table saws are very expensive.

Social media doesn’t have an existing and obvious solution (besides not using it).

planede
4 replies
10h27m

Isn't SawStop patent encumbered? AFAIK the three point seat belt design's patent was made open by Volvo at the time, so the patent didn't hold back adoption.

michaelt
1 replies
6h27m

Yes - in fact the whole company was started by a patent attorney.

SawStop says they'll release one patent (which is about to expire anyway) but they've got a huge portfolio of other ones, and companies like Grizzly say that SawStop is unwilling to engage with them in good faith on licensing their technology.

Bosch released a saw with similar tech, except unlike SawStop it didn't use overpriced consumables every time it triggered. SawStop sued the product off of the market.

The company founder also serves as an expert witness when people shove their hands into moving saw blades, then sue the saw makers - testifying that the makers should be held liable because they haven't licensed his invention.

Of course, I'm sure for SawStop getting all their competitors banned will be a highly profitable decision; it's no surprise they're lobbying for it.

OvidNaso
0 replies
4h14m

Sawstop did sue Bosch, but then changed their mind and gave them a free license immediately after the case was won. It was boschs decision not to release their product in the US for whatever reason.

pcl
0 replies
8h30m

The CEO committed to releasing the one remaining patent to the public domain earlier this year.

margalabargala
0 replies
8h29m

SawStop has publicly pledged to dedicate their patents to the public if this becomes mandated.

XorNot
1 replies
10h31m

I think this could be aptly summarized as "you can't accidentally slip and become depressed" using social media. You can absolutely slip and lose one or several fingers or your entire hand using a table saw.

The more pertinent comparison would be alcohol IMO: none of the people who want "something" done about social media seem to have a problem with the widespread, massive use of alcohol within society and the incredible amounts of continuous and ongoing damage it does.

unclebucknasty
0 replies
6h36m

I think this could be aptly summarized as "you can't accidentally slip and become depressed" using social media

I think the point is exactly that you can.

unclebucknasty
0 replies
10h30m

So, if there's not an easy solution, we should de-emphasize the problem?

raxxorraxor
5 replies
11h16m

The reason I am against government intervention is the fact that governments seem to not be competent enough to solve problems like this and they would use content controls for their own purposes. It is vastly different and more complex than regulating saws. The comparison falls short by a huge margin and a false conclusion that any federal legislation would be desirable just because it is the case for saws.

Some suggest it would be the "hate" on the net that is causing the issues and we see legislation that penalizes some content already, but I heavily doubt it to be the source of any problem.

Might be something similar, perhaps the strong indignations some statements on the net seem to get to some people, although these can be as politely stated as any frivolous statement can be. And the resulting expectations on opinions you are allowed to harbor.

unclebucknasty
2 replies
11h3m

Irrespective of where people fall on this particular issue, I find it odd how the people who are so distrustful of government would allow things that are overtly dangerous, as long as it prevents government from...governing.

It's like we have this generation of people who believe government overreach is a) inevitably the outcome in every scenario; b) present in every situation; c) always the worst possible thing that could happen. As in, literally worse than mass sickness and death.

ryandrake
1 replies
8h37m

Not only that, but they assume that corporations, free of government regulation, will simply act in everyone’s best interest, with responsibility and accountability.

At least in theory, my government representatives are accountable to me. To whom is Facebook accountable?

unclebucknasty
0 replies
6h4m

Exactly. People who want to disempower democratic government are just disempowering themselves. But, they seem to think the power held by the government would simply evaporate.

They don't realize it's really a question of who will rule over them, and whether there's any chance it will be themselves.

Sure, our democracy has been crippled, but the solution is to fix it, not dismantle it.

And ironically the people who are crippling it (Citizens United, lobbying, regulatory capture, etc) are the same who would rule over us if it were completely abolished. That is, essentially, their project.

sloowm
1 replies
10h2m

The government is never a passive actor. So non-intervention is also active policy. You can only choose what the policy is. The active policy for the last 15 years has been to consolidate a social media oligopoly with very few restrictions. Users are being tracked, advertisement laws are being skirted and are less restrictive than in other mediums, data is being sold, dark patterns are used to keep people from making their own choices. The algorithms are actively promoting bad content because the social media companies are not held liable for their part in promoting false content.

raxxorraxor
0 replies
7h25m

Depending on where you live it is not true that there are no restrictions on false advertising and accountability for commercial content.

That said, a government can be passive and not regulate a field and non-intervention stays non-intervention, be it conscious or not. But that is besides the point. A government that tries to regulate all aspects of life is usually connected to totalitarianism, an that isn't only a libertarian position.

0xEF
2 replies
10h16m

This is a silly comparison. The table saw was not designed to be addictive, turn its users into a highly lucrative commodity, or push algorithmically driven agendas. Social media was. The dangers being compared here are very different.

moffkalast
0 replies
9h17m

You mean to say, with a saw the intent is for it to be a useful tool and the danger is an unintended side effect, while for social media the danger is the intent and it being a useful tool is an unintended side effect.

kristiandupont
0 replies
10h2m

That seems to reinforce GP's argument, though?

nearbuy
1 replies
8h42m

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.

zelphirkalt
0 replies
5h47m

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

uconnectlol
0 replies
4h10m

hes actually trying to say, "that's stupid". HN and reddit would be so much easier if negative posting were allowed.

your argument is dumb too, it doesn't even deserve acknowledgment, but we are little babies here and have to politely explain to everyone why they're wrong, to the point that the insane people just always win and get their dumb ideas into law because nobody cares anymore and are tired of explaining common sense over and over. having safety controls on hardware is not anything remotely equivalent to the hypothetical problem the article pitches. there is not any world where regulating social media makes sense, and i say this as someone who has never used social media in my life. the entire issue at hand here is like a bear shitting in the woods and someone happens to step on it once in a thousand years, almost none of these so called people who get addicted to social media would have any better off chance at life without it, they would just get addicted to one of the millions of other things one can get addicted to. the remaining one in a million people who actually had their life ruined by social media is like the bear shitting in the woods, its just life.

forgetfreeman
0 replies
9h34m

Yeah funny as a one-legged rabbit hopping in neat little circles. If I were still on social media I wouldn't want to take a long look at the quality of my interactions or the costs associated with them either.

dfxm12
0 replies
4h31m

Regulating a physical product being sold within the country, like a circular saw, is obviously materially different from enforcing age restrictions or other regulations to a website probably owned by a multinational company.

Personally, I don't have much of an opinion around circular saws, but I don't want my government to build a framework where they can choose to hide certain parts of the Internet. I also think the issue isn't social media, per se, but algorithms that promote negative content, personal data harvesting, etc. Banning tiktok et al isn't going to solve those problems. They'll still exist because other types of sites are implementing them.

NoPicklez
17 replies
12h44m

Everyone has the ability to exercise personal accountability for how much they gamble, smoke, eat junk food, play video games, use social media etc. However, if these consumer products become so addictive, or are designed to be so engaging and as a result people are by and large struggling to exercise personal accountability and it is causing adverse health outcomes.

Then the government should step in, either should forceful action or through promoting healthier alternatives or shining a light on its damaging effects.

lynx23
5 replies
11h34m

So, why are alcohol (and nicotine) still legal then? Maybe there is a 100 year old lesson hidden somewhere...

johnchristopher
1 replies
11h28m

And maybe that lesson is hiding in ellipsis or maybe it's not. Who knows...

ajkjk
0 replies
57m

Um. They are heavily regulated? Isn't that what is being argued for for social media?

TacticalCoder
0 replies
10h46m

So, why are alcohol (and nicotine) still legal then?

I don't disagree with your answer but... Kids cannot buy alcohol and kids cannot buy cigarettes. It's kinda the whole point of TFA.

The conclusion of TFA aren't to outlaw social media: it's preventing kids from accessing these mediocre piece of shit websites/apps before 16.

NoPicklez
0 replies
6h48m

This is actually the classic example of where personal accountability fails, which is what cigarette companies would lobby for. Which is the root of this post

As a result governments have stepped in and now there are age restrictions on both smoking and alcohol, blood alcohol limits for driving, lockout laws, no advertisement of cigarettes in supermarkets, additional taxes on cigarettes, plain packaging on cigarettes.

Making something immediately completely illegal isn’t necessarily the correct course of action. But governments have stepped in to try and help people exercise personal accountability.

Disclaimer: the examples are from within Australia

jimz
4 replies
11h44m

Except "struggle" is entirely subjective. In fact, outside of a few things that causes physical dependence (which vary in length except they all, eventually at least, end), the concept of addiction as used by the government does not necessarily match up to how those in the particular field of research would. Government makes laws and laws prefer bright line rules. Something like "did you, without authorization, use the credit card given to you by your company to make purchases unrelated to your work", for example, have concrete, definable, and answerable elements that are universal and more or less binary, provided that the statute has a definition section that makes sense. But "so addictive" or "designed to be so engaging and as a result people are by and large struggling to exercise personal accountability and it is causing adverse health outcomes" is pretty much the antithesis of that. The government would need to define "addictive", "designed" would need to have an intent element (one designs the software, sure, but you're asking for not what the software itself does but one step further - what its impact is on the population at large). How does the government prove that intent, especially since criminal law tends to define intent as intent to act which combined with the act itself, creates the crime. What counts as "so engaging" or even "engaging"? Does it require active engagement? Plenty of platforms do not require any active engagement to partake in the conventional sense, unless reading is engagement. How many people counts as "by large" (I assume that's what you mean, feel free to correct)? How would the government show that the product and any struggle is causatively linked and not merely correlative? How does one define struggle to exercise personal accountability? Where did the duty of exercising personal accountability even come from as to establish liability and would that criminalize those who are disabled or injured as to being unable to exercise such responsibility writ large? And what counts for adverse health outcomes? All these need to be worked out in legislation and likely argued over in court. Every single element needs to be worked on as to not to be overly inclusive or exclusive. And since it's the government, the consequences for violation is without question enormous, and therefore, anything that can be misconstrued can result in the ruin of a company or persons in a variety of ways, but do you really want to have the government determine who is an edge case that doesn't count? Because the government have done that based on assumptions of potential harm and it has caused what today would be considered horrific abuses of human rights and very little positives beyond enriching those whose income derives from the enforcement of the government's scheme.

Laws are lagging indicators but they also last a long time. the CFAA was passed before the advent of the WWW and it took until 2021 to even set a basic check on the part of the Supreme Court that effective set the ground rule that to access what amounts to a computer linked to some network beyond authorization, an authorization scheme needs to exist in the first place. Before that, one can easily be charged and even sent to prison or be assessed massive fines when there's no meaningful distinction between what is authorized and unauthorized space. These were not problems in the early to mid 80s but when problems did arise, it still took a quarter century to resolve. To have one future-proof goldilocks solution is already next to impossible, but you're asking for five or six stringed together in order to have a sensible law that is well tailored enough so that it is effective without being oppressive. Not to mention that unless the behavior is generally abandoned by users, it creates black markets that are simply illegible to the state. The government then effectively loses control over what it purports to control to those with means, leaving only those without subject to the full force of the legislation.

That of course all predicates on the premise that there can be commonly agreed and sensible ways to define all those, and it is in the best interest of the government to do so and passes Constitutional muster not just on speech grounds but a host of other potential issues, like, is this a purely civil matter or a purely criminal matter or both? The federal government can treat this explicitly, or kick it off to an agency as part of its mandate, but which one? Do we need a new one? Are there checks and balances that would provide some sort of agility that keeps up with the times? What if new research comes out that shows the lack of a link, but by legislating it, you've effectively frozen the relevant conclusion in time. Enforcement creates constituencies who do not care about science or potential upsides. The DEA is on the record in the federal register that patient access to legitimate medication is secondary and effectively an afterthought to enforcement of supply, because the agency's mandate presupposes that substances need controls and are presumed harmful and that enforcement, with the teeth provided for by the DOJ, will trump any study the FDA or our academic institutions can ever show. By the time that particular moral panic was given a name, the US government had been attempting repeatedly to use prohibition as a way of imposing a specific set of social mores that at first was a pretext to target specific racial minorities and when that became socially unacceptable (legally it was unacceptable under the 14th Amendment anyway, but they effectively smuggled the laws in through the Treasury Department and protectionist regimes by taxing the goods into oblivion, and avoiding the tax obviously is also a violation of the law).

In that sense, the government operates very much like a machine, whereas given a concrete goal to achieve and it can likely achieve it, but the manner by which it achieves it may create additional problems and convoluted interpretations that ripples through history in ways unimaginable. The loudest voices in the room, or those with existing financial resources or interests, can use the rent-seeking system known as lobbying to shape the laws to begin with. And where does the fines end up? Certainly in most cases they are not given back to the community, but end up enriching the enforcement agencies. Go to a police auction and see how much they're raising from the sale of "proceeds of crime", except not all of it are crimes that are proven in court, and much of it are crimes without specific victims and so, it becomes a regime of appropriation of private property to enrich a few in the public sector.

There's usually an annoying gap between concept and reality. In isolation you want a policy that can solve problems in a targeted and fair way. In reality it almost never happens.

hgomersall
3 replies
11h2m

Addiction is well defined in research and it certainly does not preclude things that don't cause "physical dependence" by which I assume you use to mean psychoactive drugs.

Wikipedia has a better definition right at the top than I can offer: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction

The crucial point is it is characterised by neurological changes that lead to short circuited reward pathways. The idea of addiction to social media a perfectly consistent with its action and moreover, consistent with the notion that its effect can be enhanced by design.

nearbuy
1 replies
8h26m

The crucial point is it is characterised by neurological changes that lead to short circuited reward pathways

Everything that's enjoyable in life can meet that definition. For practical purposes, we only consider severe cases to be addiction, but it's not well-defined. The article you linked says:

However, there is no agreement on the exact definition of addiction in medicine. Indeed, Volkow et al. (2016) report that the DSM-5 defines addictions as the most severe degree of the addictive disorders, due to pervasive/excessive substance-use or behavioural compulsions/impulses. It is a definition that many scientific papers and reports use.

The DSM-5 and ICD-10 only recognize gambling addictions as behavioral addictions

I don't think the DSM-5 has any principled reason for recognizing gambling addictions but not video game addiction or shopping addiction, other than gambling addiction being particularly harmful.

hgomersall
0 replies
7h33m

The critical sentence in the Wikipedia intro is "despite substantial harm and other negative consequences".

NoPicklez
0 replies
6h38m

Exactly, completely agree.

And whilst many things in life can have this property and need to such that we get enjoyment out of particular aspects of life.

There are particular things which short circuit reward pathways to a greater degree. Such as drugs, alcohol, gambling, video games, smartphone addiction.

Smart phone/video games are designed to constantly reward us as much as possible

cdogl
3 replies
12h35m

The simply binary of government or individual choice eliminates the middle ground where almost all change happens: the collective aggregate result of cultural change within the community. We don’t have to pick one extreme to change the world!

Barrin92
1 replies
12h5m

the middle ground where almost all change happens: the collective aggregate result of cultural change

happened, past tense. That cultural layer, to a large extent enforced by various religious traditions both in the literal and civic sense, sometimes for better or worse is pretty much gone. Nowadays it largely is a binary question of legal action on the one hand or individual choice on the other.

If you tell people they need to make change within their community 90% are going to ask you, what community? Community with a capital C where people collectively enforce binding rules, rather than occasionally go bowling isn't much of a thing.

randomdata
0 replies
11h43m

Community need not be tight for change to occur. A random stranger calling you out on your shit is just as effective. Maybe even more effective as it doesn't always hit so hard when someone you are comfortable with says it.

NoPicklez
0 replies
6h44m

I never said it was binary, but we’re talking about governments stepping in to help. The government cannot and will have the capacity to come in and solely fix the problem.

Collective change is required and that could include the help of Government, but currently the Government isn’t doing anything, which is the premise of this post. Should they step in and if so, to what degree and how much can they really do.

Loic
1 replies
12h33m

I explain to our kids that it is normal for them to have difficulties with stopping playing or looking at a stream from a social media platform.

My explanation is that they are fighting against a team of PhDs optimizing everything to make them addicted.

Luckily they all do a lot of sport and have this way disconnected time everyday.

ghxst
0 replies
8h27m

Just want to say I love how simple yet effective this explanation is. Can I ask what age range your kids are in and do they understand this perspective enough that they are aware of it and take steps to avoid it?

willvarfar
10 replies
13h14m

US citizens have the right to free speech.

US companies have a qualified right to free speech https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/freedom-of-speec...

How about AI? If it is an algorithm that is talking to you, does it have the right to do all the things that are protected by 'free speech'?

And does it matter if the AI is commercial, or a home hobby project effort?

golergka
8 replies
13h7m

Somebody has bought or rented the computer that this AI runs on, somebody has launched it as a piece of code or an API call.

This somebody is using his right to free speech, AI is just a tool.

willvarfar
4 replies
13h2m

Can you clarify, is your "somebody" a person or a company?

latency-guy2
2 replies
12h9m

is your "somebody" a person or a company?

What is the explicit difference between 1 person and 10 persons when it comes to their rights?

Explicit, I want to know what rights we lose as soon as "I" transforms into "we".

Kbelicius
1 replies
11h38m

What is the explicit difference between 1 person and 10 persons when it comes to their rights?

None.

Explicit, I want to know what rights we lose as soon as "I" transforms into "we".

In this case a company isn't "we". It is usually the owner.

latency-guy2
0 replies
11h24m

> What is the explicit difference between 1 person and 10 persons when it comes to their rights?

None.

> Explicit, I want to know what rights we lose as soon as "I" transforms into "we".

In this case a company isn't "we". It is usually the owner.

Awesome, I'm glad that rights do not change between 1 to 1 billion, let's not assert that these rights disappear in conditions that make no difference in quality.

Gud
0 replies
10h13m

This “somebody” is part of the wealthy ruling class who makes the laws through billions of dollars spent on bribes(“lobbying”) and propaganda.

otherme123
1 replies
12h19m

How a corporation can have an opinion?

I can give you that an AI trained to make a mixin of a lot of input texts and output a mashup of those texts, the output might not be the same of their creators. That said, it's known that AI creators/trainers can make their AI lean towards certain "opinions", as we saw recently with the case of Gemini and their understanding of diversity (https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/21/24079371/google-ai-gemini...).

Corporations can't do that. Corporations don't ask for everybody's in the corporation opinion and then do an aggregate with all of them to write a press release. They have some people choosing what to say in the press release that goes in the interest of the corporation.

latency-guy2
0 replies
12h8m

They have some people choosing what to say in the press release that goes in the interest of the corporation.

Who are these people? Are they people or something that are not people?

almostnormal
0 replies
6h33m

US companies have a qualified right to free speech

There doesn't even seem to be much speech of the companies running the platforms on their own platforms. All they do is quote their users.

olibhel
10 replies
11h39m

In my country, India, these platforms are used less for free speech and more for brainwashing and spreading hate and misinformation. Most of these posts are in Hindi, a major language around here, and call for all kinds of hate such as suppression of a specific religion, call for genocide, invading and acquiring neighboring countries etc.

I've tried reporting such posts multiple times but hate filled posts are neither removed, nor restricted. If a platform cannot provide adequate moderation, it should stop operating in my country and be held responsible for providing a platform for spreading hate pseudo-anonmously.

satvikpendem
8 replies
11h36m

How is this example any different than what the parent has said? If people feel these platforms are negatively impacting them, they should stop using them. Or do you believe others or the government has a right to disallow what people want to watch via their own choices? You may call it brainwashing but others may disagree.

graemep
4 replies
10h22m

If people feel these platforms are negatively impacting them, they should stop using them.

The problem is how to stop the mob attacking you from using them.

An American equivalent might be if social media existed a 100 years ago and was being used to encourage lynchings. Yes, it really is that bad in some places.

The problem is that FB does moderate things relevant to the US but ignores the rest of the world. They will remove white supremacist material in the US, but not the equivalent elsewhere.

satvikpendem
3 replies
9h21m

The solution is in the problem, network effects. If everyone stopped using them due to deleterious effects, the problem is would solve itself.

carlosjobim
1 replies
2h23m

Why do you think a lynch mob would stop using social media when they are excellent tools for them to use to organise lynchings?

satvikpendem
0 replies
2h22m

Notice how the government made lynchings illegal, not the method of communicating such actions.

graemep
0 replies
7h47m

Yes, but how do you get "everyone" to stop using the? I use FB purely because of network effects. I hate it, but there would be a real cost to not using it.

olibhel
1 replies
9h34m

do you believe others or the government has a right to disallow what people want to watch via their own choices

Yes. As an extreme example: watching cheese pizza is not allowed by governments. We have collectively also come together to consider murder as socially and legally unacceptable. We can and should regulate social media if posts read as follows:

- we should invade and bomb that country to bits - we should destroy all places of worship belonging to XYZ religion - we should vote for XYZ because only he is going to save our religion from PQR - and much worse which I can't type here as moderation team of HN would omit those

IMHO: give the current form of social media another few decades and it will come out shinning bright just like opioids did in the USA.

These same social media platforms, when required by law, become very effective in moderation but there's next to no moderation in my country and most of the hate and abuse is counted as just another engagement metrics.

satvikpendem
0 replies
9h22m

Watching CP and murdering people is in no way comparable to any of those bullet points you made. Generally in the US at least, uniquely among many nations, the principle and constitutional right of the freedom of speech reigns supreme over many, many others, so there is no chance that any of those bullet points would (or should, given such a principle) be regulated.

One can and should be able to espouse those beliefs, regardless of whether they are true or not, because the alternative is much worse, where the rights of such exposition are severely curtailed. Hell, someone got arrested for taunting the Queen in the UK, something that legally cannot happen in the US had a similar person taunted a government official.

Fricken
0 replies
8h20m

Hate speech and incitements to violence against the Rohingya precipitated for years on Facebook. Deleting the app would not have saved the Rohingya from getting genocided.

graemep
0 replies
10h16m

I have seen some of the same with Sri Lankan posts. Loathsome stuff in Sinhala. Not calling for genocide, but definitely encouraging persecution and bigotry. One group that was particularly poisonous was removed after a campaign by many people. One person complaining gets nowhere. I am sure there is more similar material elsewhere.

I think the underlying issue is that American companies view everything through the lens of American culture and if its not a problem in the US, then it is not offensive.

I once reported a racist comment on FB. Someone said that people of their race should not "interbreed" with people of another race because the latter are evil. FB said it did not violate their community standards.

IMO it was probably because it was a comment by a black person (probably American) about white people. That is not the major problem is the US so its fine.

hackerlight
10 replies
13h19m

if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them.

Relevant bit from the essay:

"But much of my book is about the collective action traps that entire communities of adolescents fall into when they move their social lives onto these platforms, such that it becomes costly to abstain. It is at that point that collective mental health declines most sharply, and the individuals who try to quit find that they are socially isolated. The skeptics do not consider the ways that these network or group-level effects may obscure individual-level effects, and may be much larger than the individual-level effects."

lvoudour
8 replies
12h10m

An excellent point. Abstention = social isolation, which for young people is far worse than exposure. Restricting your children's access is not an option (lets' be real, they'll find a way to circumvent your efforts anyway) and moving the burden of restriction from society to individuals is not fair.

So as a society do we let unrestrained exposure or do we take collective action? I lean on the second option, but I'm not sure what this action might be.

I'm on the internet ~30 years, I loved the total anarchy of the early web, the unrestrained access to all kinds of information - good, bad and evil. It's very hard for me to get behind heavy-handed regulation. But honestly, I feel oversaturated by the modern cataclysm of information. My bullshit filters are clogged, my defense mechanisms are failing to the point I let information flow through me without an ounce of critical thinking. I can't imagine what the effect is on young untrained minds.

bigstrat2003
2 replies
11h34m

Abstention = social isolation, which for young people is far worse than exposure. Restricting your children's access is not an option...

"Everybody else is doing it" has never been, and still is not, a valid reason for anything. If other parents choose to let their kids ingest mental poison, that does not mean that one should allow their children to do the same. Abstention is not only an option, it is something which absolutely should be enforced by any parent who cares about their child's well being.

lvoudour
1 replies
10h42m

I'm not talking about kids, I'm talking about adolescents (as is the quoted paragraph). I strongly believe that an adolescent's well being is tightly coupled with social interactions. If a restriction is not protecting them from life threatening situations, then alienating them from their peers is probably worse.

ryandrake
0 replies
8h23m

So the choice is between social-media-induced mental illness and alienation/isolation? No wonder kids are so screwed up today: there is no winning move!

ljm
1 replies
8h50m

Overall, I think the internet has basically been weaponised (intentionally or not) by big tech. People of every generation are being manipulated at a scale that has never before been possible, and what’s more is that the algorithms for targeting and engagement make it trivial to do this, either through propaganda, disinformation, or advertising in a way that skirts regulations on traditional media.

Will it change? I doubt it - Google and Facebook are likely too big to fail now, Twitter is still around as a bona-fide hate platform, TikTok is unlikely to go anywhere until something else replaces it…

Mainan_Tagonist
0 replies
6h35m

The term "Too Big To Fail" is probably inappropriate here (was it ever appropriate actually? banks should have been allowed to fail in 2008), indeed Facebook may well be replaced at some point (is Gen Z even on Facebook?), and AI might well replace Google's killer product: its search engine.

This said, I tend to agree with you, the power law exists and has to be maintained by big tech to control the content because a captive audience is soooo profitable.

Mainan_Tagonist
0 replies
10h2m

Same feeling here, I loved the early internet, it played a huge part in who i am actually! This said, this is not the early internet anymore, where content was mechanically regulated by a sort of egalitarian rule. Social Media applies a power law to content, so that 80% of the viewers are aware of the 20% that's available and human nature being what it is, lowest common denominator content gets pushed to the forefront.

Hence all the attention seekers on FacebInstaTok...

This is further compounded by the pervert effects generated by these platforms one of them being the mimetism and the general wolfpack behaviour that can surge out of the madness of crowds. Online Bullying is real.

My kids (11 and 14) are stuck on feature phones for now and i'd like, as much as possible to keep them off smartphones and their constant Notifications for the foreseeable future, until they are not kids.

GoblinSlayer
0 replies
11h43m

If they find a workaround, they will still be unable to sit there around the clock, which is decent reduction of consumption. Also there won't be many, just like smoking schoolkids, so no social pressure. You can ban it completely or you can have your lovely bookface 1 hour per day, why not, it's dangerous when they spend there 10 hours per day.

CaptArmchair
0 replies
11h20m

30 years ago, you didn't live vicariously through the published perception of the world you friends held 24/7. Social interactions stopped when you put down the phone or went home for the day. If your friends went on a trip, while you couldn't, you'd only hear about their stories when they got back.

30 years ago, unrestrained access was still constrained to a desktop computer hooked to dial-up. Your access was constrained to a physical location.

Today, the big issue is the lure of having 24/7 mobile access to the Internet. At any moment, you can amend your own crafted online digital identity, meshing it with your real life, as you publish your location via Snapchat, Instagram or WhatsApp with your friends. Meanwhile, you can't but be confronted with notifications telling you where your friends are and what they are up to with who ("X has posted a photo, Y is currently at Z").

On a surface level, that lure has created a host of totally new social conventions and etiquette over the past 18 years, basically since the release of the iPhone. Social conventions to which one has to conform unless you don't want to lose out on social connections.

For instance, seeing whether a recipient of a PM has "read" a message and then "leaving you on read". Having that rather unrealistic expectation that one ought to respond instantly once a message has been read. At worst, friendships are put on tenterhooks as one ties value to the time between that "read" notice, and the moment a response follows.

In reality, the world 30 years ago wasn't more beautiful and people weren't more kind then they are today. In fact, if you weren't asked by your friends to hang out, or were left out when they went to a party and had all these in-group stories to tell, you felt socially isolated either way. That's not really new.

What's new is that this new lure of 24/7 connectivity creates a potential to be confronted with those feelings pretty much every waking hour. It must be anxiety inducing to scroll through your feed, not knowing if your friends did or didn't hang out last night without asking you.

To my mind, the answer isn't outright banning social media, or mobile devices. The answer is to keep having that difficult discussion about the value of the affordances - or lack thereof - the offer to foster healthy human relationships. It's about finding better ways to teach and empower young people on how to approach these tools, built by commercial enterprises, in healthy ways. And it's about being willing to properly publicly invest in aspects ranging from education to mental health support to enforcement and so on.

GoblinSlayer
0 replies
11h8m

They meet their society in meat at school every day, how is that isolation? Also ban smartphones at school.

smokel
9 replies
12h31m

> then don't use them

This assumes that humans are rational agents. I think that drug addiction, wars in Israel and Ukraine, conspiracy theorists, and free-climbers sufficiently prove that this is not the case.

If only life were so easy, we would not even need to have this discussion.

zigman1
8 replies
12h20m

It's the country's role or more specifically, the role of education to equip citizens with skills that will help them navigate virtual, deceiving and fake internet space.

smokel
5 replies
12h18m

No, it's not. Where does it say so?

zigman1
2 replies
11h58m

Educational goals focus on broader set of skills and competences including critical and logical thinking. You can find this in most national and federal documents. That's because the education in its traditional sense is a country investing in its own working force. Normally, a country would want a healthy, educated and productive workforce, but if this is not the case then we have a different problem.

smokel
1 replies
11h47m

Sure, but there are so many skills to focus on, that one can hardly expect people to stay off drugs because one lesson was spent on how bad it is.

Companies are constantly inventing new ways to get people hooked on their platforms (or products), and it's a pretty tough race for teachers.

Note also the difference in salaries for high school teachers and developers at Meta.

zigman1
0 replies
11h39m

The point is not to have a one shitty lesson on it, probably by someone who doesn't even know what cookies are. The point is, that alongside learning math, biology and history, you should also come out of educational system emotionally mature and equipped with skills to survive in modern world. Not all skills are acquired through a deliberate lesson, the role of school is not only to teach but to upbring a generation(s).

If Huberman can teach you a basics of nutrition so can a formal educational process. The problem with relying on youtube educators is then that it is down to luck if someone will come across it.

lewhoo
1 replies
9h36m

You are focusing too much on formalities. It doesn't say so specifically, but a collateral of education, or maybe it's equally important as knowledge itself, is the ability of critical thinking.

smokel
0 replies
19m

I was being sarcastic, sorry for that. Critical thinking might work for a few people in higher education, but it surely doesn't work for all of us.

raziel2p
1 replies
11h45m

That is certainly an opinion and a higher goal we could hold ourselves to, but education is generally just a way to ensure kids grow up to be good citizens - and today good tends to mean productive, contributing to the economy.

zigman1
0 replies
11h37m

See my reply to the other comment of my same opinion :)

steeve
8 replies
12h7m

One could make that exact argument of cigarettes too. And see why it doesn't work in the real world.

kevingadd
3 replies
11h23m

Cigarettes aren't speech. I don't understand why anyone would argue otherwise.

boxed
2 replies
10h53m

No, but there the issue is bodily autonomy. Which arguably is much more important a right than free speech.

suslik
1 replies
9h21m

Is bodily autonomy a recognized right in any sense? Is there a society that actually respects the right to bodily autonomy legally or in practice - meaning, using any drugs at will, the right to suicide, to agree to being eaten by a friendly cannibal, and so on? I don't think there is, and nobody is pushing for it.

defrost
0 replies
9h11m

The Okapa District, pre missionary, pre kiaps .. you were good to go until the mid 1950s at least .. and then colonizers spread their values.

to agree to being eaten by a friendly cannibal

They had standards though, you'd have to work to gain the respect for anyone to want to eat you as a mortuary ritual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FK5N_ObFeQ

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fore_people

throwaway2037
2 replies
10h50m

Are you making the argument that restricting cigarette sales by age does not work?

steeve
1 replies
10h3m

Quite the opposite

throwaway2037
0 replies
7h8m

Thank you to clarify. I agree with your point. The reduction in underage people smoking in rich countries has plumetted in the last 30 years. Much of that is due to stricter enforcement of retail and advertising rules.

mcmoor
0 replies
7h47m

Tobacco regulation is actually something I don't see people talked often. Some seem to have restricted it and succeed, or failed. Some seems to let it go and succeed, or failed. It's seemingly less sexy than either alcohol or marijuana, maybe because USA is one example where they just let cigarettes go and succeed anyway.

My country is an example where it failed anyway. Whether we are considered to have tried regulating it or not is a bit complicated.

nonrandomstring
4 replies
10h28m

There are two kinds of freedom [0].

What we are missing in our society today is some essential negative freedoms.

Most of us follow J.S. Mill's idea on restricting the influence of the state. See the many comments in this thread decrying government intervention to ban social media. That's a negative freedom, from tyranny.

Mostly, we tend to emphasise positive freedoms, freedom to; run a business, share speech, own technology. And that is good.

But there are negative freedoms, freedom from; coercion, the scourge of drugs, poverty, censorship. Obviously many positive freedoms can be expressed as negative ones, but how that logic is formulated in law really matters.

Now the controversial bit:

What we are missing is laws that give people freedom from technology The supposed "choice" to participate is not enough.

Like others here I've been a non participant in social media and smartphones. I'm not a Luddite, I'm a computer scientist, but I twigged this problem very early having dealt with addiction and recognising how abuse is mediated by technology. I even wrote a book about it [1].

The problem is, life is made very difficult for those who want to exercise choice. Presently one must live as a second class citizen, in what feels like racism and prejudice of technological snobbery. It is utterly unnecessary.

Governments do not need to ban smartphones or social media for kids or for anyone. Making this only about kids is a cop-out. It's leveraging emotional messaging to side-step a bigger problem nobody wants to face - that our whole society is under siege from technology overuse. The more general problem is that we've entered a period of technological over-reach. Kids don't just feel peer pressure to get a smartphone and social media, they live in a society that wants to mandate it.

Whether for kids or adults, we need to strongly protect the rights of those who want a less technologically mediated (and encumbered - yes it's not all "convenience") lifestyle. This needs us to maintain plurality of access;

   No services for government, schools, health available *only* on
   proprietary and "smart" platforms. Requirement to maintain
   traditional paper and interpersonal modes.

   End the insanity of a "cashless society", and "smart societies"
   that exclude basic human interaction and require and assume
   smartphones with apps.

   Strongly protect the rights of parents to choose how their kids use
   technology, for example in schools, and the attitudes they are
   raised with.
Governments can ensure negative freedoms without just banning stuff.

[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative...

[1] https://digitalvegan.net/

wepple
1 replies
4h54m

Very well written

No services for government, schools, health available only on proprietary and "smart" platforms

I wish this were a movement, I feel very strongly about this.

nonrandomstring
0 replies
2h44m

Whatever would we call a movement like that?

Aerroon
1 replies
4h28m

"The freedom from the scourge of drugs" is why I can't buy an asthma inhaler without paying out the nose to see a specialist that will prescribe it to me. As a result I don't have an asthma inhaler. I feel very free when breathing gets hard.

This is a snarky comment, but this is the consequence of this "negative freedom".

I do think that there's some merit to these ideas, but I think it would always leave the choice to the individual. But we also have to realize that some things you just can't opt out of, eg electromagnetic radiation from cell towers.

nonrandomstring
0 replies
4h17m

I'd really like to understand your comment better Aerroon.

Is this something to do with the US healthcare system? Can you elaborate please?

(BTW if it is, one of my friends who is a type-1 diabetic was involved in the very political "humanitarian airdrop" of insulin to the USA. - so I kind of get it)

jajko
4 replies
12h29m

You dont have kids, do you. Seeing them being pushed out of entire school community due to higher principles is heartbreaking to say at least, this is place from which teen suicides come from. Parents usually cave in the pressure.

I would go and even claim I would ban all current social media platforms below 18. Ther are simply not enough protections, consistently, its place ripe for abuse and tons abuse is happening every day as we speak. I know we will keep our own kids off this for as long as possible, but eventually harm from absence will be greater.

Parents shouldnt be choosing lesser evil like that, just that some meta employees can cash half a million and think what a great addition to mankind they are, when reality is closer to definition of cancer.

zigman1
2 replies
12h19m

I would ban all current social media platforms below 18

Just like porn? Do you think kids would find a way around it?

non-chalad
0 replies
12h10m

Not if we implement mandatory ID internet use and social tracking system. We could introduce it with Elmo, Kermit, and Fozzie, and call it "Sesame Credit"… waka waka!

Mainan_Tagonist
0 replies
6h33m

some would, obviously, but only those that really wanted to, just as some end up buying cigarettes or alcohol.

But that would be a fraction of what it is now

carlosjobim
0 replies
2h43m

Parents have to get together for common rules on these kind of things. You can't push the responsibility onto somebody else.

sidewndr46
3 replies
5h52m

That is not really possible. In the US you are required to send your children into public education unless you can afford private education. That public education requires students to use the internet. So you can't just opt out

zelphirkalt
2 replies
5h14m

Social media is not the Internet, but I think you are raising an important point. Schools are run by uninformed people, who introduce absurd policies, when it comes to prerequisites of usage of online services. It is hard for parents to get to their right of not having to participate in these disservices.

I imagine in the US there could be cases, where parents with the required pocket change can sue the school or something, to get it done, but if I think about my own home country, I have my doubts, whether anything would be resolved, before the time of a child in that school is over and in addition to that, there is no accountability for abysmal tech decisions in institutions such as schools. No one is losing their job for forcing children to use social media, unfortunately, even though every adult, especially one to work with children, should know by now, that this cannot be conforming with data protection laws. We simply punish incapable reckless behavior way too rarely.

sidewndr46
1 replies
5h12m

I think you meant "way too rarely" in your last sentence.

zelphirkalt
0 replies
5h10m

Thank you, fixed within edit time!

qwery
3 replies
12h38m

But these are communications platforms.

While technically true, this is a gross misrepresentation. Calling these sites and apps "communications platforms" makes them sound like they're just a mail service or a telephone. This is akin to referring to a casino as "the town square".

That's a freedom you and everyone else can take advantage of also.

This "can" is only true in a strict legal sense, of course.

z3c0
1 replies
6h44m

I see the "town square" analogy used a lot, but it's ignoring the actual purpose: it's an advertising platform, run by advertisers for advertisers. The presumed function of communication (something it certainly was started for) is purely for keeping the attention of users to sell to advertisers.

As a town square, it's more akin to Times Square.

2OEH8eoCRo0
0 replies
5h33m

I dislike the town square analogy as well. What town square requires membership and provides anonymity? What town square do people routinely share dissenting opinions? The fact people feel free enough to routinely share dissent on these platforms shows that it's the opposite of a town square. The very act of sharing dissent in the town square used to be provocative in itself. What's provocative about grieving on Twitter?

The town square analogy couldn't be further from reality.

ryandrake
0 replies
8h31m

They’re communication platforms in only a very roundabout sense: like a newspaper’s “Letters to the Editor” section, but quicker. You send your message to Facebook, it decides (algorithmically, not through human editors) whether or not to publish it and to whom, and then Facebook sends that message onward.

sourcecodeplz
1 replies
8h11m

I am into wildlife & nature in general. In my country, public institutions in charge with wildlife & nature have started for some time posting interesting videos, projects and images on facebook. They don't post them anywhere else, if you can believe it.

Here, everyone has facebook, from your grandma to your little cousin. My family is spread all over the country and you can keep in touch via text, phone but seeing what they are doing with pictures on facebook is very convenient and helpful.

Yes, the older/younger crowd do eat up conspiracies on facebook, sadly. They also don't read news sites, all the news is from facebook and TV maybe (older crowd).

Still, you are missing out a lot if you don't have it here. For example like meeting new people even. That "friends of friends" feature is immense. Kind of a social proof that you are normal/not a creep/have friends.

In the end it comes down to education. The first 7 years at home are ridiculously important. Then you have primary school for another 8 years, which is almost as important.

wepple
0 replies
5h1m

The social side of things is very difficult to work around.

Public institutions, however, should not be restricting information dispersal to third-party private companies who force even a casual viewer to agree to extensive legal contracts.

janpot
1 replies
9h14m

But these are communications platforms.

They are mostly advertisement platforms coupled to recommendation engines. The "communication platform" is just side business at this point. And it's being used to wave around as "free speech" when anyone dares to question the detrimental effect of the big mass mind control machine it actually is.

thomashop
0 replies
4h41m

Any corporately run platform needs to be financed. In this case it seems the advertising model works best. Many platforms have tried subscription options but people prefer to not pay and become the product.

dotancohen
1 replies
10h27m

  > Restrict your children'ss access to these platforms.
I'm the only parent I know that has. And there is much resentment.

arkey
0 replies
8h11m

Hang on in there mate. If not now, eventually they will be grateful.

danieldk
1 replies
11h5m

if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them. Restrict your children's access to these platforms.

If it was only this simple. It's similar to the green bubble problem. Disallowing your kids to use these platforms leads to social isolation. All the other kids are on these platforms and a lot of the talk is about what happened on these platforms (it's similar with games like Roblox for a certain age bracket). Excluding them is also going to teenage mental illness due to exclusion.

It's only going to work if all parents would restrict access to these platforms, but that's not going to happen. A lot of parents do not see the issue or do not want to be the first mover.

jmilloy
0 replies
2h4m

In general, I agree with you, and for the record, I'm in favor of general restrictions or limitations on social media for children. At the same, I want to add that I was not allowed to watch violent cartoons or play violent video games as a kid in the 90s. I felt left out on the playground when I didn't know how to play X-Men or Power Rangers or whatever. But in retrospect it was fine. I'm not sure the social isolation factor in particular is as dire as you claim.

Biologist123
1 replies
10h58m

You may not like FB, IG, TikTok, etc.. I certainly don't care for any of these products. But these are communications platforms. Restricting the right to free speech does have negative consequences

You’re conflating these tech platforms with freedom of speech. It might be helpful to the debate to separate out the addictive algorithm and user base from people’s right to think and speak freely.

mxkopy
0 replies
10h51m

As always the real takeaway is to repeal Citizen’s United

virtualritz
0 replies
9h33m

[...] if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them.

And have a severally impacted/constrained social life?

People with all kinds of hobbies use those platforms to organize group activities. You are either on there or you miss out.

I dance tango socially. The tango community, world wide, has settled on FB. Or rather: if you are a dancer, teacher, organizer or DJ, you better be on FB or else you won't know where and when to dance, how to find students, get people to attend your event or get booked. I.e. even if you decided you didn't like FB, you have no choice but to join it and thus help cement their monopoly on how people with this hobby organize themselves.

vermilingua
0 replies
10h6m

There is a major difference between banning curse words, medical info, porn etc, and banning social media. The former is banning a type of content, the latter is banning the presentation of content; and it is the presentation that is so harmful.

Banning social media optimised for “engagement” at the expense of childrens (and adults) mental health does not remove any content from the internet that could not be expressed in a less toxic way.

The finesse is in defining social media in a way more complex than “this list of companies”, and I agree that (likely) no government would choose a definition that does not either have ramifications for free speech or is inadequate.

unethical_ban
0 replies
1h16m

Your argument is convincing if you ignore the studies cited by this author, or the fact these two phenomena (video games and social media) are entirely different and have social as well as individual impact.

I also disagree with the notion that limiting certain addictive communications tools from minors is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech.

unclebucknasty
0 replies
11h12m

Arguments of this form are...not good

This is a social problem, not a parental one. When you allow for-profit companies (or anyone) to create addictive products that intermediate the social experience of an entire generation, how is a parent supposed to stand against that?

It's how kids interact and it defines their entire social experience. Disallowing them access is like sending your kids to school and not allowing them to talk to anyone.

We don't allow our kids to have access to alcohol or cigarettes because it's bad for them. How is this any different, when we know it's doing harm at scale?

Because "it's speech"? That doesn't hold up. Pornography is also generally considered protected speech, but no one lobbies for unfettered access for kids.

Beyond that, restricting social media does not infringe on free speech. That assertion is so obviously wrong on so many levels that it feels silly and pedantic to start itemizing them.

thefz
0 replies
12h25m

And just like the Supreme Court wrote 30 years ago, the answer is the same today: if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them. Restrict your children's access to these platforms.

100% my reply to any critic of teenage social media, but the parents' stance is always "but then my kid is going to FOMO and feel left out".

rgpenner
0 replies
9h55m

Restricting the right to free speech does have negative consequences... from the development of critical thinking skills; development of technical skills; and limiting of educational information.

That's not true. Those things are limited in bubbles like the one of the rationalists as well, so free speech has nothing to do with why people don't develop these things. It's a matter of character; and obedience to a system that establishes the rules that evaluate social, academic and economic status.

The Supreme Court was capable of distinguishing between free speech and moron speech but the Party was too convincing.

Most of the parents of these kids don't have the required flow of information to handle their kids consumption. And more importantly, their stress levels are too damn high already. Which is also the result of the Party's long term strategy.

And if all the other parents say it's normal and the same for their kids, even those parents where it is not the case, which are those that know that's why their kids will be better off while everything collapses (vs making sure their kids are better off while nothing collapses), then there is no way but super-rationality to identify a problem and then there's the willpower to go against the accusations and the time required for researching strategies to deal with the problem while the rest of the world, and school, and one's own life keep working as they always did.

If there's bait, the untrained puppy bites. Unless the untrained puppy was trained to bite and puke it out afterwards to find hints at who put the bait right in the path of all those innocent puppies.

patcon
0 replies
1h9m

What are your feelings on production and propagation of "foods" rich in refined sugar?

To be clear, I find your thoughts interesting and worth understanding, but if you also believe that the government has zero business in public health decisions involving refined sugars, then we just fundamentally disagree about what good governance is. (nevermind the social media element, which is new and evolving and a higher-dimensional problem space)

And that's ok. I will likely vote and conspire against the interests of people like this (with that view of government) until I the day I die (or my mind is changed), and cultivate communities that openly resist building the world based on those assumptions.

passwordoops
0 replies
9h10m

Sorry to seem glib, but by this same token we should be lift all restrictions we place on youth including smoking, drinking, etc.

There's a very clear causal relationship between IG and mental health that goes beyond a moral choice and ideals of free speech

nkrisc
0 replies
9h1m

That’s why we allow children to purchase cigarettes and alcohol and if parents don’t want their kids partaking they can just restrict their access, right?

newzisforsukas
0 replies
12h18m

Being exposed to shit on the internet teaches you there's bullshit on the internet, and not to believe everything you see

Maybe it taught you that, but there are plenty of people that grow up on the Internet who do not learn these lessons. Take a look at any conspiracy message board, group, etc.

Akin to saying something like, "let it happen, that'll teach 'em"

Unfortunately, not everything works itself out.

namaria
0 replies
9h22m

But these are communications platforms. Restricting the right to free speech does have negative consequences...

I take issue with the argument that promoting these social media platforms is tantamount to fostering free speech and denouncing them amounts to eroding this right. No one should expect technology assisted broad cast abilities as part of a doctrine of governments and the State not restricting speech.

mattacular
0 replies
7h18m

Restrict your children's access to these platforms.

You don't have kids do you?

magic_hamster
0 replies
3h42m

if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them. Restrict your children's access to these platforms.

That's not going to fix the echo chambers, divisive conspiracy groups, anti semitic posts and generally all the other terrible uses for online platforms that contribute to the destabilization of our society.

You can't make a social problem go away by telling individuals "if you don't like this problem please avoid it". Similarly, you can't expect to tell people "the effects of methamphetamine are negative for our entire society so please don't partake". For problems that become a state, country or even world problem, something else is needed.

madsbuch
0 replies
11h45m

you have many ways you can solve the issues without ristricting free speach.

you can ristrict how you can monitize a product - I think the problem would be much smaller if you have to pay a price congruent to the value you get. Only a few people would pay for Facebook.

you can make the platforms resposinsible for what is published on them and enforce that. they would never scale this much.

And just like the Supreme Court wrote 30 years ago, the answer is the same today: if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them.

We have already collectively agreed that this is not an argument. That is why there are agencies like the FDA, etc.

m_fayer
0 replies
7h34m

If you think of them as communication platforms, you’re missing a big part of the picture.

These systems are the next step in the evolution of media. Media is a complex beast with tentacles into culture and politics and individual society. We’ve known this for a long time. What’s applicable here is Marshal McLuhan, media theory, and heck David Foster Wallace. A lot of this stuff was way ahead of its time, but that time has arrived.

“The medium is the message” was a genius insight. Extending it to algorithmic media has all sorts of (disquieting) implications.

kstenerud
0 replies
11h34m

Why stop there? Why not drop all laws prohibiting sales of tobacco and alcohol to minors? Why should these producers have their right to sell impinged upon by scared parents pushing a bunch of laws through congress?

After all, you're free to use or not to use tobacco and alcohol, right? So it should be every kid's choice.

In fact, why stop there? Why not allow fentanyl pills at the counter of every convenience store for anyone who wants them? You have the freedom to choose to use or not to use them, so there's no problem, right?

jononomo
0 replies
4h17m

It is important to remember that freedom of speech is more important than having a functioning society of a healthy populace.

ignoramous
0 replies
10h4m

You may not like FB, IG, TikTok, etc.. I certainly don't care for any of these products. But these are communications platforms.

Haidt argues these are a leading cause of an ongoing mental illness epidemic. Such a drastic claim deserves a thorough medical review and if true, these platforms must be regulated just like the Tobacco industry was.

those who advocate censorship aren't advocating for freedom... they're advocating for their personal parental decisions to the be decisions of the entire nation.

Don't believe freedom of speech / freedom to information overrides the concern of Humanity collectively and progressively going ill, anymore than freedom to self-defense warrants the use of nuclear weapons for personal use.

That said, the burden of proof is on Haidt. It isn't uncommon for the older generation to be pessimistic or doomsdaying about the next one.

geocar
0 replies
11h1m

they're advocating for their personal parental decisions to the be decisions of the entire nation.

That sounds exactly wrong. I think they want their "personal parental" decisions to not be the decisions of the entire nation, but "personal" and private to themselves and to be free from judgement for wanting this thing.

prevented access to education medical information ... you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them.

This is pretty important to me:

Abusive parents deny their children access to communication platforms.

I believe these problems cause problems for the child if the child is already lacking support, but they also represent a way to escape that abuse, so I feel strongly that controlling access to asking-for-help is not okay;

This should not be a personal decision good people can make for themselves in their homes for their own kids, because they should be able to understand that "bad" people are actually using laws and rules like this to hurt children.

I don't use any of these products

I think you're using one right now: Hacker news is absolutely a communications platform.

forgetfreeman
0 replies
9h19m

Nah. They're advocating for an obvious and well-documented societal harm vector be regulated into a less harmful configuration. This is similar in concept to regulating pollution or disease vectors.

callmeal
0 replies
8h25m

You may not like FB, IG, TikTok, etc.. I certainly don't care for any of these products. But these are communications platforms.

That may have been true once upon a time (i.e. back in the day when your FB feed was chronological and random posts from unrelated/unwanted crazies would not show up on your device unless a friend forwarded it to you).

Now they are psychological manipulators (remember https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every... ?) in a quest for advertising dollars at the expense of everything else.

brylie
0 replies
11h35m

Note that the reforms suggested by the author are primarily normative, not legislative:

""" More specifically, we’d try to implement these four norms as widely as possible:

1. No smartphones before high school (as a norm, not a law; parents can just give younger kids flip phones, basic phones, or phone watches).

2. No social media before 16 (as a norm, but one that would be much more effective if supported by laws such as the proposed update to COPPA, the Kids Online Safety Act, state-level age-appropriate design codes, and new social media bills like the bipartisan Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, or like the state level bills passed in Utah last year and in Florida last month).

3. Phone-free schools (use phone lockers or Yondr pouches for the whole school day, so that students can pay attention to their teachers and to each other)

4. More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world. """

https://www.afterbabel.com/i/143412349/what-now

bryanrasmussen
0 replies
10h16m

Restricting the right to free speech does have negative consequences

sure, but not everywhere is America and some places seem to manage without slippery-sloping to eternal damnation.

barrysteve
0 replies
11h28m

You are not given a choice to opt out. You are included in an ever-increasing dragnet of surveillance. The incentives are set up for it.

You either play the sisyphean game of personally blocking a billion dollar company from including you. Or you reach for the long arm of the law.

We all know FAANG gave us no choice but to use government ruling.

ajkjk
0 replies
1h0m

I think of it as: in 50 years it will be obvious to everyone that these things fall in the category of "health problems", because they are, similar to junk food, and we'll have a way of societally regulating the danger that is aligned with our ethics.

But we're presently in the middle of the long transition in which not everyone has figured that out yet, and in which we don't have a widely-agreed-upon moral stance on the subject that reconciles the need to do something about it with our existing value systems.

We're going to have to find it one way or the other, so the question is "when", not "if".

No doubt in 2174 we will have a bunch of new issues that are at different places in the pipeline. We'll probably be debating the ethics of mind-control implants or something. But in the meantime this one will solved.

Teever
0 replies
10h42m

if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them

What's the secret to doing that? No really. How do I unsubscribe from the tracking that these platforms do on the web and in my apps?

That's the rub! I can't not use (or be used) by these platforms -- no one can!

TacticalCoder
0 replies
10h53m

All you wrote doesn't address the elephant in the room: that social media is responsible for an epidemy of teen mental illness (which may or may not be true).

If that's true, the suggested measures: no phone before high-school, no social media before 16, phone-free schools, ... do not seem crazy.

Kids cannot drink, cannot smoke, cannot have sex with adults, cannot buy firearms, etc.

There's a shitload of things kids cannot do: is it really an attack on free speech to have kids not have phones at school and wait until 16 before they can use these mediocre piece of shit social media platforms?

Moldoteck
0 replies
7h4m

is the problem social media or the greedy privacy invading algorithms behind it?

HumblyTossed
0 replies
3h56m

Is speech "free" if you're being manipulated? Someone goes on "social" media to look for political information on an upcoming election and finds themself drawn in to cult-level manipulation of facts all for engagement, is what they say after that truly "free" speech?

GeoAtreides
0 replies
9h16m

if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them

Just don't smoke! Just don't drink alcohol! Just don't eat junk food! Just go to the gym!

Restrict your children's access to these platforms

That's exactly what the article suggests should happen, plus some protections for children enshrined in law. You can find these suggestions at the end of the post, in the section "What now?"

DarkNova6
0 replies
8h13m

This is naive. Not using any of these platforms means that for a great degree you are isolating yourself socially.

Big tech already plays a alrge part in how our society is shaped and defending them means they don't have to face their responsibilities. Boiling this down a mere question of "free speech" is a very amerocentric point of view.

CJefferson
0 replies
9h48m

Do you feel the same about legalizing guns, alcohol, cigarettes and heroin for children?

I don’t think this is a stupid comparison, as I believe these platforms can be very harmful to children.

skilled
218 replies
10h7m

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 the house, other than to go to work. She doesn't share her actual thoughts and gets angry when asked about it. You might be reading this and thinking that there's more to it, but sadly there isn't. It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either.

But it's crazy that a person can get this lost in life and become completely devoid of purpose and meaning. It's one thing to have an issue and work through it slowly, but it's something else to isolate yourself and live your life through others - while those "others" prosper from your own ignorance.

I'm sure her past experiences are playing a role in this behavior, but the whole cosmetics things - I know for a fact there are a lot of influencers who peddle this crap, and if you lack self-awareness then I can see how easy it is to get stuck in this cycle. I just wish there was an easy way out of it.

randomdata
107 replies
7h47m

> 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 isn't deemed 100% perfect by those listening, the social scorn will fall upon you.

> It's bizarre.

Is it, though? Once you've felt said social scorn enough you no longer see words as a way to make friends, so turning to beauty is the natural progression. People like to be around beautiful people – or at least so it appears to those looking from the outside in, right? If that doesn't work, then you can easily fall into a cycle of thinking "maybe this next surgery is the one that will make me beautiful enough!"

worldsayshi
32 replies
7h30m

This is touching on something very important but I feel there's a lot more to it. There's a lot of mystery around this for me. Like why is social media inspiring us to such hostile nit picking on behaviour and ideals?

VA0
6 replies
6h54m

Social media is designed to make money, whether that be from selling data or conglomerating it and advertising to you. They want the user to be purely a consumer. They are designed to make people reactive and have a short attention span, they are easier to sell to.the users mental reward system is essentially brainwashed to be an easier target to sell to.

quest88
3 replies
5h1m

I think that's part of it but not all of it. Even here on HN, with no ads, you can find hostility in the comments.

klondike_klive
0 replies
3h21m

Up yours!

(Sorry)

HughParry
0 replies
4h46m

people are a bit happier here to have an argument and then get on with their lives though

Ginguin
0 replies
4h5m

Even in a place like HN, you can't escape the behaviors and attitudes that people pick up in other social spaces online. If someone gets used to reading ill intent into a comment, they don't suddenly stop doing that because they are in a place where ill intent is less likely. Those social norms get carried with them from space to space. The toxicity is a contagion, even if this space isn't an incubator for it.

ryandv
0 replies
5h34m

Advertising is one of the main reasons modern social media is experiencing continued enshittification in this era. Noam Chomsky in his "Manufacturing Consent" wrote of three "filters" that determined which content would be presented to viewers, and while he wrote on the mass media in 1988, I believe this framework applies equally to social media in 2024: access to capital; the "advertising license to do business;" and a symbiotic relationship with government, who provides access to authoritative sources of news.

Take X, for example: its access to capital allows it to eclipse most other social media and build network effects that are difficult for other startups to disrupt; after the Musk acquisition, advertisers began withdrawing from the platform; and as the Twitter files have claimed, its collusion with the U.S. government in the promotion/demotion of certain viewpoints.

If you want to see genuine viewpoints, you'd best seek out media that are largely independent of these three "filters" over what messages are permissible on the medium.

red-iron-pine
0 replies
5h26m

you left out brand-shaping and consensus-building, which is arguably just very advanced advertising. almost universal overlap with agit-prop as well

kombookcha
5 replies
7h15m

I think there's two major drivers here - scarcity of attention (1) and social distance (2).

1) Your attention on social media is monetized by others, which means there is always something tugging on it like so many street peddlers, in addition to all the 'organic' content made by other users. When there's a shortness of attention, you're always going to be more snippy and inclined to the short pithy retort, instead of long conversational openings and explorations of topics. Those require a lot of social trust-building and responding to feedback when you do them IRL, which is difficult on social media because...

2) Other people on social media just feel less real than those you encounter in real life, because you can't feel that bad feeling in your gut as strongly when you upset them, or the good feeling when you make them laugh. That same social distancing means you have a much easier time either idealizing them in that parasocial influencer-guru follower style, or feeling comfortable with being very harsh and combative with them. AKA the toxic gamer lobby phenomena, where people say the most heinous things you've ever heard to eachother, all the while being mostly fairly ordinary kids and adults IRL.

Both of these are kind of inherently tied up in the way we are ordering more and more of our (para)social life, so it seems very difficult to escape.

To paraphrase a point somebody made about content generated by machines purely to tug on your attention - everything feels increasingly meaningless because you have a finite amount of attention, and more and more of the 'social' interactions that your brain deals with in a day ARE meaningless and intended solely to mine your attention and keep you scrolling on ads.

I don't know how to fix that.

worldsayshi
4 replies
5h57m

I think you're on to very good points.

One kind of obvious suggestion on how to fix it: We have to grow a culture of more deliberate attention. Just like how we chose to consume healthy food and avoid consuming too much alcohol we must be more deliberate in our choice of media. But this is not an easy solution. Every social media space is saturated with good content as well as bad. It might become easier if we grow such culture around us though.

kombookcha
1 replies
5h42m

I do think this is one pathway, and it has kind of been happening - we're seeing people increasingly stop participating 'open' social medias and retreating into more sequestered communities with fewer, but enduring participants that you get to know, and who are united around care for some topic but also talk about other stuff. Discord servers are probably the most prominent of these just now. They have more in common with oldschool forums in the sense that you get to know the regulars, but are notoriously impenetrable if you're new and trying to search for information on some topic that's been covered in the past. But it's a start!

Now that Discord is apparently opening up to ads, it remains to be seen whether that cultural shift will be able to hold or if people are going to be driven into even deeper hidey holes, like the freed humans in The Matrix who have to hide out deep in the earth from all the robots ;)

worldsayshi
0 replies
3h1m

I think another important aspect, another side of the same coin, of this is lack of boredom. If you're not bored you don't take as much initiative towards alternatives. It would be a simple problem if it was just about your own boredom but you have to convince your friends and those that would otherwise start stuff irl to be bored at the same time as well. And you can't coordinate properly because all coordination happens through the attention-stealing-machine.

throwup238
0 replies
3h53m

It’s probably too late for most of us. Kind of like how anti-smoking education has pretty much killed smoking among the younger generations (until vaping came along) but it’s much more prevalent among the older cohort. Only a small fraction conclusively quit for the rest of their life, they mostly just die off.

We can lay down the foundation for such a culture for the future but it might be too late for most of us to right the ship.

darby_eight
0 replies
2h29m

Just like how we chose to consume healthy food and avoid consuming too much alcohol we must be more deliberate in our choice of media.

You can't leave everything up to individual decision making or the results are collectively irrational. Notably, dieting and alcoholism are major problems we haven't had much success in addressing on a cultural level. Smoking is probably a better guide given how much rates have dropped in the last century.

avensec
3 replies
5h17m

There are lots of replies; I'll add my theory. Threads aren't conducive to conversations that build psychological safety and trust. A natural conversation of curiosity/questions, in 1:1 or small group settings, doesn't exist. This leads to talking *at* each other instead of with each other. The reduction in empathy follows.

Thanks for asking the question and spawning the conversation threads!

evilduck
1 replies
4h53m

There are lots of replies; I'll add my theory.

Part of the problem lies here, and I'm doing it right now too.

In online public spaces we never have a conversation with another person, and rarely even then within a small group like enthusiast forums of yesteryear, we comment to the lynch mob. We reply to someone's statement with our own thoughts but it is not judged by the original poster if it was a good or insightful reply to what was originally said, it's judged by the mob with upvotes and downvotes and being flagged, misconstrued and nitpicked in fifty different ways. It happens here, Reddit, Facebook, YT, and any popular venue where comments are allowed. Even Github issues and pull requests.

I think it's why Discord is a popular alternative choice for many people. If you're not actively present, you can't chime in with your two cents and derail the conversation into some energy draining defense against someone's insane straw man attack. Comments needing to be in real time and the conversation being locked away and lost are a virtue for some folks.

avensec
0 replies
43m

One differentiation I find is that, I typically respond to questions or ask a question. In that way, I don't believe it was part of the problem, but demonstrated a pattern of improvement, I'd love to see (I responded to a direct question). More questions and dialog! :)

circlefavshape
0 replies
2h8m

Indeed. What happens on social media isn't conversation, it's a performance for an audience

pixl97
1 replies
4h49m

Like why is social media inspiring us to such hostile nit picking on behaviour and ideals?

So I'd like to point out something I've not seen mentioned yet. That is what I call 'small down behavior', that is nit picking on those that don't fall into some small group that is acceptable.

It seems that social media has not caused any new behaviors, but instead given a new and expansive venue for the behavior to spread.

2devnull
0 replies
4h36m

I’d say a lot of that is genetic and or cultural. At the very least there are many of us who do not possess that instinct. We have much lower karma scores but we don’t care.

nervousvarun
1 replies
7h20m

JMO, but an enormous part of it is this is the fundamental way teens now learn how to interact with the world. This disconnected, digital interface with other people that is rewarded at tremendous scale (popularity is now for some a worldwide deal...not just your high school).

Older folks like myself (GenX) learned the "classic" way...face to face. There were checks and balances. If you said something that skewed hostile you found out it could have immediate direct negative consequences. It could literally leave a mark.

Similarly if you went too far some other way...you found out immediately and directly how that could work out (we were just as cringy...we just didn't have it preserved digitally for prosperity).

Kids today (even writing that makes me wince) have less accountability for what they write than what we had to have for what we said. Also due to scale the effects are amplified. And also you are in a digital bubble that allows you to ignore anything that isn't positive. If you piss someone off by what you said so what? You'll never interact with them directly and there will be 1000s who agree w/ and encourage you.

Also old man shouts at clouds.

numpad0
0 replies
5h11m

Kids today (even writing that makes me wince) have less accountability for what they write than what we had to have for what we said.

I think that's slightly different to what was said in GP:

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 isn't deemed 100% perfect by those listening, the social scorn will fall upon you.

IOW, `kids these days` are required full corporate PR level accountability whenever and whatever they express, (and zero when cancelling others following social codes). There absolutely won't be thousands at your side unless you're in a straight up proper conspiracy theory circle full of actually schizophrenic people until the entire circle is going to be cancelled dead.

You can't label your opponent as belonging in a category and encourage making harmful gases in a toilet and get 127 upvotes. At least not anymore. Your comment will be deleted, and one below yours that explains why you're automatically doubly stupid will. You can't even say, literally orally voice, the word "die" in some parts of YouTube without algorithmic penalties. Saying "died of injury" can be a soft violation.

That is what GP is explaining by "you have [to] carry an entire encyclopedia with you in order to back up every last thing you say", ironically the phenomenon I'm ending up being a contributing factor by typing this very comment, and part of what's making teens sick. I think it has to do with being correct being a cost and having huge unfortunate abuse potentials.

yungporko
0 replies
4h9m

i don't think social media is inspiring people to act like this, i think the vast majority of people are just pricks in general and the internet lets them act like this without any negative consequences.

if there was some way to just start arguments about nothing in real life and then pause them at will to go and cherrypick stuff that supports your argument, then come back and act smug about it (or not come back at all if you don't find anything), people would incessantly do it in person too.

walthamstow
0 replies
6h49m

Lots of good answers to your question already but I'd add one - anonymity. It's a lot easier to be a dick on the internet than it is in real life.

squigglydonut
0 replies
2h47m

I think the reddit upvote downvote design is just one example of BAD UI that doesn't take into account the human element of the interface. Imagine if when you spoke with someone in real life, you added an upvote/downvote every sentence they said. This is why product designers need to be way more concerned with ethics than they are and companies need to give more respect to the product design role it is not just drawing pretty pictures you are shaping someones psyche.

raxxorraxor
0 replies
7h8m

I believe the affinity of social media users to cast judgement is a huge factor as well, worse on those that actually do reflect a lot. Although it is perceived vastly more strongly that it is often meant since individual voices overlap. Still it furthers the assumption that many are very judgmental.

With that a strongly regulated social media place can be just as hostile as the most vulgar forum you can find. By experience, it can often be even worse.

Nit picking is a form of communication as well, perhaps often chosen because users want to share something difficult to do on the medium. That said, nit picking often doesn't carry hostility. Especially on tech platforms it is just meant as a contribution. Maybe there are carry over effects and miscommunication.

lumb63
0 replies
7h24m

I think it’s a way of farming status/clout. People who make fun of people who pose fringe ideas are rewarded with likes. People who shut down people on “the other side” are rewarded with likes. People can get likes by pushing the prominent ideology and kowtowing to that majority. It’s for their personal benefit, and being online removes the real-life downside of bullying or disagreeing with someone where you have to actually defend your ideas or deal with someone who is visibly upset by your actions. In conclusion, the upside of nitpicking is amplified by our tribal instincts, and the downside is muted by the nature of being online.

hackinthebochs
0 replies
3h35m

Social media created a perpetual church gossip culture where every action and statement is endlessly evaluated by the peanut gallery, while also creating a land rush for finding new moral angles to exploit for social status.

Why specifically social media? It's a function of communication efficiency. It's why church is associated with this sort of cattiness, everyone knows everyone and is brought together regularly to provide a venue to trade gossip. It also supplies the moral standard by which everyone is evaluated and one's social status is tied to how well one appears to meet this standard. The cattiness is just status games playing out given these constraints.

colloydi
0 replies
3h43m

I think it's because when we get to know other people IRL what they say is of secondary importance to how we perceive their intentions and motives. These determine how we feel about a person. They're subjective and hard to ascertain on the basis of written text alone.

So as a matter of caution we tend to impute bad motives to people we can't 'feel' clearly which means any textual claims made are subject to unnaturally high levels of scrutiny and demands for evidence/documentation.

Also the internet is forever whilst IRL conversation is throwaway.

ayewo
0 replies
4h30m

Like why is social media inspiring us to such hostile nit picking on behaviour and ideals?

Social media is a highlight reel of people’s lives. It’s the best part hand-picked out of our mostly mundane lives.

Until these teenagers understand this, they’ll never feel “good enough” to share their own situation. Instead, they’ll remain on the hamster wheel trying to live up to the ideals peddled by influencers.

Moru
0 replies
7h26m

It's sadly not just one thing that goes wrong. But at the base of it, it's the human faults at play. It's just being amplified by social media and the easy communication on Internet.

HumblyTossed
0 replies
5h28m

Being angry and negative is very much easier for most people than being happy and positive. I'm serious. It's easier to complain about the driver that cut you off as being an asshole driver than to ponder if they truly made a mistake and are feeling like shit right now. "Social" media capitalizes on this and multiplies it for the sake of engagement.

AtlasBarfed
0 replies
6h34m

Because it is INTRUSIVE.

The advertising industry is fundamentally about intruding into your lives, and by that measure, the % of attention it can command.

The advertising industry (which is social media is that isn't colossally obvious) has relentlessly pursued increasing this percentage, and the smartphone was the physical means to achieve it, and newfound social addiction feedback loops the nitro turbo boost.

Even modern/new humans can't adapt to this. Older minds are crumbling into echo chambers, or withdrawing entirely. Paranoia takes hold.

Or is it paranoia? Or are your every move, thought, and action collected and categorized into a profile which is currently used simply for "advertising optimization", while in China it produces a worse-than-1984 dystopian system, and likely there are population profiling projects in US three letter agencies?

My internet profile is set in stone from my 20 years. Nothing I can do about it now. I'm purgeworthy whenever the totalitarianism grips the USA. Elections are becoming existential now, and that likely isn't paranoia.

While I've given a rational probability to all this, most people do not, they respond emotionally, especially to relentless stress and burden of processing unending perpetual advertising.

And as we all know, here comes the AI.

amplex1337
27 replies
4h53m

You certainly can just throw things out there, but if you are obsessed with making every single person satisfied with your thoughts, you are going to have a bad time. 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. I still change my mind sometimes based on others thoughts and opinions, so you can't say I am fostering avoidance too much, just very selective, as my time is valuable.

Anotheroneagain
8 replies
3h55m

The world is full of people who disagree with you,

Don't you think it's worrisome that we can't agree on anything? And that includes things that are supposed to have objective answers. Why can't we find the truth? We now have instant global communication available almost 24/7, shouldn't it bring the period of unprecedented unity?

zarathustreal
6 replies
2h57m

The notion of truth is an illusion, this has been a philosophical debate since the beginning of time. The fact is, every person occupies unique physical space and thus has unique life experiences and a unique perspective of each “event”. It’s the standard multi-sided coin phenomenon. Ask two people standing on opposite sides what is on the face and they’ll give you two different answers and both be right and both be wrong. It’s not a solvable problem because there is no observable objective reality that we can all agree on. Granted, I’m fairly certain there is an objective physical reality, it’s just not one that we can all observe the same and agree upon

abustamam
1 replies
1h39m

This appears to be true in a vacuum, but practically it's not for many "truths." For example, we can all agree that the holocaust was an atrocity that should have never happened. Certainly there are folks who don't believe that, or who don't even believe that it ever occurred, but the vast majority of reasonable people would consider those folks irrational (to put it mildly).

Now, I notice that I use "we all agree" and "vast majority," which is no way to explain an objective fact, but what we all agree on as a community or society _is_ reality. A society or community that has a different reality(s) than us is probably not a society or community that we would associate ourselves with.

This operates on several levels and dimensions; the common realities I share with my local Islamic community are different realities than I share with my tech community, or Toastmasters community, or even family.

Going back to the original point, yes, there are no realities that the entire global community can agree on, not even something as seemingly incontroversial as medicine (Christian Science for example https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/religion-context/case-studies/mi... ), but no individual is part of the global community. We choose our communities based on the realities that we accept to be true.

EnigmaFlare
0 replies
1h4m

or who don't even believe that it ever occurred, but the vast majority of reasonable people would consider those folks irrational

You're confusing rationally concluding something with feeling morally righteous for believing it. It's not irrational to disbelieve something that people only believe because they'll feel like a bad person or be punished for doubting. See religion, for example.

The only reason most people believe the holocaust happened is because they heard about it from general society. Same way they believe God created the world. Almost no layman has actually studied it. It's just a kind of common faith where being a believer is what's important rather than the content of the belief.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, just that the vast majority of believers aren't believing out of rationality but out of indoctrination.

Same is true of all sorts of beliefs in things that don't directly affect us. We believe them because everyone assures us they're true, not because we sat down and worked out the conclusion for ourselves.

lazide
0 replies
2h42m

That’s a cop out that allows obvious delusion to spread.

If what someone is saying is 90% reality based and verifiable, and 10% subjective experiences/unverifiable, that doesn’t make what they say equivalent to someone who says something that is 90% falsified by verifiable reality and 10% subjective experiences/unverifiable.

The second person is just delusional or lying, full stop. Any other approach is just cowardice.

gnramires
0 replies
2h15m

I find equally valid (and perhaps more useful) to say that the notion of truth is the basis of all that exists, and this debate is far from simple. If we don't allow anything to be true at all, then even this discussion, any discussion, or anything at all seems rather pointless. If we're just exchanging gobbledygook, what's the point of even talking? I think there's a general presumption in talking that we're approaching something. That something is essentially truth (i.e. some accurate and/or useful model of some part of reality) or some kind of improvement or even enjoyment, which are both connected to ethics.

Sure, truth is in some senses unknowable (in particular in the 'The Map is not the Territory' sense), but we can have increasingly accurate and useful enough models that improve our lives. It's also the case that most human matters need specific answers, potentially extremely specific to their situation (and hard or impossible to know things, like what's going on in their minds), as well as some ethical and aesthetic frameworks that allows one thing to be good while other thing is bad. It's not obvious at first that ethics could be based on truth and science (and hence have somewhat-universal rights and wrongs), but I've come to believe that's the case indeed. Ethics really derives from fundamental truths about existence, like the reality and nature of suffering (and the nature of the workings of our minds), the nature of existence (for example, work is ethical insofar as it supports us existing at all), and so on.

If you think about it, the notion that anything goes, is really absurd: surely there are things you wouldn't accept essentially no matter what. It's much more absurd than the counterpart that there are true things, even about the nature of existence, that we can approach. The human mind (and minds in general!) can be studied using similar methods to the study of nature (with some necessary generalizations), and I believe that's what the 21st century is going to be all about :)

Edit: That's not to say 'vibes' are not important as well! From Goethe[1]:

"Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation. The boy stands astonished, his impressions guide him: he learns sportfully, seriousness comes on him by surprise. Imitation is born with us: what should be imitated is not easy to discover. The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued. The height charms us, the steps to it do not: with the summit in our eye, we love to walk along the plain. It is but a part of art that can be taught: the artist needs it all. Who knows it half, speaks much, and is always wrong: who knows it wholly, inclines to act, and speaks seldom or late. The former have no secrets and no force : the instruction they can give is like baked bread, savory and satisfying for a single day; but flour cannot be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground. Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the highest matter. Action can be understood and again represented by the spirit alone. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright, but of what is wrong we are always conscious. Whoever works with symbols only is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. There are many such, and they like to be together. Their babbling detains the scholar: their obstinate mediocrity vexes even the best. The instruction which the true artist gives us opens the mind; for, where words fail him, deeds speak. The true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and approaches more and more to being a master."

[1] Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship) Book VII Chapter IX

draebek
0 replies
1h51m

I share this viewpoint (is that ironic?), but it's almost entirely unhelpful when it comes time to make decisions, particularly decisions as a society or within a government, right? One powerful person's subjective reality that "all people who look like X should be executed" can most likely become the "subjective reality" of those X people real quick.

RiverCrochet
0 replies
1h50m

Inaccurate.

The fact is, every person occupies unique physical space and thus has unique life experiences and a unique perspective of each “event”.

#000000 and #000001 are unique, but most would simply call both colors "black", and not lose any advantage whatsoever. The fact we can communicate using common words and obtain desired effects most of the time disproves that uniqueness created by differing perspectives makes truth an "illusion" or meaningless.

skywhopper
0 replies
3h36m

On the contrary, if everyone can see your opinion, then all the people who disagree have the opportunity to say so. There's always someone in the world who disagrees. Add to that the folks who say things they don't believe for fun, and the ones who are paid by businesses and governments to spread propaganda, and you have a real mess.

mindcrime
5 replies
4h23m

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 "broadcast something into the void" and ignore replies. But over time I came to realize that a. I don't scale to engaging with every single person who replies to something I say online, and b. I don't owe those people a response or any of my time/attention; especially the trolls and bots and other lamers that are so prevalent these days.

So now I'm more comfortable (albeit maybe not 100% comfortable) with treating things in more of a "fire and forget" fashion. I say what I want to say, and people can do with it what they will. I just can't be arsed to engage with the trolls and other randos. But... if somebody has a mature, reasonable, professional response then I am willing, on a selective basis, to dig in deeper and have a longer discussion.

Lacerda69
4 replies
2h52m

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

abustamam
2 replies
1h57m

Is this one of those rare occasions? :)

I don't think HN is immune from the "redditization" of the internet, though it's certainly a better community than most.

randomdata
0 replies
51m

> "redditization" of the internet

'Redditation' of the world. If it were only taking place on the internet it wouldn't be all that concerning.

bondarchuk
0 replies
1h24m

I always feel kinda bad about starting/continuing a 1 on 1 conversation on here because of the "don't cross-examine" thing in the guidelines.

Teever
0 replies
2h34m

That's an interesting thought. What do you think will replace it?

hbn
4 replies
3h2m

Saying things that were obvious scientific facts 5 years ago are now controversial and can now get you fired from your job -- and people are more gung-ho than ever to seek out anyone who says something "wrong" and try to ruin their life over it.

That's why I don't speak my opinions to anyone other than people I'm close with.

abustamam
3 replies
1h53m

Can you provide some examples? There have always been companies where certain opinions were deemed "controversial" and could get someone fired. I think it's more common now though, and with more opinions being considered controversial, but I can't think of any that would be considered scientific facts. I wouldn't want to work for a company that considers science controversial anyway.

pessimizer
2 replies
1h43m

There have always been companies where certain opinions were deemed "controversial" and could get someone fired.

Can you provide some examples?

abustamam
1 replies
1h33m

Sure

1. Being colored 2. Doing recreational marijuana 3. Being a specific faith (like wearing Hijab for women) 4. Heck, just being a woman

Society seems to always have reasons to fire people or deny people a job that seem silly in retrospect, but enough people seem to think it's reasonable enough to do en masse.

Edit: I'm not saying any of those reasons, or being fired for holding "controversial" opinions are good, I'm just pointing out it's nothing new.

randomdata
0 replies
45m

> 1. Being colored 2. Doing recreational marijuana 3. Being a specific faith (like wearing Hijab for women) 4. Heck, just being a woman

In what way are these opinions, controversial or otherwise?

Are you suggesting that people of colour, for example, were fired only if they were of the opinion that they were a person of colour? If they were visibly a person of colour, but adamant that they were caucasian, a promotion was in order instead? They just had to believe?

gwervc
2 replies
4h12m

You certainly can just throw things out there

On 4chan sure, on Reddit absolutely hecking no. On the main subs in French wrongthink comments get deleted super fast, and on one English-speaking about a hobby it's an immediate ban.

miiiiiike
0 replies
2h56m

Indiscriminate banning/blocking is the thing that turned me off most social media.

I don’t post anywhere but HN so my profiles are always bare. Starting something like 5 years ago I’d follow someone and within a day, flip a coin, on tails I was banned or blocked.

I eventually deleted the last of my social accounts. They turned into places where strangers were just there to torment each other or receive unconditional praise.

fire_lake
0 replies
52m

Part of this is ok if the sub has specific purpose and bringing all sorts of identity politics (from any perspective) is a distraction from the topic at hand. Similar to how blocking spam is not a free speech issue. The problem is when there are no avenues for controversial discussion left, which would be the case if the tech megacorps controlled every platform (as they nearly do)

qrobit
1 replies
4h36m

Aren't most of the replies critic or posted by people disagreeing with you though? Especially on HN, where most users would promote discussion with a reply rather than «Agreed» or «lmao»

shrimp_emoji
0 replies
3h6m

Agreed lmao

randomdata
0 replies
4h18m

> The world is full of people who disagree with you

One should hope. Disagreement is how you learn. It is why we talk to each other.

But that's not what we're talking about here. With 'Reddit' behaviour transcending beyond Internet forums, we're losing the disagreement. Now we see ostracization. There is no: "You are wrong because X." or "That is an interesting thought, but have you considered Y?" it has become "There is something wrong with you." and in the extreme "Say goodbye to your job/friends/family."

pc86
0 replies
3h18m

How many people in their early/mid 20s, let alone teenagers, understand this?

I'm just a few years from 40 and I can still vividly remember a time not too long ago where this was not at all how I thought.

rchaud
10 replies
6h6m

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 isn't deemed 100% perfect by those listening, the social scorn will fall upon you.

I would expect this to some extent when conversing with strangers IRL too. If it was a chat between friends, a rant here or there is OK because your friends know the real you and understand where you're coming from. Strangers won't be as charitable.

qzx_pierri
8 replies
5h46m

But you can't 'downvote' someone in real life. In real life, you can say what you want, and people have to hear. However, on reddit (and many sites copying its pernicious site design), if your comment goes against the hivemind and gets hit with -5 immediately, your comment gets collapsed (and basically unseen).

Imagine being out in public at a party and you say something slightly 'spicy' and someone walks up to you and puts duct tape across your mouth. You can move to another party (or comment thread in this example), but you already were basically told "your input is useless, now leave".

I should mention that I don't see it that way, but a lot of people don't know how to separate real life from the internet - Especially Gen Z. The internet is NOT real life.

Bonus: Moderators locking threads with a condescending comment like "Locking this comment thread since some of you refuse to behave".

Reddit is the new Twitter, only the censorship isn't thinly veiled. It's not veiled at all.

hiatus
7 replies
5h1m

I should mention that I don't see it that way, but a lot of people don't know how to separate real life from the internet - Especially Gen Z. The internet is NOT real life

People have lost jobs, college admissions, and more based on their posts online. I understand the sentiment but what we do on the internet most certainly has an impact on real life.

qzx_pierri
6 replies
4h41m

I understand the sentiment but what we do on the internet most certainly has an impact on real life

Because people make the mistake of using their 'real life' identity online. Remove your real life attachments from the internet and you're untouchable.

Just because people willingly 'dox' themselves doesn't make the internet anything more than a collection of webpages sitting on a blade server somewhere.

randomdata
5 replies
4h25m

> Because people make the mistake of using their 'real life' identity online.

That's all well and good if you never leave your mother's basement, but for everyone else going outside from time to time, hiding your identity is much more difficult.

Herein lies the problem: We used to be 'hard' on online accounts because they were anonymous – everyone understood the account did not represent a real person and that was just for fun. That's fine. We maintained compassion for real people with real identities with a desire to treat them as being human. But over time we stopped recognizing a difference between a real person and an internet account, now treating the people out in the real world like they are anonymous internet accounts.

qzx_pierri
4 replies
4h7m

That's all well and good if you never leave your mother's basement

This is uncalled for. People like me live an extremely healthy and social life without any traces of our identity online (excluding voter registration databases, people search websites, etc).

But over time we stopped recognizing a difference between a real person and an internet account, now treating the people out in the real world like they are anonymous internet accounts.

I see where you're going with this, but I'll have to disagree. Most of the people being behaving like animals online are some of the most soft spoken and shy people in real life.

The article which sparked this discussion stands adjacent to my claim, as well. I've noticed a lot of people who are online a lot and using it as an escape are pretty socially awkward and neurotic in real life. Those people I just mentioned often use the internet as an escape, but don't realize it.

If there were no separation between the internet and real life, then those people would behave the same way online (shy, timid, avoiding confrontation). These people just don't realize the separation thanks to the "Please enter your first and last name" trend started by Zuck in the late 2000s.

randomdata
3 replies
3h55m

> People like me live an extremely healthy and social life without any traces of our identity online

With respect, I think you've failed to grasp what is being discussed here. 'Attacking' people who post ill-conceived content anonymously on the internet has most definitely grown tired (case in point), but is not really a problem. It's not a person, it's just an internet account. It doesn't matter.

The problem is that the same behaviour has started moving out into real life, where you find real people with real identities. There is no hiding from it beyond an anonymous username. Your face is out there for all to see when you step outside. Certainly you may run in circles of older people who established that compassion for real people while the lines were still clearly divided, thus not feeling it as much, but there is a generation coming up – you know, the one the article is about – that do not know the world before Reddit. They fail to grasp that there is a difference, treating real people like they are Reddit accounts.

circlefavshape
1 replies
2h0m

'Attacking' people who post ill-conceived content anonymously on the internet has most definitely grown tired (case in point), but is not really a problem. It's not a person, it's just an internet account. It doesn't matter.

If your internet account is a fictional identity it doesn't matter, but you're posting as you but just behind a pseudonym and someone attacks you it can be very upsetting.

randomdata
0 replies
1h42m

Your so-called internet account, pseudonym or otherwise, is always a fictional identity – which is to say not an identity that is related to any real person. While our understanding of the technology no doubt assumes there is a real person pulling knobs and levers behind the scenes, that's just an implementation detail. If the software was updated so that the human lever pulling was replaced with a suitably advanced generative AI, nobody would notice. Nothing about the experience would change. It is not about people. In that kind of venue, it is all about the software. There is no attack on you, a person. For all intents and purposes, you don't exist.

Therein lies the challenge, though. Some people, especially people who didn't grow up before the likes of Reddit, fail to understand that people and software are not the same thing. The things that fly online don't fly the same way in person, but there is a prevailing shift, particularly with the younger generation, towards treating the in-person experience the same as the online experience; to see them as the same thing. That's where we see problems emerge.

ryandv
0 replies
1h49m

They fail to grasp that there is a difference, treating real people like they are Reddit accounts.

That's exactly correct, and now we are one step closer to understanding the precession of simulacra of identity.

The crude maps of the 16th century cartographer were of such low fidelity and accuracy that it became impossible to confuse them with the territory, with all its contours and nuances elided from the scribbles of ink on parchment. Contrast with Google Maps, that has captured the earth in such exquisite detail, down to the meter, that we now regard it as a more or less one-to-one representation of the Earth in itself; a simulacrum of the "first order," which "is the reflection of a profound reality" (Baudrillard 1981).

But the representation does not stop there; now with things like listings of local businesses, we have progressed to a simulacrum of the "second order," which "masks and denatures a profound reality" - does your business even exist, if I can't find it on Google Maps? If your road has signage calling it one thing, while Google Maps calls it another [0], which name is correct? How will your GPS navigate such a world when the map and the territory have diverged this far from one another?

The end game of the precession is the creation of entire virtual worlds and maps (think, de_dust2) that represent no territories at all, but are a territory in their own virtual right - a simulacrum of the "fourth order," or "the hyperreal:" "it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum."

Alan Watts spoke of a similar phenomenon in one of his lectures on meditation [1]:

    The principal disadvantage of symbols is that we confuse them with reality, just as we confuse money with actual wealth,
    and our names about ourselves, our ideas of ourselves, with ourselves.
We are now at a stage where the newer generations have confused these symbols of ourselves - Reddit, Facebook, Instagram accounts - with the actual people in themselves. It has become possible to capture, record, misrepresent, mask, and denature our lives and the people within them to such a high degree of fidelity, that, just as it has become possible to confuse Google Maps with the territory of the Earth itself, it becomes possible to confuse the Reddit account for the real person. The social media account, having "precessed" far past the point of "denaturing a profound [person]" through Photoshop and Instagram filters, has now achieved "hyperreality," where the Reddit account now _becomes_ a person in its own right. The real person _is_ the Reddit account, and the Reddit account _is_ the person.

If it happened with God in the quarrels between the iconoclasts and the idol worshipping iconolaters, it can happen with mere mortals, too:

    This is precisely what was feared by Iconoclasts, whose
    millennial quarrel is still with us today. [...] that
    deep down God never existed, that only the simulacrum ever
    existed, even that God himself was never anything but his own
    simulacrum-from this came their urge to destroy the images.

    - Baudrillard, 1981.
[0] https://support.google.com/maps/thread/154775503/google-won-...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJYp-mWqB1w

AlexandrB
0 replies
5h20m

On the contrary, I think people know better than to be needlessly confrontational in real life. If someone says something crazy to me IRL I'm much more willing to let them finish and ask them a few question in the interest of making small talk than I am to ask for sources.

runamuck
9 replies
5h6m

I have a good rule. I NEVER reply to someone who comments on my comment w/ hostile intent. For example: I made an innocent comment on a YouTube video, and someone completely misread the comment and posted a hostile reply. I wanted to explain to him that he misread my comment but I just let it go. You never need to defend yourself. If you want to post a comment, post it. If someone misunderstands or mocks you, let them.

BadHumans
6 replies
5h5m

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.

vlachen
1 replies
2h42m

I think you brush across a couple of the important things to note about social media:

1) The disconnect between people that allows for such othering. Anecdotally, I can't imagine but a small handful of people I've met who would be willing to walk up to someone and verbally wish for the other person's death. I know we can point to many times in history where that attitude has resulted in the death of many people, but I view those as exceptions to everyday life. Not saying my view is correct, but only explaining my approach with this statement.

2) Scale. Imagine a group of 100,000 people showing up in the real world to yell, scream, and chant death threats at one person. That would be a massive event. Even gathering 1,000 people against a single person would be noteworthy in many locations.

So the The Internet, which is mostly comprised of Social Media at this point, has moved to be able to allow people to disconnect others from humanity and gather in vitriol spewing hordes, and a single individual would be hard pressed to deal with such force against them while still trying to engage with their reason for being there.

NoMoreNicksLeft
0 replies
1h14m

You, and I, and everyone else talking about this... we evolved to live in small bands of humans, never more than maybe 200 total. That we would have sane responses or reactions to a gather of 1,000 people haranguing us is impossible. A caveman who had 1,000 people mocking and insulting and screeching at him would shut down mentally. And you and I are still that caveman. 100,000? Brain explodes.

And that's what's happening right now, today. It's short circuiting any possible counter-reaction we could have to abuse. This is why everyone's sort of worried about cancellation, but we're also a little reluctant to talk about it too. I see no evidence that the problem is about to correct itself and end up being no big deal. I see alot of evidence that it's only just stumbling around and will become an even bigger problem... the people participating in this stuff, they're learning new tricks, learning to self-organize better. We'll have shit like anonymous tutorials about how to look someone up and ruin their lives perfectly efficiently ("Then, call and ask for the HR department between the hours of 10am and 11:20am local, because that's when they're most receptive. Please use this verbiage, in a slow and calm voice."). Even my example's bad, I can't keep up with the state-of-the-art.

amplex1337
1 replies
4h51m

It is definitely easier to ignore when there are 100,000 comments than 100, this is correct. You really need to be in control of what you want to spend your time on these days, and replying to cancerous YouTube comments is not one of them generally. Let it be.

BadHumans
0 replies
4h39m

I think you are missing my point and maybe you are assuming anonymity but there is point where it isn't as simple as ignoring hateful comments because these people try to push into your life. There are countless examples of people being doxxed and being harassed at work because of something they said online.

bcrosby95
0 replies
3h28m

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.

Karunamon
0 replies
3h13m

Trying to get people fired crosses a line into harassment, as far as I'm concerned. But if we are talking about mere words on the screen, nothing else, then you do have the ability to turn the device off and walk away.

randomdata
0 replies
2h33m

That's fine for the internet which is understood to be just for fun anyway, but with 'Redditization' taking over the world, you see that behaviour escape out into places where things actually matter and where walking away can be truly impactful to one's life in a negative way. That's the problem.

Especially for people who run in youthful circles. Older people at least have the benefit of generally being around people who learned human compassion before the social internet became prevalent.

0ckpuppet
0 replies
3h37m

This. "Don't feed the trolls." :)

verisimi
7 replies
7h19m

People are broken. Perhaps they always were. Perhaps this latest, is the cost of prioritising work over family - it is now common to have both parents working, with child care outsourced to professionals, that may do everything right, but will not love the child. Love is underrated, intangible. I suspect there are very few whole individuals out there at all.

Once the child grows, why would it look to family to help? It has already been institutionalised - it believes that government agencies, psychiatrists etc will help - the 'brokenness' is normal. The grown child won't look to those that would normally step in (family) - they have their own issues. In all honesty, its hard to say whether looking to institutions for help that is a bad decision anyway - how much harm do families cause?

fireflash38
2 replies
5h23m

Why do you think that childcare is incompatible with familial love and care?

verisimi
1 replies
3h33m

Well, do you think a teacher can love a class of 20 or 30 kids, like a parent can? I think they might do a professional job, but it would be impossible to give individual attention. And, around here (UK), teachers have a lot of non class time obligations with the result being that they are away and a lot of care is passed to teaching assistants.

randomdata
0 replies
2h39m

A teacher with 20-30 kids under watch cannot give the same level of attention to each child as a parent with 1-3 kids under watch, all else equal, but are attention and love the same thing?

xattt
1 replies
6h48m

People are broken. Perhaps they always were.

There’s an unspoken burden of past Child Traumatic Stress that, consciously and subconsciously, tints individuals’ resilience and the way the now-adults view the world.

I’ve been fortunate to have a happy, normal childhood. However, based on the number of people that I’ve spoken to, I’m starting to think I am in the minority. Friends have casually talked about facing suicide, complex family dynamics, neglect, and crazy religious experiences in early life like it was nothing, when it was/is a big deal.

It’s devastating to hear, and realize that the “silent majority” are likely maladapted individuals who are not even close to unpacking their traumatic past (i.e. things like “the friendly uncle” and “the cool youth group pastor”) that got swept under the rug or repressed.

verisimi
0 replies
6h27m

Yep. This is exactly how is see it. I don't think people realise the level of love required to grow a human. Whatever is received is that person's normal - what else could it be? But, I don't think all childhoods are equal, despite appearances.

marcosdumay
0 replies
2h18m

is the cost of prioritising work over family

It's worse than that. At the same time families were broken, the children also stopped having freedom to roam around and make friends on their own on the real world.

cynicalpeace
0 replies
4h43m

This is the conservative movement I think many would get behind. A refocusing back on the family, not tech, work, or business.

watwut
3 replies
6h55m

No longer can you just throw something out there, no matter how stupid.

Back in real world, I could never do it. If you could, that just means you lived in a bubble of like minded people.

randomdata
1 replies
6h1m

There have always been some dimwits who do not see that good ideas come from iteration on dumb ideas, but what is different now is that the societal norm, adopted from forums like Reddit, is an expectation for you to prove that you are a dimwit, incapable of any original thought, only able to repeat ("source", as the kids like to say) what others have said in the past.

This is certainly not the only anti-intellectualism, anti-education movement we've ever experienced as humans, but we had progressed forward. This regression leaves a lot of people in bad places.

2devnull
0 replies
4h20m

Arguably that’s the meta force behind social media. The platforms are designed to make people think in collectivist terms, which coincidentally (or not) makes things easier for more tyrannical forms of government. Indeed Facebook and old twitter are arguably quasi-federal entities.

tim333
0 replies
6h9m

In the online world there are a lot of places where you can throw out stupid thoughts and be applauded, although for applause they have to be in line with the particular bubble. "dumbcoin to the moon!" "other party is evil" etc.

darby_eight
2 replies
2h31m

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 isn't deemed 100% perfect by those listening, the social scorn will fall upon you.

I understand this fear when posting on reddit (or other social media) itself, but I am absolutely confused where this idea that this applies to reality comes from.

randomdata
0 replies
29m

Nobody fears posting on Reddit. That's silly. What would there be to worry about? It's just software. It doesn't even recognize that you exist.

The problem is that the real world is increasingly not understanding that the internet and the world are not the same place, and they are treating software and people the same way. It turns out that people are not software. This leads to problems. Those who confuse you with software don't apply the compassion that people would otherwise normally receive, and, as a result, will be quite happy to put you in a bad place.

You know, the 'Redditaization' of the world. Its funny that even here we see the internet and the world being seen as the same thing; emblematic of the exact same confusion that the comment is about.

czscout
0 replies
2h22m

I think the point is that this person has spent so much time experiencing this phenomenon on the internet, that the effects are bleeding into reality.

khazhoux
1 replies
2h7m

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

I think the actual biggest problem with "Redditization" is not hostility, but instead the fact that there is really no dialogue. There's no back and forth discussion, at least not with the same actual individual. You post a comment and (maybe but usually not) get a reply, then if you reply to that reply, the next reply in thread will be from someone else. Very very rarely do you go back and forth with one person. And regardless, you'll never ever interact with that person again (except maybe if you're on a tiny sub).

It's such a odd and distorted version of conversation. I'm not talking to any specific "you" -- I'm submitting thoughts to a "mass-you" and hoping with fingers crossed that the mass-you will reply or at least nod in approval with a single upvote.

gosub100
0 replies
3m

Reddit is not hostile as long as you only parrot back ideas that the hive mind agrees on. And the reward system is mis-aligned. I'd call it a Twitterification, because the karma points are awarded to succinct, snarky/funny conversation-ending quips. Nobody has time or attention span to debate an issue, and even if you did you risk being shut out of the group for wrongthink.

JumpCrisscross
1 replies
3h1m

You can't share your thoughts anymore. The 'Redditization' of the world means that sharing thoughts is met with hostility

I’ll add that people addicted to social media become insufferable to share novel (often silly) thoughts around because the focus becomes dropping a zinger versus meaningfully engaging with what was said.

noemit
0 replies
2h41m

thanks for articulating this. I've encountered a lot of Gen z who do this and while they are well-meaning, smart kids, I find it so difficult to have a nice conversation because of this

yungporko
0 replies
4h18m

this definitely describes nearly 100% of interactions on the internet but i almost never encounter this in real life, i assume because the other person can't sit there googling and adjusting their argument any more than you can that there's no way to "win" anyway.

ryandv
0 replies
6h1m

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 isn't deemed 100% perfect by those listening, the social scorn will fall upon you.

This is an immense impediment to writing for the academically-inclined, or merely one who still has some shred of epistemic integrity left, and a huge boon to the dogmatic mob of believers eager to strike down anyone who dares question their orthodoxy. For one, it takes time and substantial research to compose a thought that is both "true" and unique, buttressed by citations to other works or accepted facts; for the other, it is much easier to reply with a five-second thought in 280 characters with thought-terminating cliches branding the "other" as a deplorable undesirable whose ideas aren't worthy of an audience or a platform. That is, if you even get that far - these days it's more likely you will simply be downvoted into oblivion, your thoughts swiftly evicted into the memory hole, never to be seen again.

Once you've felt said social scorn enough you no longer see words as a way to make friends, so turning to beauty is the natural progression.

Issues of "Redditization" and scorn aside, we are progressing into a post-literate society where the written word and other literary media are being eclipsed by audiovisual media such as YouTube or Instagram. While much of the western world is "literate," in that they understand how to read and write (basic) words and phrases, much of our life - especially online - takes place in a highly visual world of filtered photos and staged videos. It becomes increasingly difficult for one to represent themselves in a written, literary form, when the culture demands "pictures, or it didn't happen."

McLuhan in "Understanding Media" has written on how the preference of one sense over another (e.g. sight over sound) in differing societies has profound cultural impacts over the ways we think, act, and what we find permissible:

    The printed form has quite different im-
    plications in Moscow from what it has in Washington. So with the
    telephone. The Russians' love of this instrument, so congenial to
    their oral traditions, is owing to the rich nonvisual involvement it
    affords. The Russian uses the telephone for the sort of effects we
    associate with the eager conversation of the lapel-gripper whose
    face is twelve inches away.
    
    Both telephone and teleprinter as amplifications of the un­-
    conscious cultural bias of Moscow, on one hand, and of Washing­-
    ton, on the other, are invitations to monstrous misunderstandings.
    The Russian bugs rooms and spies by ear, finding this quite natural.
    He is outraged by our visual spying, however, finding this quite
    unnatural.

rexpop
0 replies
2h22m

Providing rationales for your beliefs is hard work, but it's worth it. I'm not saying you deserve to be bullied, but I have no trouble saying what I think online, and supporting my positions with evidence—admittedly, behind a pseudonym, but that is necessary when one targets violent men for critique, which is 90% of why I bother going online in the first place.

natural219
0 replies
3h19m

Funny. I just tried to post my yearly attempt to communicate with people on Reddit, which got taken down immediately by the auto-moderator.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/1c0nuy6/it_is_impos...

It's infinitely sad that there's no place to just connect with people on the internet anymore. My post got 6 comments and a DM within the first minute, before the post got taken down. These people could have been new friends.

I've been through this cycle so many times I have long given up on trying to post on the internet. Logging on to find people and share thoughts only to be met with this massive wall of context and janitorial standards. I gave up like five years ago.

This is to say that the whole debate between "social media causes anxiety" and our landscape of social media causes anxiety makes this debate way too coarse. Getting on the internet between 2005-2012 felt happy, free, and was just a wellspring of community and connection. Post-2013 it's been a nightmarish hellscape on every platform.

mcronce
0 replies
1h39m

No longer can you just throw something out there, no matter how stupid

Obviously this is not the context you're talking about, but I find this issue with brainstorming type sessions these days as well these days. Not just work sessions either, as another example, I'm on the advisory board for a local club, and the first meeting was really barren for quite a while.

It's gotten to the point that I always make sure to voice my philosophy early on - "not all ideas are good, but many good ideas start out as bad ideas and become good through conversation" - and proceed to throw a few incredibly stupid ideas to the group to break the ice. It seems to help.

gnramires
0 replies
2h40m

Edit: Now before commenting, I see there's an overarching theme of: sure, there is a bunch of unhealthy stuff about social media, but meanwhile there are some things you can do to make your interaction with it better.

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 isn't deemed 100% perfect by those listening, the social scorn will fall upon you.

I think that's an important point, that I think is partly due to culture of the spaces. For example, I almost never downvote anyone, and in particular not for them being wrong, unless it's something particularly harmful whose visibility would be damaging, or just a troll (quite rare usually). The downvote button seems important for those rare situations (maybe just a mod button would be enough?), but in general it should rarely be used.

Not only I've come to believe asking questions is important for beginners to learn, but also it's an important medium for everyone else (and in particular experts or more advanced learners) to exercise their knowledge by teaching stuff and learning to fill gaps in their knowledge.

I actually think reddit is pretty good in this regard, specially w.r.t. what we had before and other media like StackExchange. In SE, you're expected to search the site and often questions are met with arrogance. In oldschool forums, which I do like, there was (in almost every case I remember) an even greater air of elitism; although, on the other hand, it created a healthy eagerness to learn the norms and participate in a careful way. I tend to prefer the lower-stakes communication of HN-style boards though.

I think as with everything massification is a significant problem. I encourage everyone to participate in communities whose size feels 'just right'. Also, at least some of your interactions should be highly participative, and not just mindless consumption.

I think a final problem is that any activity of too narrow scope can be dangerous. If people are confined into extremely narrow interests and spend all their time on that, as opposed to learning everything about life, that can (and probably will in most cases) paint a distorted picture of reality and be very unhealthy. Broaden your curiosity :)

pelagicAustral
28 replies
7h36m

My brother is essentially the male version of this, just swap the cosmetics for video game DLCs. He's early 20's, no job, no interest in work, no interest in getting out of the house, no interest on anything... talking to him is the most frustrating experience ever, nothing comes out of him, no emotion...

I talked so many times, tried to get an idea of what might drive him: travelling, learning, walking around in the mountain, making money, wasting money, drinking, smoking, drawing dicks on wall, anything! honestly, like "give me something to work with"...

He's been seeing a psychiatrist for a few years now... far as I can tell that is doing nothing...

He's a broken individual. I honestly do not know if there is a way back to reality for him (and so many others, these days)

silverquiet
12 replies
7h4m

Was the psychiatrist his idea or the parents'? I assume the parents, but if it was his then that's something.

I heard something interesting on a podcast recently - Kara Swisher was interviewing her son who said that if you're Gen A, it's sort of hard not to be a nihilist. For me personally, I sort of look at how fast the world is heating up and do some basic math about life expectancy, and I'm sort of expecting to see some shit, but I can't imagine tacking on a decade or three to that.

Psychologically, what you're describing is anhedonia, but as someone with these tendencies myself, I sometimes wonder if I just lack whatever sorts of denial mechanisms most people have to get through the day.

rchaud
8 replies
6h3m

The oldest Gen A person is 14yo, I was plenty nihilistic then too, and that was in the golden age of the 90s.

AnimalMuppet
3 replies
5h58m

But there's a key difference: If you're a nihilist 14 year old today, you're surrounded by both people and media that are reinforcing your nihilism instead of countering it. So your "nihilism phase" (if you have one) is much more likely to snowball.

sibeliuss
2 replies
3h13m

In the 90s the pharmaceutical situation was vastly different than today, too.

To be nihilistic today is not cultural, but a manifestation of the 50 different pills one is taking, which are literally killing the spirit, killing ones health, and trapping one in despair, with no escape. Shame. Shame. Shame.

rexpop
1 replies
2h14m

literally killing the spirit

There's no material evidence for "spirit".

sibeliuss
0 replies
1h23m

Thanks for the reminder. I completely forgot about that while trying to describe something metaphorically tangible, but alas.

red-iron-pine
1 replies
4h9m

it's not a phase, dad

rudasn
0 replies
39m

.. It's called facebook!

silverquiet
0 replies
5h36m

I was as well, but I was under the impression that I was a weirdo. I can't say I ever really grew out of it either. I think the interviewee was a bit older though.

corytheboyd
0 replies
3h38m

It is indeed, I know I was guilty of it.

The amplification of the idea through modern social media is a scary new vector. There is so much content about “they ruined the world, you’ll never own a house, why even try” that does not help. Like all half-truths, it’s… well, half true, but giving up can’t be the answer. Can’t change the bad things in the world, so the only viable option is to work around them.

I do feel for gen Z and A. It’s a hard world to exist in out there, and the online behemoth you’re pressured to be a part of is both a blessing and a curse. I’m just young-old man yelling at cloud to you, I know because that’s how I looked at other late 30 year olds at your age too.

Just don’t give up. Remember that online is all fake and the points don’t matter. The real people around you care about you, they truly do, even if you’re struggling to see it yourself.

pelagicAustral
2 replies
3h43m

It was my mother's idea...

Very clearly I have no idea about what goes on in his head, anyone's head for what matters... But when I compare my upbringing with his, I cannot understand how is it that this happen. I had so little, and struggle so much compared to him, and it's him the one giving up on life before even trying? This is thought that hunts me the most.

Feels like giving someone way too much of anything just cripples the process of understanding the struggle as a beautiful part of the process to be something, overcome something, feel something...

All his life has been in front of screens, talking to strangers, bites of information he digests after the digital rendition of a human voice has been transferred from across the internet. There is no beauty in this way of life. No wonder kinds have no feeling for what the world has to offer, unless it's coming from an Instagram influencer.

silverquiet
0 replies
2h49m

What do you feel he got too much of that he didn't have to struggle? I don't think it's wrong that pressure is sometimes formative, but also too much pressure will cause systems to fail; humans included. I had plenty of adversity as a child (an illness that has caused a lifetime of chronic pain), and what I learned is that there is no limit to the amount of pain life can provide you, and it doesn't mean anything, and no one really cares about it. I suspect a lot of us just realize early on that the nihilists are correct, and so trading video game skins is as meaningful as anything else, and at least it makes sense unlike most of life. Maybe the psychiatrists can find a drug that gives meaning though; they'll keep trying for awhile usually.

I assume you've asked him about what goes on in his head at least - what does he tell you?

hackinthebochs
0 replies
3h13m

I suspect the mind is like the immune system, it needs hardship to develop into the best version of itself. Without external assaults that induce the formation of strengthening mitigations, you're left with a system that is dysfunctional, even self-destructive. In the case of minds, we discover meaning through battling and overcoming hardship. A life devoid of hardship is devoid of the impetus to discover personal meaning, which leads to these kinds of empty existences we're seeing much more of.

The last 20 years has seen an intense effort to rid childhood of any hardship whatsoever, while providing a controlled environment where one's formative experiences are managed to a degree as to remove the possibility of any negative circumstances or emotions. But this just optimizes for the wrong thing. A development without challenges, conflicts, hardship, is a stunted development. This society-wide crisis of meaning is only going to grow as we continue down this path towards a hyper-connected world.

delichon
8 replies
6h57m

This described my brother too. He killed himself four years ago, after about thirty years of just that kind of depression. And I was my little brother's keeper damn it, so it's my failure. Ever since I keep reliving it and wondering what I could have done. All I come up with are fantasy scenarios in which I somehow make us both wildly successful. But even that's a stretch given his outlook. I fantasize about some kind of extreme intervention, but that would probably have just alienated him from me along with everyone else.

Not that you shouldn't try. I hope you find a way.

JackMorgan
1 replies
6h36m

You are not responsible for another's illness. Nor their choices.

Don't get stuck ruminating on the past , possibly infecting yourself with the same disease. Instead maybe pour that love and attention on those still around you. Care for those still with you. You are not at fault, you can't change the past, but you can change the future.

swader999
0 replies
6h26m

This is the only way even if some of the guilt is deserved. Grow the love around you, give your time and attention to others.

taikahessu
0 replies
4h45m

I found solace knowing (reading about) that blaming yourself is a part of the process. Thanks for sharing. Now, time for me to go outside. It's spring.

rexpop
0 replies
2h15m

It's shocking to me that you think yourself even remotely powerful enough to have prevented his suicide.

It "takes a village" to fulfill a human's social needs. No one's brother can, on their own, fulfill all another's needs. His deep thoughts, his poop jokes, his pillow talk, his watercooler chat? We need whole communities for which no individual can substitute. You might do well to recognize your own social poverty.

I'm sorry that you blame yourself. I tell my siblings not to blame themselves for my depression, isolation, and alienation. The fact is that these are statistical trends evidencing large, multidimensional social structures. They're unassailable by individuals. There was nothing "you" could have done.

nullderef
0 replies
6h46m

Hey, I went through something similar. Even though it's inevitable to fault yourself, you need to avoid it. I also do it sometimes but it never helps; I need to actively remind myself that it's not something worth thinking about. Hope you're doing a bit better now.

gregorymichael
0 replies
6h11m

Your brother was killed by a mental illness. You are no more responsible for his death than if he had died from cancer.

elmer007
0 replies
4h19m

I'm sorry to hear about your brother. Thank you for sharing- your words are helping me think through some related things.

anotherman
0 replies
3h48m

I went through the same thing, but my brother didn’t succeed in taking his life. He had a similar profile as described above, and socials played an outsized role in his alienation.

At the time, I quit everything I had on my hands and reorganized my life to be much more present. Living around for a while, trying to engage and be a part of his life as much as I could: sometimes in innocuous forms (“hey, wanna do that thing you love this week?”), sometimes straight up suggesting therapy.

You know what? No matter how hard I tried, it didn’t work. I wasn’t able to connect more with him at the time, nor to change his viewpoints. The simple act of getting in touch with him became extremely hard, to an extent none of my friends, or relatives that weren’t part of the nuclear family, were able to comprehend. Ultimately, I just think he had decided things wouldn’t just stop there, or something inside him held him back among us mortals, and that’s about it.

All I’m trying to say is don’t blame yourself for this.

We’re all doing our best and it sounds like you were already being a great brotherly figure. Blaise Pascal once said: “The heart has its reasons which reasons knows nothing of”: the inner workings of one’s mind (God’s, in Pascal’s case) are too difficult to penetrate for our logical reasoning. We’re just out there on this planet trying to figure out how to help our loved ones, and sometimes it’s not up to us.

You’re not at fault, and I hope you’ll soon find peace.

toasterlovin
0 replies
1h13m

Something I saw in my own family (I have a family member who is a recovering addict) and in literally every single episode of Intervention is that THE prerequisite to recovery is to stop enabling the addict. Many (most?) addictions are only possible because an enabler prevents the outside world from acting as a forcing function on the addict. So typically this would be a parent who provides food, shelter, money, etc. Once an addict has to provide those things for themselves, it starts a cycle that results in sobriety. Of course, this doesn't always work and the people who it doesn't work for are often the people you see living on the street. But this has been the process for every recovering addict I know and my addict-in-recovery family member says the same about every recovering addict they know (a lot).

It doesn't sound like your brother is exactly an addict (although maybe...), but this snippet sure sounds like he has an enabler in his life (emphasis mine):

no job, no interest in work, no interest in getting out of the house
ransom1538
0 replies
3h31m

Can you be a human being and cut him off? Who is this sick person enabling this? Who is passing out the money? This is no different than buying heroin for someone. Say hey, "No money, get job, bye". Let them begin the human experience. The video games will go away fast. Show humanity, cut them off.

batch12
0 replies
6h47m

I see it as my purpose as a parent to ensure my kids are able to take care of themselves since I will not always be here. To that end, a job is a requirement and school is a requirement. I had to push them to even get their driver's license, but they got one. My stance is, if you want to spend your free time lost in social media land, fine. Do what needs to be done first and then play. Interestingly, their social media usage in their limited free time seems to have declined in favor of interacting with friends and family.

asdf6969
0 replies
1h23m

Does he have any reason to believe that things will get better? If he already feels like giving up on life then telling him that he needs to work even harder will make him retreat and give up. If his life gets any worse he might kill himself. I know I would.

SirMaster
0 replies
58m

You just described one of his interests though. Video games and their DLC content.

Why is interest in video games not a valid interest, or somehow a worse interest than a few that you listed like wasting money, drinking, smoking, drawing dicks on wall?

Faark
0 replies
33m

Having wasted more than a decade doing pretty much nothing than playing pc...

a) The drive to change has to come from inside. I've seen quite a few people being sent to the online/gaming addiction group. Usually, they only come once.

b) Changing one self is hard generally. But here we got quite a bit of... idk, lets call it "damage". So many missing skills, confidence. So many bad, deeply ingrained habits. So many thoughts to avoid & distract from. And still no idea what will make me content.

c) I'm wondering quite often if not starting that journey would have been the better choice. If i could have found a way to stay happy. One motivator for me was the disdain for what i'd become, so no way back now. Now it'd be great to only disdain that past me ...

raziel2p
14 replies
9h13m

I think it's a bit reductionist to say it's devoid of purpose and meaning. Have you asked her what she feels her purpose/meaning is? You can disagree with it (I would as well), but I wouldn't assume she doesn't find any purpose/meaning in it.

If she gets angry about it, then probably there is something deeper going on. Or, you're just asking the wrong way (if you come in assuming there's no meaning/purpose to her life, that could easily happen).

If there's something deeper going on, then social media just amplifies things. Specifically about cosmetics and the beauty industry - people have complained about the effects of supermodels on TV, movies, billboards, magazine ads etc. for more than 30 years, social media has just taken it to the next level.

I don't disagree with anything you said, but I do think it's important to add depth to the argument if we actually want to change the world for a better place.

coldtea
10 replies
8h27m

I think it's a bit reductionist to say it's devoid of purpose and meaning

Probably he is old-fashioned and means the coventional old-style purpose and meaning, that old-timey thing that we'd call "actual purpose" nowadays.

Some backward people don't understand that "being isolated and doom scrolling all day" or "getting tons of destructive cosmetic surgeries" or "Amway" can also be a torally fine purpose in life.

_heimdall
9 replies
7h8m

Some backward people don't understand that "being isolated and doom scrolling all day" or "getting tons of destructive cosmetic surgeries" or "Amway" can also be a torally fine purpose in life.

I really can't tell if this is a sarcastic comment or not, so just to be clear none of these examples are examples of purpose. How one spends their time isn't purpose, it's just a description of their day.

ergonaught
4 replies
7h0m

I think the main point is that it isn’t anyone else’s business how an individual chooses to spend their time.

Absence some other criteria for concern, “I don’t like that they do this therefore they must stop doing it” is a line of thinking that desperately needs to be eradicated from human culture.

s1artibartfast
0 replies
4h50m

I think the criteria for concern is clear, and it never was about if they personally like of the activity.

The concern is because they care about the person and "being isolated and doom scrolling all day" is objectively destructive and self-sabotaging.

It's not a relativistic “different strokes for different folks“ and don't judge situation.

Being nonjudgemental might make sense if someone you care about is at least happy, not miserable and throwing their life away.

coldtea
0 replies
2h49m

I think the main point is that it isn’t anyone else’s business how an individual chooses to spend their time.

Nah, it was sarcasm

Absence some other criteria for concern, “I don’t like that they do this therefore they must stop doing it” is a line of thinking that desperately needs to be eradicated from human culture.

There are other criteria for concern, both empathy and concern for the invididual (other people recognizingt that living that way is destructive) but also concern for the general consequences in a society where people do those things.

_heimdall
0 replies
6h40m

Sure, though I do also think its reasonable for those who love for someone to be concerned if someone seems depressed or similar.

I didn't actually read the OP as a concern focused on what their sister does, but a concern of why she may be spending her time that way.

Regardless, my point was just that doom scrolling, as an example, isn't purpose. If we're collectively losing the what the concept of purpose even is we really are in trouble.

Karunamon
0 replies
3h5m

There is always a other criteria for concern. Basically nobody understands their own desire to police the behavior of other people as merely doing something that they don't like.

coldtea
3 replies
2h37m

How one spends their time isn't purpose, it's just a description of their day.

My examples were sarcastic, based on those being bad ways to spend your time.

That said, I don't agree that "none of these examples are examples of purpose". Or at least I don't think purpose has to be something big, like "do great good", "cure cancer", "get rich".

Those could very well be descriptions of someone's purpose, they would just be unhealthy purposes.

_heimdall
2 replies
2h21m

Cool, I thought you were sarcastic there but just didn't want to assume.

My point was only that purpose isn't what you do, its why you do it. I'd actually argue that curing cancer isn't a purpose either, its what someone is trying to do while the purpose could be a desire to help others or fame or fortune.

coldtea
1 replies
2h3m

I think "purpose" can refer both to the "why" and to the "what", as long as the "what" is a major "end in itself/goal" for someone.

E.g. "he found his life's purpose in playing the guitar" - this doesn't answer "why" he plays guitar, but it's a common way of putting it, no?

Here's another example from wordreference.com: "His purpose in life is to give a home to street cats" (again, no why, but a what.

_heimdall
0 replies
1h34m

Out of context I obviously can't say for sure either way, but I'd assume in either example there's a deeper why behind both.

Maybe he found meaning in playing the guitar because it allowed him to share a message, or improve others' lives through song. I'd be really surprised if the actual purpose behind it really did come down to the actual act of playing the guitar.

I'm probably getting too nitpicky or semantic here, sorry if I am. I do think the distinction is an important one though, a lot of problems can show up if the "what" is treated as the purpose or meaning in one's life and we forget the "why" behind it.

noduerme
2 replies
8h48m

When someone is obsessed or drugged to the point that you can't have a rational conversation and they're too angry or volatile to approach with any criticism, then it's not really your fault for coming at them the wrong way.

Sometimes caring about someone means showing them that what they think they want is garbage that's hurting them. That will probably hurt their feelings, and they might lash out at you for it, but the alternative is doing nothing or enabling them and watching them drown.

raziel2p
0 replies
6h39m

I agree with everything you wrote, but also think that if you actually care about the other person getting better, you have to be pragmatic. Set and respect your own boundaries, but tough love does not work on everyone.

lucumo
0 replies
5h22m

obsessed

I don't know. What one person calls an obsession can easily be called a hobby by someone else.

Personally, I like my little obsessions. I like them a lot better than judgemental people in my life. If someone were to start a "rational conversation" with me where they made me feel like I had to justify my "garbage obsession", well, I wouldn't want to talk to them anymore.

yawboakye
10 replies
8h56m

i find this to be, unfortunately, the current western stance on responsibility towards anyone: irresponsibility. for some reason, leaving people to go their way, wherever it may lead them, has been interpreted to be the good and the moral duty of anyone who understands what freedom (for intelligent beings) means. with all due respect, that’s cowardice and a neglect of duty.

i explained to my sibling the other day that we cannot live our lives however we wanted because of our layers of responsibility: first to ourselves (as a human beings in this civilization), then to our family and friends (who expect to count on us at some point), to the society we inhabit (i am currently an immigrant), the human race, and lastly the environment. those are not easy responsibilities and they could crush anyone. but absconding isn’t a choice: we’re not here for selfish reasons.

i think you should intervene, at whatever cost to you. because no one else would, and depending on how persistent you are, she’d be grateful for the care and attention you showed. because that’s the sort of action that pure love motivates. good luck

skilled
4 replies
8h38m

I have tried being supportive on multiple occasions. I offered to help with building her a platform online since she spends so much time there. I offered to team up with her in case she wants to create an eCommerce site. The discussion always ends with, “I don’t know”.

I have tried various approaches, including being provocative, and that is why I said it is not worth it.

I am not abandoning her by any means and we talk. We are on good terms so to speak, but sadly those good terms only extend to lengths of her own comfort. She has a genuine problem with sharing who she is as a person and that is not easy to work with.

When every other thing you say gets interpreted as an “attack” or “you are crossing boundaries”, it makes no sense to push the person to end up where you started.

michaelsalim
1 replies
7h24m

I don't normally comment on these kinds of topic but I thought I should chip in on this one. The things you have listed are all solutions to a problem that you think she has. Something in the line of "If you/we do X, you'll be happier. Trust me"

Honestly, it doesn't have to be that complex. I was shocked to read about the platform and the eCommerce site. That's such a HN solution to an ultimately human problem.

I believe the only thing you need to focus on right now is to understand where she's coming from. Do you know why she does the thing she does? Do you know what she feels about it?

That's it. Simple. But it'll be hard for sure. Because to you (and me), it's very clearly an issue that needs to be "fixed". But how would you feel if someone keeps telling you solutions to things you don't think are a problem? Like: "Hey, do you want a custom social media site so that you don't spend so much time on HN?" - the implication is that you're a HN addict. My first response would be defensive. "I think HN is good. You haven't even spent much time on it. How would you know anything about it? "

I think that unless there's this common ground of understanding and support, you'll never get anywhere.

kennyadam
0 replies
5h44m

Agreed. I was expecting something like asking her to go for a walk outside, visit a beach... something grounding and enjoyable away from the phone. Not trying to teach her frontend dev lol.

yawboakye
0 replies
6h44m

i’m extremely ill-qualified to advise here, and i think it will be even more reckless to assume i understand or appreciate the scope of your effort.

it’s more difficult to even suggest what to do. what are your thoughts on genuinely being interested in her? not for the purposes of helping her. but being interested in her so that you spend time in conversations? start with a minute here and there reminiscing about moments between you two (and perhaps the larger family) that you both enjoyed, and gradually moving into longer conversations? i think what i’m saying here is that you might need to rebuild trust then build a new relationship on top of that. how to go about that? i really don’t know.

wholinator2
0 replies
7h1m

Yeah, that makes sense. She's pushed you away. Sounds like she's pushed everyone away. You don't have to keep fighting. I don't know if you currently live in proximity to her but if so, one day that will end and you'll have no chance at saving her then. I don't think building online platform is the fix for this, and it doesn't sound like that's what she really wants. If i armchair about my own experiences, sounds like she wants friends but is scared and doesn't remember how to get them. If i we're living the scenario that's in my head in reference to your words, i would focus my efforts on going outside and enjoying the world, then attempting to find people, you only have to force the first couple conversations before it becomes possible.

Also, is it possible she's just depressed? I her a couple therapy sessions would help. These methods are how i got out of my video game hole, and i woulda killed for someone to go through this with. I can't tell you what to do, but what I've heard so far it doesn't sound impossible. It does sound like you've accepted the barrier to assistance she's set up. Maybe when you're ready to leave someday you can make a final push

lm28469
3 replies
8h2m

i find this to be, unfortunately, the current western stance on responsibility towards anyone: irresponsibility.

The complete destruction of religions, then traditions and now families/education (lack of education, lack of authority, &c.) probably had something to do with it.

You can't replace god/families/education with an iphone 15 and expect society to continue on the same path. And I'm saying that as a complete atheist, people need a framework, goals, rules, models, outlooks, a moral compass, &c. if all we have left is complete relativism and consumerism it's much harder to find a personal meaning and straight up impossible to find a global one

wholinator2
1 replies
7h7m

I'm confused. I've seen how the breath of Christianity in society has reduced, that's definitely true. But it seemed to me like my generations parents just weren't that interested in church and so we didn't grow up with it. I don't think "destroyed" is a term that could describe at least American Christianity (where i see these arguments the most). Likewise, modern families wait to have children longer. This is because career expectations and housing prices have been raised by the people who have more influence over it than we do. I can't change housing prices but i bet a sufficiently motivated private equity firm could, if not least by just selling their portfolio of rent-seeking.

And what is wrong with education? This one truly baffles me. Kids these days learn more math faster than kids 50 years ago. They learn about a large and varied swath of subjects. High school's as i understand haven't really changed much except for upgrading curriculum and expectations occasionally. Colleges definitely aren't cheaper, but there's a lot more options out there, more degrees, more possibilities, maybe not more but different jobs to go to.

I do think it's bad to let children in school have iPad time, any at all. They should learn to use the internet in the proper way, focused on learning and informational resources. But my phone has been immensely useful for my education! Actually irreplacebly helpful and expanding. I've got dozens of textbooks on here that I've used for many things over time. I've got a youtube tuned to educational content and i don't let myself have enough time to get off track. This phone is what I'm reading your comment from! It's what I'm engaging in this conversation with.

I'd say yes, finding meaning is different now. The old tricks don't work anymore because you just don't have to. What did people used to do who didn't find meaning? I do think GP should at least attempt to help his sister, that's his responsibility to bear in society. I think phones do make certain things harder, and others, like wasting away, much easier. I don't think having more churches would solve that. I think we need actual education in schools about this, the same way we talk about drunk driving, "be careful, you don't wanna waste your life, or someone else's".

This is just the first time anything like this has happened in society to my understanding. I'd blame the corporations who parasitically feed on the time, attention, lives of people who are unlucky enough to get sucked in. We have the term "whale" to describe a person who gets too financially invested in a game (phone or other). Perhaps we need a derogatory term to describe people who get to chronically invested in social media. Something good, to really discourage people from wanting to be like that. There's lots of solutions, i don't think bringing back "traditional family values", "christain morality", or homeschooling is gonna fix it. Those are our old tools, useful at times for certain things. We need to build some new ones.

Izkata
0 replies
5h22m

But it seemed to me like my generations parents just weren't that interested in church and so we didn't grow up with it. I don't think "destroyed" is a term that could describe at least American Christianity (where i see these arguments the most).

Millennial with Boomer parents here: There were a few things leading up to this, but in our family the tipping point was when our parents found out our religious education classes were telling me to stop asking questions. One of my parents' primary goals in life was for us to do better academically than they did, and they saw that as religion working against it.

__turbobrew__
0 replies
3h33m

The lack of authority is something I hear about from teachers in my locale. Many kids do not grow up with authority figures in their lives whether it be their parents, teachers, coaches, or other family. One of the teachers I know got in hot water for firmly telling a kid to ‘sit down’. The child was so upset — most likely because they have never encountered authority in their life — that the parents complained to the school board.

pgwhalen
0 replies
1h54m

I like that layers of responsibility theory, and applaud you if you live your life by it.

One thing I would amend for myself - I don't think I feel as though I have responsibility to the environment in and of itself. I am an environmentalist, but that follows from my duty to the human race. The earth will keep on earthing either way.

heresie-dabord
6 replies
8h18m

I understand your frustration and -- perhaps -- a feeling of having no agency in the situation. But at the same time I find this sentence fascinating and scary:

It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either.

Inverting the order of your explanations (to examine the weighting), we have:

    estimated low return for investment/effort
    avoidance of drama (the other's emotional upheaval) 
    relinquishment of participatory role in guiding the other
    relinquishment of influence/interest in the other's life
If you were a parent talking about your child, people would certainly admonish you. Yet because she is a young adult and you are merely siblings, many more people might agree with your complete detachment.

Can a person who obviously needs guidance/intervention not be worth the time ? Even though the person is in one's family ?

The narcissocial media actively create an illusion that gratifies loneliness and isolation. Modern urban life had already become a reality of denaturing, competition, isolation, and indifference. The antipatterns run deep.

But then you add...

But it's crazy that a person can get this lost in life and become completely devoid of purpose and meaning.

Your family member seems to be in need of help. It takes a family/village, as they say. We too often omit to remind ourselves that a person becomes a person through other people. [1]

[1] _ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy

skilled
4 replies
8h0m

I understand what you're saying, but that's not how life works. If a person has no anchor and they deliberately avoid establishing that anchor in their lives, then how do you expect them to stay stable when going gets tough? I have to respect her as a person first and foremost, and I cannot enforce my own thoughts/ideas because I think that is what's best for her.

She needs to find it for herself, and then establish that as her anchor. If it is cosmetics, then so be it. I have no gripe with that. What I do have a gripe with is reluctancy to be a functional human being and engaging with your family and friends.

As I said in another comment, I offered to help her to do stuff online on multiple occasions. But she can't even accept that, or come to terms with it. Hypothetically, that might also mean she knows that perhaps it's not what she truly wants for herself, as far as building a life (anchor) around it.

I'm not detached, and neither is anyone in my family.

worldsayshi
1 replies
7h26m

I sympathize with this because as far as I'm aware there is no solution to helping an adult person that really doesn't want help. I would love to know if somebody has actually managed to help such a person.

captaincaveman
0 replies
7h19m

Little by little is my advice, be at hand but not a crutch, show them what they are missing out on but don't push them to engage, they have to decide they want a better life and to do something about it.

intended
0 replies
1h30m

The situation you describe sounds familiar, but having dealt with these situations there are many potential root scenarios the facts can support.

Here are a few things that stick out. There is some motive force that animates your sister.

She travels to and from work regularly. Is able to go out and get surgery and cosmetics.

She has reduced interaction with immediate family - more precisely, she has reduced her interactions over several years.

You describe interactions as situations where “ ..doesn't share her actual thoughts and gets angry when asked about it”, / Emotional Upheaval.

There are many skills that are at play here. Decision making, planning, goal setting, even basic skills like getting out of the house. It will be tempting to “judge” and comment how those skills are being used - ignore that urge.

Secondly, you describe your efforts to provide assistance - suggesting Building sites, or expanding on her interests, which result in a “I dont know.” Of the methods attempted, loosely classified, they focus on action, doing things.

Assuming that you are helping in the manner you would expect to be helped - it may not be the manner in which she understands help or needs to be helped.

In the off chance that this extrapolation based on limited data is correct, then your sister may simply connect or need help in different ways.

From experience - some people dont need a plan or help, they need to understand themselves, this is sufficient information for them to make their own plans and act on their own. Others prefer concrete, actionable plans and dont really need this kind of help.

When two such individuals attempt to help each other, the usual outcome is either “You want me to do more, after I am already struggling?” Or “Why are you wasting my time when I need concrete solutions”.

If it helps - ‘thinking’ something through, is also a project. You are building yourself. Often people forget who they are, what their strengths are, become too tired, expect themselves to perform even though they are dead tired - they make errors in their projects.

In such cases some objective reassurance of their capabilities, a genuine analysis of their situation, helps. Often the best person to do this is a professional, because the emotional state interferes with the objective evaluation (“I will fail” vs “No shit - I cant be creative if I am this stressed”)

I dont have a solution, but I hope some of these thoughts aligned with the circumstances you find yourself within.

If it helps - I use something like this to work situations like this out.

Over engineered: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-KD6jm0l4c-thought-council

Base version: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-Cdq3drl87-two-guides

Non ChatGPT + version: https://chat.openai.com/share/d37ce786-20a4-482e-b348-87cd03...

Moru
0 replies
7h13m

There are so many psycological problems that we don't know anything about yet. Not everyone are normal. Or better, we don't really know normality yet. Some people have very big problems physically meeting people and after a full day of work, this might be an impossible task. Internet might seem like a shield that allows building up strength for the next day. The old thing about "Just get out there and meet people" isn't the solution for everyone, just don't give up on them. There is a way to coexist with us all, just have to find your way of doing it.

citizenpaul
0 replies
7h0m

Ive always assumed Ubuntu was another nonsense made up tech company name.

apexalpha
6 replies
9h19m

It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either.

In my culture this is exactly what family should do.

"Soft doctors make stinking wounds".

worthless-trash
4 replies
9h4m

and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either.

If you loved your sister, you should do something, if direct confrontation isnt working, take another route.

In my culture this is exactly what family should do.

I assume you mean "family should intervene here", because if you don't who would ?

teekert
2 replies
8h50m

Sure, you may try (I did and don't regret it, sounds like OP also tried), if only for you to feel better about it yourself. But my experience with addiction in the family is that they can and will drag you down with them. To love is to let go, at some point.

My experience (with alcohol addiction) is: Tried to help once, got into problems (set family up with house of a friend), almost got into financial problems myself (almost lend them money but was stopped by wife, would have lost it all). But at least I could tell myself I tried. But how far would you go? An addict will take you away from your family and kids if you let them.

So what to do? Hope they take the first step themselves. Be clear that you will help them take steps, but only steps you agree with (I once got alcohol for said family, the begging and bad state got to me, at some point an alcoholic will improve on alcohol), but I still feel bad about that today.

worldsayshi
0 replies
8h26m

So what to do? Hope they take the first step themselves. Be clear that you will help them take steps, but only steps you agree with (I once got alcohol for said family, the begging and bad state got to me, at some point an alcoholic will improve on alcohol), but I still feel bad about that today.

As someone who had to give up on a close friend and addict, you have to set razor sharp boundaries for yourself. And if that doesn't work you have to leave. I think very few people have the capacity to make the right decisions when a loved one is slowly slipping into a hole of misery of their own making while begging you to keep them company on the way down.

slothtrop
0 replies
5h41m

Interventions can work, they're just no silver bullet. I think it's something you do in good faith, but after that for the sake of your sanity you have to let go as you said.

apexalpha
0 replies
2h52m

I assume you mean "family should intervene here", because if you don't who would ?

yes

switch007
0 replies
6h58m

Not really in my culture but still necessary sometimes

I had to step in when my sister's post-natal drinking became too much. Everyone else turned a blind eye, but I couldn't stop thinking about my nephew and an emergency situation.

In a mini intervention, we snapped her out of it by saying you can't drive your baby to hospital in an emergency after 2-4 big glasses of wine (she was often on her own in the evenings); and if you did, child protective services would come down on you like hellfire. Plus a bit of "well prove us wrong that you don't need it to relax" etc.

It worked, quickly, luckily

gardenhedge
2 replies
9h3m

It just sounds like you're not part of her life. It sounds like you live together. Imo, that's absolutely normal behaviour between siblings.

skilled
1 replies
8h52m

We don’t live together. But we have a rocky past for sure. I was older and so I got a head start during my teens for all the bad vices during that age; drugs, alcohol, excessive partying.

By the time she got around to it, I had already wisened up and basically lost communication with her. I went on to do other things with my life and actually put in effort to experience new stuff.

She on the other hand did not. She found more excuses (dropped out of uni twice) than solutions.

me_me_me
0 replies
8h41m

I don't know how much you care about her, but it sounds like you do care at least a little.

Don't tell her what to do, or how to fix her life.

Go to her and tell her you are worried about her, that you are always no matter what there for her. And if she ever needs help you will be there for her.

Don't judge dont advice but make sure to let her know you care and will help when she comes around.

dotnet00
2 replies
4h36m

To me this reads less like a social media issue and more like she's depressed and something about the way you're asking her is off.

I saw a couple of years of similar reactions from my sisters after they went through some difficult times without any of us knowing (since they were studying abroad and this was before easy internet calling). They'd get mad when asked seemingly innocuous questions, which turned out to be because the way the questions were phrased came off as insulting or dismissive of their problems in some way. We didn't even know about these problems since they never told us, but that didn't really matter for them.

It took years of slowly rebuilding trust for them to open up again.

mm263
1 replies
4h12m

To me thos reads less like a social media issue and more like she's depressed

With social media, it’s hard to gauge what’s the chicken and what’s the egg in this issue. Is she on social media because she is depressed and the brain is looking for quick dopamine? Or is being in social media making her more depressed?

quest88
0 replies
4h4m

I don't think social media helps. It probably exacerbates the underlying issue? Otherwise we'd all be like this.

OscarTheGrinch
2 replies
8h17m

She may not be aware that there is a problem. My understanding is that game / social media addiction is an attempt to not think about real life things, including acknowledging that so much time has been wasted staring into the black mirror.

My advice is to let her know that you think she has a media addiction, then at least she has some level of awareness.

criddell
1 replies
6h51m

Jonathan Swift supposedly said: You cannot reason someone out of something he or she was not reasoned into.

I think that's typically true but I also would try anyway.

kayodelycaon
0 replies
2h43m

I don't think that's true with mental illness. He's referring to emotions being the source of a person's beliefs rather than reason.

People can learn coping skills to deal with things they can't control. Reasoning can override emotion.

For myself, learning I was bipolar allowed me to understand what was happening and be able to put things in context. I still need medication but I don't need as much of it.

sidewndr46
1 replies
6h12m

Life is devoid of purpose and meaning. It has only what you choose to assign to it. You can't coerce someone into making that choice.

slothtrop
0 replies
4h57m

It is, but when people bemoan lack of meaning/purpose they're just talking about feelings. It's a sensory thing, the rationalizations are just an attempt to explain and make sense of it.

We're bad at predicting what makes us happy and even worse at making sound judgements through negative emotions. Those in the middle of such an experience don't want to believe that their habits are exacerbating or responsible for their problems, because change is uncomfortable. They want to continue to feed addiction.

jmyeet
1 replies
6h16m

I don't pretend to know your sister's situation but one thing I've become convinced of through seeing the effects of the pandemic is we have an epidemic of undiagnosed mental health issues, particularly ADHD and ASD.

I bring this up for several reasons. First, such conditions are especially underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed in girls and women. Second, even now ADHD is still heavily misunderstood with people focusing on the "hyperactivitiy" part, which is really only one variant. Third, the combination of isolation and focusing on something that doesn't seem to fit that (ie cosmetics and cosmetic surgery) screams coping mechanism and nervous system dysregulation to me.

30+ years ago such people would be forced out into the world. Some would be helped by this. Others would merely cope (ie masking). Some would be further traumatized by this and no one (including them) would recognize it. I've heard from many teachers who deal with ADHD/ASD students that it becomes pretty obvious that their parents are undiagnosed for these very same conditions.

Your sister might be described as a NEET in Western parlance but this isn't new or exclusive to the West. Japan has had hikikimoris from at least the 1990s.

It's worth adding that young people aren't stupid. Many of them recognize the hopelessness of their situation, economically speaking. Rents are crippling, home ownership looks increasingly impossibly to ever reach, student debt is potentially crippling and job prospects aren't great. We're crazy if we think young people don't recognize this so we have a hopelessness crisis on top of all of this.

So is social media allowing people to isolate and cope or is it the cause? Is ADHD/ASD more prevelant now? If so, why? Or was it just underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed until now? I don't know. To me it seems like it might exacerbate existing issues and it's only one facet of many of how our society is increasingly broken and failing young people.

P_I_Staker
0 replies
3h5m

It's heavily underdiagnosed, even now

gambiting
1 replies
9h22m

>But it's crazy that a person can get this lost in life and become completely devoid of purpose and meaning.

The thing is, I'm sure for her it doesn't feel that way. She probably feels a lot of purpose and meaning in following all these people online and participating in social activities around them. That's part of the addiction too - it can feel meaningful for a long time.

fisf
0 replies
7h41m

That's part of the addiction too - it can feel meaningful for a long time. That's obviously true of meth,etc. as well. The first step is always to realize you have a problem that's negatively impacting your life.
asdf6969
1 replies
1h28m

I’m like this too except a man. It’s because I need to work on myself before I date or make new friends. I think it used to be easier to be happy as a loser before phones made us too self aware. It’s hard to be confident when I’m so aware of how much better things could be, and there’s really no excuse for failure when I can get a step by step guide on anything I want.

seabrookmx
0 replies
58m

happy as a loser

"Loser" is however you want to define it. If you legitimately want certain things (fitness, skills, whatever), then by all means go out and get them.

But don't forget some people are living in a hippie commune, or in a van, by choice. There's lots of these types that are completely broke and "losers" by some definition but they're fulfilled because they can spend more time hiking, painting, or whatever it is they want in life.

This is my long way of saying, don't let social media define what "success" is in your eyes :)

I need to work on myself before I date or make new friends

Real friends/partners will see you at your worst and stick around. IMO if you think you need to do XYZ first you'll never take the leap to make these connections. The fact that you're working on yourself is what they'll see.. "it's the journey not the destination"

aranelsurion
1 replies
8h35m

As I'm trying to find a more charitable point of view on her lifestyle: if this is how she prefers to spend her free time and if it doesn't impair her ability to exist as a functioning adult, is it really that bad?

I mean I personally know people who rarely interact with others other than work, and do weird things like playing with electronics and games all day, mostly just for fun and not for profit. They are often happy as they are, I'm sure many of them are on this very website.

Your sister sounds a bit like the TikTok version of the weird nerd stereotype, replace the PCBs with cosmetics and games with celebrity gossip. Their influencers sell lipsticks instead of 3d printed desk toys and mechanical switches. For me it's difficult to recognize TikTok stuff as a legitimate interest and understand her devotion to it, but then many of the hacker stuff must seem the same to the people outside of these circles.

Not that I know her situation better than you do of course, this was more of a thought experiment on trying to understand a niche that I know very little about.

lm28469
0 replies
8h10m

Are we talking about long lasting happiness or repeated short lasting pleasures ?

Are your short term pleasures in line with your long term goals ?

That's what supposedly differentiate us from most other animals, the capability to think about the future, and act accordingly. Regret is one of the worse feeling

StefanBatory
1 replies
8h5m

But isn't there a question of what causes what?

Is she terminally online because she's ill or is she I'll because she's terminally online

TeMPOraL
0 replies
7h47m

Both. It's a feedback loop keeping her in place. Like with many (all?) addictions, you get stuck in a situation where the same activity makes your situation worse and provides a short-term reprieve from immediate consequences. You take a hit to briefly fix the accumulated damage from all the previous hits.

xinayder
0 replies
8h17m

I try to avoid mainstream social media because it makes me uncomfortable. I started after putting on my tinfoil hat after Snowden's revelations and slowly drifted away from them, then was dragged back because most of my friends had Twitter, then I decided to finally get rid of my Twitter after Musk bought it.

I have instagram and almost never use it. It's addicting to me in a sense that when I have nothing to do I'll open up the app and endlessly scroll through the feed, check stories of people I follow. It made me uncomfortable because all of the stories of people I know looked fake somehow, everyone smiling, having a good time, making specific poses to look good on Instagram, but in reality their life is not full of roses. It made me uncomfortable when I had bad days, where I felt like I was never going to achieve the happiness people show on the social network. Luckily, wen this thought occurred, I was able to pinpoint it and say "well, this is NOT real, they are just faking it for likes and followers. you should feel good that you don't have this and you should value personal contact over likes on a website".

Since then I only use Instagram to browse for dog/pet videos.

But I have some acquaintances that they act like their life depends on instagram. Hell, I had a friend who spent all of her time watching stupid tiktok videos disseminating fake news and pseudoscience (and she was studying to become a psychologist), reading stupid things on facebook, and when she wasn't busy with this she would constantly complain to me how she self-evaluated that she had depression and anxiety, how her life is shitty. She was a pretty woman and all the time told me she wanted to change her appearance because of something she saw on facebook or tiktok, and I guess it wasn't enough for me to tell her she was perfect the way she is, even with her issues. She never listened and tried to convince me that the cosmetic changes she'd do weren't permanent.

vaidhy
0 replies
1h29m

It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it eithe For someone not from US, this comes across as weird. She is your sister, so why is the emotional upheaval not worth it? Who is it worth for? Why is not your place to tell her she is going down? If not for family, who will you do it for?
uconnectlol
0 replies
3h41m

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.

this is not the average social media user. the problem is addiction, not doing surgery to yourself. if social media was banned or age gated you would have to ban wikipedia next as its also very easy to get addicted to doing a tree traversal of interesting articles starting at the single one article you intended to read. also stack exchange. pardon my tone deafness to your tragedy, but this is a political issue, and your post is being used for political purposes. this is also a waste of my tax money and proof that taxation is theft. if i was a parent i would just be a good parent like my parents and slap my kids if they get addicted to upvoting shit on social media just as i would slap them if they get addicted to watching tv, playing arcade games (since i would provide them with real games and not gacha shit, the former which still had the addiction problem and the exact same dumb discussions in the 90s)

tossandthrow
0 replies
9h21m

Out of curiosity: What do you think she should do?

Is it that she does not go out with friends?

I think her situation is not at all bizarre – I actually think it is overly normal.

Going out with friends: Fair enough, you sit at the same bar talk about the same things, etc.

I think we are in a crisis of communities. Even if your sister wanted to engage there are no good places to do it.

swader999
0 replies
6h31m

This is where you use your tech skills to break her addiction. Degrade her social media queries randomly. Mess up the dopamine rewards. Maybe a pihole add on or something like that?

skywhopper
0 replies
3h40m

She gets cosmetic surgery without leaving the house?

shrimp_emoji
0 replies
3h5m

I went through that phase but with World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. And I'm now still in that phase but with programming. So I'm essentially your sister but smarter and cooler in every way. My condolences.

serial_dev
0 replies
3h54m

If I felt this way, I'd try to get my sister to realize what's happening to her, get to the bottom of the issue together, and help her get out of it.

And be persistent to a degree, show her that you care and you are there for her (and actually be there for her, do something with her). Be understanding, some amount of video entertainment is okay. Be there for her, be patient, and know when to take a break about trying to change her bad habits.

I assume you also need to be prepared for the unfortunate possibility that she just won't budge and decides to spend her life in the matrix.

rmbyrro
0 replies
7h31m

In my family, helping a sister in this sort of dead end is exactly what a brother is expected to help with.

It's not about 'telling my sister what to do'. It's about helping someone sick (my conclusion from your superficial description, reality might be different?).

paul7986
0 replies
5h39m

She might have really bad social anxiety, ocd and or some other social disorder that's pretty common in your early to mid to even late 20s. I had it and withdrew too until I started talking about it with others my age only to find out they were all crazy / normal too. Thinking your the only one dealing with such and never talking about and or hearing others ur age or close in age deal with it too is the worst thing ...she needs to talk about it and know she is completely normal and many many others her age deal with the same too

maxrecursion
0 replies
4h51m

This shows the real problem is more getting sucked into online social groups rather than having constant communication with real life friends.

The toxic part of social media is the online personas and interactions with strangers, who are perceived as friends.

There is a balance of letting kids have messenger and play games online with friends, than letting them have social media accounts, and burrow into cesspools of online activities that a lot of these social sites are.

lm28469
0 replies
8h23m

But it's crazy that a person can get this lost in life and become completely devoid of purpose and meaning.

People have been warning about it since the birth of capitalism and consumerism, although even the most pessimistic ones didn't expect we'd get so far down the rabbit hole, the internet sped up the whole process a thousand times.

The loss of meaning will be the greatest thing we'll have to fight against in this century, we're just at the beginning.

I just wish there was an easy way out of it.

I personally think it's lost for a few generations, people who fall into the rabbit hole while their brain is still developing will have absolutely no way out.

What makes the system thrive is the same thing that destroys individuals, the group goal is diametrically opposed to the individual needs

klntsky
0 replies
2h45m

It's her life so I leave her alone, not my place to tell her what to do, and the emotional upheaval from her isn't worth it either.

You are a part of the problem.

hartator
0 replies
7h50m

Maybe she thinks the same thing about us doom scrolling HN.

emmelaich
0 replies
9h19m

As her brother you might be the only one capable of rescuing her from a shitlife.

No (wo)man is an island, entire unto itself.

commandlinefan
0 replies
4h52m

she spends most of her time in her room on the phone

They said the same thing about TV for most of my childhood.

boplicity
0 replies
2h48m

This sounds very much like classic addictive behavior. I recommend reading up on Al-Anon, so you can learn more about what you can and can't do, in terms of helping an addict.

billfor
0 replies
4h0m

It's called a cat person.

anavette
0 replies
2h4m

Your sister sounds like my brother (minus the cosmetics— his focus is on other things). I can deeply relate to your experience.

I'd highly recommend the book "Hikikomori: Adolescence Without End" by Saito Tamaki, translated by Jeffrey Angles. First published in 1998 it describes the "hikikomori" social/psychological phenomenon, and ways treatment has been approached. Ultimately, Saito observes that nobody can "fix" the individual hikikomori directly— therapy must be multi-faceted, continuous, and ongoing, focused on reducing stigma and shame. And for all that, may ultimately not be effective.

MrYellowP
0 replies
4h21m

It's her life

Clearly it's not. It's the life of those she copies and is influenced by. I strongly doubt any of the people like your sister are actually making actual decisions about their lives.

You absolutely should try getting through to her, because that's in her best long-term interest. She's literally destroying her life.

miki123211
84 replies
14h22m

This author is seriously suggesting that governments ban children's use of social media, and that can't really be done without completely destroying internet anonymity.

Any policy that actually achieved this, without being trivial to circumvent, would basically need to replicate the great firewall of China.

Doing this in a half-assed way is even worse than not doing anything at all. If you just require ID checks for all users to do age verification, you create a privacy nightmare for the adults. Meanwhile, children will circumvent the restrictions with VPNs, so you need to ban VPNs too. Foreign companies, who have no incentive to play by the rules, will surely capitalize on this, so you also need a comprehensive website blocking system. As they say, there's nothing more dangerous than a teenager with very little money and a lot of time on their hands, so a simple DNS-based block definitely won't suffice, you probably need Chinese-style deep packet inspection and such.

The only middle ground I see here is enforcing this through the App Stores, perhaps with an extra ban on sideloading without a developer certificate, guarded byID checks. Losing the ability to sideload would be a shame, but this is the "worst solution, except for all the others" kind of situation. Sure, this is trivial to circumvent by using the web, but the extra friction required due to web apps being worse than native might be a good enough deterrent.

mixmastamyk
15 replies
13h58m

It doesn’t have to be a technical ban. Just make it the law and let companies, schools, parents, and kids take their punishment when found to happen.

This should be enough for the risk averse to take open devices away from children and bolster parents.

It’s not important to stop every possible access, simply that adults have the authority to say no and be supported by society instead of undermined.

agentgumshoe
10 replies
13h35m

Now, define 'social media' clearly and we're all good.

ars
5 replies
13h18m

Social media has the following elements (which would be prohibited):

Recommendation based on previous views. Recommendation based on what is currently being viewed is permitted. Recommendation based on current view that is customized to user is not permitted.

Ratings up/down.

Sorting based on rating or based on users' interest. Chronological sorting is permitted.

Suggesting content is forbidden. Specifically subscribed content is permitted to be suggested - but only chronologically, or in response to a search.

No public comments. Private comments permitted. Comments in room/forum/group permitted. User must specifically subscribe/join to see the comments.

Comments sorting/notification rules same as above.

"Reactions" to messages show up as additional/new replies, and are not attached to the original message.

Discussion:

The idea is to reduce addictive methods, and to modify discussion/views to reflect ordinary human behavior: No one rates your sentence spoken in a group, no one goes back and promotes certain things you said, words are said in a group chronologically.

still_grokking
4 replies
12h8m

So you want to ban all kinds of software forges, like for example GitHub? Or other regular coordination platforms for business?

I guess the definition of "social media" is not as simple as outlined above.

ars
3 replies
11h33m

Explain please how my suggestion bans GitHub.

GitHub does not show me (on my home page) "recommended" repositories, rather only the ones I specifically searched for, and the information on it is organized in a chronological fashion, which is permitted by my suggestion.

Is your issue that I can see public comments regarding the repository? That's permitted - comments on random repositories do not show up on my home page, only if I specifically go to a particular repository, which is effectively joining it for the purposes of what I wrote. (Although I guess that could be clarified.)

lurker616
2 replies
9h59m

How about Discord? Or reddit? Would those be limited to kids as well? You can be sure that even if FB/Instagram were to ban kids, there would be hundreds of companies jumping in to scoop up all that teenage DAU.

ars
1 replies
9h46m

Yes, reddit would be limited, unless they made a mode that ordered submissions and conversions chronologically and removed all voting.

Forums have existed before reddit that didn't have those things, and those forums worked just fine - and continue to work just fine. The way reddit does things is not necessary, they do it to try to make it more addictive, and that's exactly what we are trying to stop.

Discord I'm not sure - does it have votes/rating that kind of thing? From what I saw in my limited usage it's pure chronological chat, but I haven't used it much.

still_grokking
0 replies
2h15m

Sorry to be so direct, but your rules just don't make any sense to me. Let's go through them one by one:

Recommendation based on previous views. Recommendation based on what is currently being viewed is permitted. Recommendation based on current view that is customized to user is not permitted.

This would ban all kinds of news aggregators, or even just simple help-desk / support ticket systems.

Ratings up/down.

This is one of the most important features of an internet forum! Just imagine HN without votes. It would be flooded with nonsense!

Sorting based on rating or based on users' interest. Chronological sorting is permitted.

I don't want a chronological information thread most of the time. I want to see the things that are relevant to me. A news ticker full of stuff you don't care about is just a big waste of life or work time.

If I'm working on project X with technology Y I want to get relevant information. Without the need to search for it explicitly. The computer knows anyway what I'm working on, so it should show me the relevant information. That's the whole point of a computer: It processes information for you so you don't have to go through it manually.

Suggesting content is forbidden. Specifically subscribed content is permitted to be suggested - but only chronologically, or in response to a search.

How do you discover interesting things you don't know about already? Should we ban the "see also" section on Wikipedia, too?

What again about work organization tools? Should they be kept dump instead of helpful?

No public comments. Private comments permitted. Comments in room/forum/group permitted.

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean.

Is a blog post a public comment?

Spam email is a private comment, right?

Reddit or YouTube comments happen in a room/forum/group I guess?

User must specifically subscribe/join to see the comments.

Yeah, sure, you need to be logged in to read Stackoverflow comments. But you can only see them when you joined the discussion of some question, otherwise no comments for you. Do I get this right?

Comments sorting/notification rules same as above.

Sure. Your inbox full of trash notifications about "chronological events"—that don't matter to you.

"Reactions" to messages show up as additional/new replies, and are not attached to the original message.

OMG. Back to "+1" comment threads on GitHub & Co…

---

The whole point is: Something that works like "social media" is just a communication tool. A tool by itself is not good or bad. The difference is in who's interest the tool is applied. When I install something that works like Reddit on my own servers and use it to discus internal topic related to my workplace this tool is likely great. The same Reddit-like software operated by an company that seeks out to sell ads to people is likely dangerous to the public.

The problem now is, the whole internet is run on ads. So more or less any communication platform on the internet is potentially malicious.

Of course there are exceptions, like for example HN. But these are rare cases. Also note that something like HN ticks a lot of the "not permitted" boxes outlined above. This just makes no sense as I don't think HN is harmful. More the contrary. So the stated "rules" just don't work.

mixmastamyk
3 replies
12h18m

I don’t think kids should be on the internet (public WAN) alone at all, so easy for me. They could get larger whitelists over time as they approach 18—no sites where they interact with adults.

anthk
2 replies
8h27m

So 14 year olds can't learn form old hackers to grow up programming/coding and such? That's really sad.

mixmastamyk
1 replies
3h58m

Sure they can, in person, school, or with a book. I became a hacker just fine w/o internet as a kid.

People did things just fine, just took a bit longer. Thankfully kids have a lot of extra time.

anthk
0 replies
1h38m

Without a working internet connection, you can simulate network setups, but not the real deal. A teen at SDF could learn much faster with people with wisdom than by themselves. They can be guided in a much easier way. Hint: I didn't got internet at home until very late. And, back in the daw I knew a lot in some areas, such as drivers under GNU/Linux, adapting basic BTTV drivers and so on, but severely lacking in others, because there was no proper information to start with.

Aurornis
2 replies
13h54m

It doesn’t have to be a technical ban. Just make it the law and let companies, schools, parents, and kids take their punishment when found to happen

You’re describing a ban.

mixmastamyk
0 replies
3h11m

, without the ID requirements.

jackbravo
0 replies
13h38m

It doesn’t have to be a technological ban. It can be a social ban

Buttons840
0 replies
13h31m

That will look real good, a parent decides certain reading and social activities are okay for their child, and now it's time for the government to punish everyone involved.

imgabe
11 replies
13h49m

There are two avenues to deal with a hazard. You can try to manipulate the environment to eliminate the hazard, or you can try to strengthen people to make them immune to the hazard. I think we should prefer the latter over the former whenever possible.

For one thing, it's more robust. The environment is messy and control is often illusory at best. Control limits freedoms and introduces centralized points of failure that can be manipulated by bad actors. Making people strong and free creates more opportunity and innovation, even though it scares the people who long to be in charge of the centralized control.

What does it mean to strengthen people to make them immune to the harms caused by social media? I don't know exactly, but I bet we could find out.

oblio
5 replies
13h35m

The brain has some flaws that are very hard to overcome. Addictions are some of them.

There's a reason almost every country in the world regulates and restricts gambling.

logicchains
2 replies
13h10m

The brain has some flaws that are very hard to overcome. Addictions are some of them.

The majority of people don't feel victim to addiction, it's a minority of people who are prone to it. Everyone shouldn't have their freedoms restricted just to cater to the more weak-minded.

oblio
0 replies
3h22m

You don't really seem to understand how the legal system works, don't you?

Laws are there to protect powerful people (in many cases), to protect the majority (hopefully most cases) and to protect the vulnerable, sometimes from themselves (in a decent number of cases).

Ghexor
0 replies
10h29m

A popular position perhaps, which is why you can still go gambling while 'weak-minded' children cannot.

Personally, I hope we come to protect the vulnerable regardless of their age.

concordDance
1 replies
13h14m

Aside: The people who like prediction markets get quite annoyed at that.

throwaway2037
0 replies
10h43m

"prediction markets" -- what a loaded term. Do you consider financial futures markets to also be "prediction markets"? As I understand from financial research, it has been shown time and time again that financial futures do not predict future performance. In my mind, "prediction markets" are nothing more than legalised gambling on an (election) outcome. To be fair, most retail (non-institutional) traders of highly leveraged financial products (futures & options) are the same: They are gambling on an outcome, not investing or hedging risk. Finally, I am not saying it should be outlawed, but there should be some very strong warnings before trading the product -- as there are for futures & options.

willvarfar
0 replies
13h33m

I agree that we can't effectively manipulate the environment to eliminate the hazard, but I also worry that we can't effectively strengthen people to make them immune to the hazard either.

A common thread through all human history is people being misled on-mass. Before social media we were slaves to the tabloid headlines. Before widespread papers we were slaves to the pulpit. Etc.

For the last 10 years social media has been the tabloid but personalised. Outrage = engagement so the algorithms have pushed outrage, and personalized in the sense that they have searched for the thing that outrages each of us individually.

I fear that the next 10 years of social media is very basic generative stuff (LLMs don't need to get better; social media companies just have to apply what the current art), turning them into tabloid with intimacy. By turning into your friend in how they communicate with you, they get engagement x10.

The way to change someones mind is through intimacy.

And humans are suckers for it. We can't strengthen the masses against outrage, and we can't strengthen the individual against intimacy.

Sorry for being so pessimistic.

safety1st
0 replies
13h34m

I think we should start with removing the immunity that large platforms possess against relevant criminal prosecutions. So let's take for example suicide, in some jurisdictions driving another individual toward suicide is a criminal matter. If evidence can be put forward in a court that they used a lot of social media and that the algorithm contributed to that suicide, well maybe the publisher should be getting prosecuted.

Do I expect that some social media companies are really going to struggle to continue to operate at their current scale because of these changes? Yes I 100% expect it and I think it's great. It may lead to a smaller and more personal web. Your business model has no inherent right to exist if it harms people. Maybe, for example, you will need to hire more humans to handle moderation so that you stop killing people, and if humans don't scale, well, too bad, you're going to get smaller. We regulate gambling, tobacco etc. to limit the harm they do, I don't see any difference with social media.

To have the biggest impact without stifling innovation we can start by applying this rule to platforms which are above a certain revenue level. There is likely a combination of legislative and judicial action here in that there may already be crimes on the books which these platforms are committing, but the judiciary has not traditionally thought of a corporation being the person who committed that crime, certainly not at scale against thousands of victims. In other cases we may need to amend laws to make it clear that just because you used an algorithm to harm people at scale, doesn't make you immune to consequences from the harm you caused.

qwery
0 replies
12h49m

No, there's not. There's any number of ways to deal with a hazard. Your two avenues are not even distinct. Both require exerting control. Any scheme can be manipulated by bad actors. Scheming to not scheme is still scheming.

You cannot make people anything without limiting their freedom. How do you make people stronger? If you have an idea, there is a centralised point of control/failure. Bad actors will be more strong and free as well.

There's plenty of examples of successful measures to reduce harm by controlling the "environment" see: cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, being old enough to drive on public roads, being old enough to take on debt, child labour, etc.

It's weird to use the words "environment" and "hazard" on one hand and "people" on the other. The discussion is about hazards designed, created and maintained by people. The environment to manipulate is people, organisations, and law.

non-chalad
0 replies
12h5m

As a friend of mine said "If you can't kid-proof the farm, you have to farm-proof the kid". Watched said kid drink from farm puddles, and lick feed bowls. Seems to have worked: She's headed to tech school now.

boomlinde
0 replies
3h31m

If the hazard is just me skulking about and punching you in the back of your head every time you let your guard down, you could strengthen yourself and make yourself immune by never going outside and always keeping your door locked and barring up your windows.

How is that inherently preferable to the addressing the harm itself? By what principle do you conclude that we should prefer one over the other whenever possible?

naasking
9 replies
13h56m

Achieving 90% of not is simpler than you think: ban smartphones from schools during school bours. If the parents want the kid to have a phone, then the parents can get a flip phone.

bigstrat2003
5 replies
11h48m

I think we should go even further: ban all phones during school hours. There is absolutely no reason that kids need to have a phone in school. If the parent needs to reach them, then call the school office who can get your kid on the line. There is no emergency so dire that a few minutes' delay in talking to your child will make a meaningful difference.

epolanski
3 replies
11h12m

There is absolutely no reason that kids need to have a phone in school.

I commuted one hour from and to middle school and high school, I definitely needed a phone to communicate with my mother when stuff happened (and occasionally happened), such as missing the bus or being late for lunch.

graemep
2 replies
10h8m

Lots of kids did that before there were mobile phones.

rightbyte
1 replies
6h30m

So, pay phone booths for school kids?

jksflkjl3jk3
0 replies
4h50m

When I was in school, you'd just go the main office and ask the secretary. They had a phone that students could use (for free) when they missed the bus or had to reach their parents for something important.

naasking
0 replies
4h12m

There is no emergency so dire that a few minutes' delay in talking to your child will make a meaningful difference.

You're neglecting emergencies that are happening in the school itself. School shooters, for instance.

I frankly don't see the problem with kids having the phone with them as long as they're not actually using it outside of an actual emergency.

_heimdall
2 replies
13h51m

Would this be a federal ban, a state-level ban managed by education boards, or something else?

And how is it enforced exactly? Are parents held responsible, or are state education funds impacted somehow based on smartphone use?

Would we need a federal mandate to require flip phone / feature phone support? The last time I tried to find a feature phone it wasn't easy, many depend on 2G/3G networks which are losing support and carriers have absolutely no incentive to carry feature phones when smartphones are all that sell.

bart_spoon
1 replies
13h14m

State bans are already occurring. Indiana just banned phones from schools a week or two ago.

_heimdall
0 replies
7h17m

Well I can't really complain about that at least. States have a lot more leeway and are explicitly given the power to manage their public schools.

A quick look at Indiana's law and the news articles are interesting. The law requires schools to implements rules that ban phone use during class, but the actual rules and implementations are left for schools to decide. The articles I found make that sound like the law is toothless and passes the hard work off to school systems, but in my opinion that's a great law as it let's every school do what works best for them without prescribing a single solution for everyone.

hollerith
9 replies
14h18m

that can't really be done without completely destroying internet anonymity

I am skeptical of this push to elevate internet anonymity to a new fundamental principle for organizing society.

mptest
5 replies
13h53m

elevate internet anonymity to a new fundamental principle for organizing society

You mean privacy? Internet anonymity is a downstream byproduct of our right to privacy, not some new concept devised in the internet age. We've had the fourth amendment for quite some time.

hollerith
3 replies
13h44m

There's no right to privacy in the 4th Amendment.

But more importantly, there are huge differences between internet anonymity and the older comceptualization of a right to privacy, which has mostly to do with shielding conversations between people who know each other's identities (real names and addresses) from prying government eyes. Shielding such conversations from prying government eyes is not incompatible with preventing teenagers from using social media.

willvarfar
1 replies
13h19m

It's interesting that, historically, privacy didn't need protecting because it was trivially available and people won't have thought much about the possibility that in the future it would not longer be technically available.

Privacy didn't need protecting in history before bugging. If a founding father wanted to talk to someone privately they just went stood apart from everybody else.

50 years ago, standing apart no longer provided privacy because of long range microphones etc, but those were targeted attacks on diplomats etc.

Nowadays, you can probably do a nice undergrad project to recreate conversations from lip reading streetview video clips.

Privacy was defacto available hundreds of years ago, but is technically impossible now. (Imagine the kinds of body checks that will be introduced before you enter a US SCIF post the chess cheating scandal!)

hollerith
0 replies
13h10m

The recent emphasis on internet anonymity is mostly not a response to better tech for eavesdropping.

bigstrat2003
0 replies
11h24m

There's no right to privacy in the 4th Amendment.

The Constitution is not an enumeration of rights that the people have. It even says so itself, in the ninth amendment. So there doesn't need to be text which says you have a right to privacy: you have that right even without it being listed.

BoiledCabbage
0 replies
13h34m

OP hit the nail on the head. Privacy and anonymity are not the same thing. You can absolutely provide privacy without requiring anonymity.

I can have privacy in a conversation in my house without anonymity. I can have privacy in the woods. I don't have anonymity while walking down the street, but have pseudo-privacy. If I begin preaching on a street corner should I expect anonymity? If I join a members only fraternal hall that meets monthly, do I have anonymity? Do I have privacy? To what degree? Those are the scenarios we should be focusing on achieving.

As OP said [we should not]... > >elevate internet anonymity to a new fundamental principle for organizing society

This is probably the most important comment on this topic. You can't build a society on top of anonymity. The problem people should be out here solving is how to provide privacy without requiring anonymity. And when you have the itch to respond with a quick thought of "it's impossible," pause and think about how we accomplish it in the "real world" and then revisit.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF
2 replies
13h54m

I would not feel safe painting a target on my back if I was required to attach my legal name to my comments, especially the ones advocating for queer rights.

hackerlight
1 replies
10h33m

Have a government agency do the age verification, then it tells FB your age but no other information. Maybe the agency gives you a unique token that it also gives to FB, and you can use it to make a unique account.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF
0 replies
5h5m

That would be great if voters and politicians already cared for privacy, and if it was auditable.

Anyway good thing I'm not on Facebook. If I can hang out in a community of about 100 without anyone calling it "media", and we just keep out kids by not bringing any in, I'll live I guess

gitaarik
5 replies
13h9m

Of course people think of solving this problem again by constraining the consumer, instead of the producer.

What we should do is make rules for social media platforms to disallow them to develop algorithms that make people addicted. You might think how do you define that, but the companies have already made a whole science out of it so it's not that abstract anymore. It would sure be an elaborate task and will surely result in a cat and mouse game, but at least the issue would be taken seriously and people will understand better that engaging with these platforms that try to push the edges is playing with fire.

nwiswell
2 replies
11h28m

You might think how do you define that, but the companies have already made a whole science out of it so it's not that abstract anymore

Hardly. Addictiveness does not exist in binary. There are many people who obsessively check their email or refresh news websites. There is no doubt that social media companies choose the algorithms that maximize engagement and so most probably they also maximize addiction, but _any_ algorithm will cause addiction to some extent. What's the limit? How do we even measure this?

Something that is maybe a little more interesting is banning the practice of recommending "negative content" because it produces more engagement than "positive content". How this is defined is also somewhat squishy, but we can at least try to define it -- content that is likely to provoke negative emotions, like anger, fear, aggression, etc.

I think there's a much clearer through-line to argue that recommending negative content on social media produces a substantial negative externality, and that moves this into the category of things like environmental regulations.

presentation
0 replies
8h53m

I’m fine with the deciding body being an independent, literate group (easier said than done) who observe allegedly addictive platforms and make judgements based on the spirit of the law. We don’t need to reduce this to some kind of automated decidability machine.

Ghexor
0 replies
10h40m

I agree with you that a pos/neg divide is clearer and more straight forward to construct.

Reading your comment also evoked in me imaginations of political repression. Anger and fear are really important emotions signifying "this situation is not meeting my needs". Social Media can abuse these for profit probably precicely because they play this important role. In this light, a ban on recommending negative content seems really dangerous. Any content that expresses dissatisfaction with the political status quo is likely to contain some 'negative' (I suggest the term 'challenging') emotions.

So while 'addictiveness' is, like you say, really difficuly to measure - I prefer we try.

isodev
1 replies
8h56m

Absolutely this. It’s not about banning content - to a certain extend parents are responsible for what their kid has access to. In many cases proper education allows kids to self regulate and consume “adult” content appropriately with no harm. Unfortunately that’s not possible everywhere as many countries lack the resources and/or mentality to achieve this.

Regardless, dangerous content and services (just like dangerous substances) should be hard to make and very visibly marked, leaving no doubt about what it is and how it works. I love the EU’s notion of “algorithmic transparency” [0]. I would go a step further for systems attempting to increase engagement by exploiting behavioural sensitivities to be marked and even opt-in (think cigarette packaging).

[0] https://algorithmic-transparency.ec.europa.eu/index_en

miki123211
0 replies
6h35m

The internet makes this really hard to enforce.

To sell drugs, cigarettes, alcohol etc, you need somebody to do the selling, and that person needs to be located wherever your customers are. If you break that place's laws, well, they probably have police who can put you in jail.

Social media is different, you can run a social media website targeted at Americans without ever stepping foot in the US, having a server in the US, having a business entity in the US etc. It's just some random Russian website, following Russian but not American laws, that some Americans like to visit. Sure, the US can try playing the cat-and-mouse game with you and force ISPs to block your site and all VPNs, proxies and TOR nodes that might presumably give customers access to it, but that's still a game one needs to play, and playing it isn't without consequences for the privacy and freedom of others, consequences most democratic governments aren't willing to bear.

Even if the government wins and somehow manages to block you completely, or put enough obstacles in your path that doing further business doesn't make sense, you still don't lose. You don't go to jail or face legal action, you just quit and focus on other countries instead.

willcipriano
4 replies
14h9m

completely destroying internet anonymity.

Stores that sell age restricted products already can also sell "adult passes".

Each adult pass costs less than $5, and contains a single use scratch off code that you can use to prove you are of age. When you want to sign up for social media or porn, you need a code. Mutiple companies can implement and sell them.

KingMachiavelli
3 replies
14h4m

There would be a huge black market of selling to the underage immediately defeating the purpose.

willcipriano
0 replies
13h48m

Checking ID to prevent the sale of tobacco to children may not prevent them from ever smoking but is considered better than nothing. This product would be sold in exactly the same manner at the same locations.

Prevents kids from stumbling onto it by accident at very least.

triceratops
0 replies
2h36m

Most minors don't smoke or drink, even though straw purchases of booze and cigs are a thing. Social media is even more amenable to this type of gatekeeping because if most of your social circle isn't on it, you have no reason to be there either.

oblio
0 replies
13h31m

That would limit the total addressable market from 100% to, say, 1-5%. Statistically, legally, socially, that's not "defeating the purpose", that's "job done", instead.

Most people here should be engineers or at least analytical. No solution is 100%.

Aurornis
3 replies
13h51m

that can't really be done without completely destroying internet anonymity.

This is why I can’t take any calls for banning social media for kids on HN seriously: The moment anyone introduced any legislation to limit social media access by age, this creates a de facto requirement to verify ID. The people in this thread would be up in arms as soon as the government tried to force companies to collect their ID to use social media.

triceratops
0 replies
3h58m

government tried to force companies to collect their ID to use social media.

I'm strongly opposed to ID collection of any kind. But I think age bans are a good idea.

Why not sell age verification codes at physical stores? One code per account per website. It's good for 2 years and costs no more than $5. You can pay cash at the store and the sales clerk may only check your ID, as though they were selling you tobacco or alcohol. They cannot record anything.

There will still be straw purchases, just like booze and cigs. But it makes it easier to police the ban on minors joining social media without seriously compromising anonymity for adults. Few kids in my high school smoked or drank. Most couldn't access those things. And social media has network effects. If most kids can't join it, the rest probably won't bother.

oblio
0 replies
13h34m

Oooor, hear me out, that part could be a government run ID validation service (as in SaaS). Crazy, right?

littlestymaar
0 replies
13h29m

With the rise of IA, identity verification on the internet is going to be inevitable on the internet anyway, to make sure people are actually humans. But it doesn't need to break anonymity, cryptography can be used to allow for a zero-knowledge humanity or age proof.

Fighting against regulations in the name of anonymity is the best way to actually harm anonymity. We can have both (while we currently have neither in practice …)

bart_spoon
2 replies
13h16m

We spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to pick up the pieces of the destruction being left in the wake by social media giants as they get absurdly rich. How about we instead simply make the giants liable for what gets posted on their platforms? Let the “move fast and break things” crowd that is so certain of their own genius spend their billions on figuring it out instead of on how to get you to click on another ad.

They will figure out a solution very quickly or they will simply cease to exist, and either way the problem will be solved.

nyokodo
0 replies
12h33m

How about we instead simply make the giants liable for what gets posted on their platforms?

Because social media is a tool for global social influence and global intelligence that the powers that be do not want to give up. Because those same powers are often invested in social media companies or don’t want to get on their list of enemies. Because it might look bad politically if it proved unpopular. Because they are all social media addicts. Take your pick.

Buttons840
0 replies
13h2m

The largest social media platforms should be required to federate and open their data through powerful APIs.

Once they control a significant part of society's communications they own society something in return. Let society access our communications how we choose.

Glyptodon
2 replies
14h3m

I don't think you have to destroy internet anonymity. Just fine parents like $25 or $50 bucks every time anyone can link their kid to social media use. Give people rewards for reporting it or something. Even as little as driving kids towards platforms that incentivize anonymous interaction over real name and face stuff is probably enough move the needle. That said, I think social media use has a very overlapping relationship with allowing kids unsupervised and/or frequent and lengthy use of tablets and phones from early ages, which I suspect is also destructive.

jojobas
0 replies
14h0m

That would be immediately framed as an assault on poor families.

You can't force people to not hurt themselves.

bowsamic
0 replies
13h47m

But then they will contest the claim, it will then have to be investigated, and that will cause huge amounts of pointless busywork that will amount to no clear evidence. Not worth it for such a small fine

skybrian
1 replies
13h12m

Social media != the Internet. It would make it harder to sign up for an account with the large social media services covered by the law. They would need to check ids, or outsource to someone who does.

It would be like creating a bank account.

You could do plenty of other things. Anything you don't need an account for isn't covered. Depending on how the law is implemented, perhaps many forums wouldn't be covered?

I think it would result in kids going to websites that their parents haven't heard of yet and don't check ids.

randomdata
0 replies
10h33m

> Social media != the Internet.

Technically true, but social interaction is the great draw of the internet. Even Zawinski's Law noticed that every program expands to include social features or is replaced by those that do.

bufio
1 replies
13h36m

Just shut down Meta and something like 75% of the problem goes away. One neat trick, etc.

block_dagger
0 replies
8h57m

That works until the next ten competitors take up the space. It's a wider cultural problem.

bigfudge
1 replies
11h53m

Facebook already knows how old its users are with a great degree of accuracy. The block does not have to be perfect to be effective at a societal level. Some curious kids may circumvent it. But it would prevent the massive network effect whereby all teen social life is online on platforms that monetize them. Some very large fines for social media companies found providing services to minors would make it impossible to advertise to teens there, and would make a huge difference.

lurker616
0 replies
10h2m

Even if Facebook implements these controls, what guarantee do we have that another social app won't come along without these controls? Do we regulate TikTok, Youtube, Snapchat, GroupMe or whatever the latest flavor of the month is as well? There are probably thousands of startups that would jump at the chance to monetize teenagers even if FB were to step aside.

tootie
0 replies
4h37m

I have to say, I still just don't believe him. I think Nature's criticism is accurate. He's cherry-picking data that shows the rise in depression started in 1999 and only somewhat accelerated around 2010-11. And I think there is another obvious culprit and it's the rise of authoritarianism and particularly right-wing media. Something that has been a major trend since about 1999.

ojosilva
0 replies
13h7m

No, no, no, that's nonsense.

Kids are given a phone and access to social media by their parents (who are also users most likely). I don't see parents saying oh please block this out of my kid's hands with deep packet inspection or ID checks. These people can just install Family Link or whatever and set limits, and be parents. But they just won't do it. Some don't even know it exists. Kids are clocking 5h+ of mobile use / day, with poor sleep patterns and digital hygiene. No limits. That's the real issue.

mtillman
0 replies
13h35m

Is anything with a share button social? What are the lines?

matrix87
0 replies
11h29m

and that can't really be done without completely destroying internet anonymity.

doesn't have to in the general case

maybe just have it at the OS level, have parents set up the phone, prompt on setup whether it's intended for use by a minor or not, use that flag to enable/disable access to social media

that's not really the same as banning social media for all minors and imo makes too much sense, more likely that congress will push something that fucks over anonymity more

marmaduke
0 replies
7h59m

there's nothing more dangerous than a teenager with very little money and a lot of time on their hands, so a simple DNS-based block definitely won't suffice, you probably need Chinese-style deep packet inspection and such

Or just give them some money and something to do? Why fight fire with fire, just makes bigger fire

littlestymaar
0 replies
13h34m

You're going way too far in your reasoning, acting as if the state had to directly enforce it itself. But it doesn't have to: social networks are run by companies that makes profit doing so and that can be strong-armed into doing the control by themselves or be fined if they fail to comply (and we're talking about company whose entire business is about profiling their users to maximize their ads revenues, so they have zero difficulty recognizing teenagers, and more importantly content that is targeted at teenagers).

And even more importantly you're missing the point of why people go to social networks in the first place: because everybody they know is there! If it becomes cumbersome to access, most people won't go, and then there's no more appeal. It's not as if it was porn or stuff like that, that has a purpose on its own that makes people willing to circumvent the restrictions no matter what. Social networks are “networks” and if you break the network effect, you've broken the system. American people don't go on VK not because it's less good than Facebook, but because there's no point in doing so.

drak0n1c
0 replies
12h33m

A similar form of middle ground without touching the app/web level may be to enable device parental controls by default on new Phone and Tablet purchases and rationing its removal with some kind of privacy-preserving ID hashing protocol that's also rate-limited per ID. 90% of the problem is mobile device ease related, it doesn't need to extend to PCs. Still a ton of burdensome consequences.

But really, the best policy would be constant social and educational emphasis on device parental control feature awareness - similar to drunk driving campaigns. Get parents and guardians in the habit of taking 15 min to set up basic parental controls BEFORE handing devices to kids. Rather than the all-too-common mess of reacting to a problem by taking the kids phone or making them manually show everything after the damage is already done. Maybe also compel device manufacturers to incorporate a first-time-setup flow that has a specific soft ask of "Will this device be given to or borrowed by a child?" that then handholds the owner through setting up controls.

boxed
0 replies
10h52m

This author is seriously suggesting that governments ban children's use of social media

Where did it do that?

audunw
0 replies
12h22m

It’s ridiculous to suggest that you destroy all of internet anonymity by requiring ID for mass-scale ad-funded social media

It’s the commercial side of the equation that’s the problem. It’s what gives these social media companies perverse incentives when it comes to engagement. So any social media site that can’t effectively tap into the US ad market at a significant scale will not have as much of a problem. I don’t think the pre-Facebook forums was as much of a problem even though they might have had some ads here and there.

So VPNs and all that just isn’t a concern. You don’t need a great firewall. You just need to regulate commercial business, which is not at all a crazy proposition.

The other side of this is that the US really, really should implement an effective federal ID system with two factor authentication. This is becoming commonplace almost everywhere else in the world, and not having it creates very serious security and privacy risks.

atleastoptimal
43 replies
20h42m

The solution is unironically just to do what China does. Create restrictions on how long kids can use the web and what they can use. It won't be perfect but it will be the biggest influence towards better habits and cultural norms.

hn_throwaway_99
26 replies
20h33m

Jonathan Haidt, the author of this article, was on Real Time w Bill Maher recently, and has some simple recommendations with respect to phones and social media:

1. No smartphones for kids before high school — give them only flip phones in middle school.

2. No social media before age 16.

3. Make schools phone-free, by putting devices in phone lockers or Yondr pouches.

4. Give kids far more free play and independence, including more and better recess.

I can't argue with any of the above.

AlexandrB
13 replies
20h26m

I don't get how phones became acceptable in schools. Imagine bringing a GameBoy into class in the 90s. It'd be taken away instantly.

Nevermark
6 replies
14h32m

As co-parents with different homes in nearby towns, being able to coordinate with each other and our multiple children at multiple schools in real time became indispensable.

The kids also used their phones constructively, for assignments, tracking school progress, Youtube how-to videos, contact with cousins, etc. They had social media accounts but they never became a focus.

At school they kept their phones on silent and in their bags.

--

Fortunately three insights helped us:

1. Casual addiction is the intersection of two problems: an unhealthy addictive thing, and a lack of engaging or planned healthier alternatives.

Solve either one! But the latter problem is far tractable than the former.

2. There are only so many hours in a day, so solutions to the latter problem usually have a low complexity bound.

3. Social media isn't that rewarding for kids, once they have voluntarily invested their interest in longer term activities and challenges. Doom scrolling notably lacks any verifiable feeling of progress.

So solutions are pretty robust to ups and downs.

We kept our kids lives full of physical and real world social activities, family outings, social events at home, regularly eating times for talking and bonding, regular homework times, etc.

slily
3 replies
14h23m

We used to have computers in schools, on which we did all the things you present as requiring a cell phone to do, only without the persistent Internet access. Somehow we survived.

Nevermark
2 replies
11h55m

Last time I checked, a kid in a car can't download an assignment they forgot to bring, check their grades, or submit an assignment electronically, to a school computer when away from school at a friends house, a second parents house, or on a trip a family trip, without a mobile device.

Many people are more mobile now.

And schools are increasingly supporting remote access and activities. It is especially fantastic for multi-home families where whatever a kids needs is often somewhere else.

Somehow we survived.

This phrase is used a lot, but I seldom find it persuasive.

We survived without tools that didn't exist in large part because they didn't exist for other people too.

But when they arrive, and become popular, they change the balance of other things, whether any individual wants them to or not. Sometimes they are so popular and useful, they raise the baseline of what people need.

slily
1 replies
11h16m

Literally all of the examples you gave to support the idea that children need uninterrupted Internet access would be solved with a little bit of advance planning instead. Obviously your mind is made up, but that's not convincing at all.

Nevermark
0 replies
8h42m

You seem to be trivializing experiences I shared without providing a basis. Please correct me if I am wrong.

would be solved with a little bit of advance planning instead

We needed more planning, because ...? I am lost as to your criteria here.

We solved many complex family issues with smart phones, which the kids used responsibly, largely due to lots of planning of healthy activities and quality use of time.

The kids also competently leveraged their phones for other valuable benefits, and it was especially nice for me to be able to contact them at any random point (outside of classes), without having to know where they were. They are my kids - being electronically present, via voice, text, pics, gaming apps, etc., when I was not able to be physically present, meant a great deal.

Obviously your mind is made up

My "mind is made up" because ...? What is your basis here?

Throwing around an empty (potentially projecting) accusation, does not make it true.

For 25 years and going, we have adjusted our parenting roles by trying new things, seeing what works, seeing what stops working, and adjusting. "Making up our minds" would not be a useful means or goal.

xeromal
1 replies
14h30m

Flip phones are fine at communicating over SMS or phone calls. That's realtime enough for anything

Nevermark
0 replies
11h59m

Like a lot of dead simple solutions, it throws out a lot of benefits and solutions for other important problems to solve one problem.

But if it works for you, that's great.

asciimov
3 replies
20h17m

Helicopter parents and PTA Karens that just have to be able to connect to their kids at all hours.

But also, 80s/90s stranger danger and all the school shootings.

miki123211
1 replies
14h48m

Stranger danger and school shootings never really happened outside the U.S., and this is not an America-specific problem.

I think phones got through the "back door". When the first cell phones came around, not many kids took them to school, but the only thing they could actually use them for was contacting their friends/parents during breaks, so there was no reason to ban them. A Gameboy was specifically an entertainment device, an old cell phone was more like a flashlight or a watch, something which could presumably be used as a toy, but usually was not.

Then, cell phones got cheaper, more kids got them, but they also got more advanced. In the feature phone era, a lot of kids had phones already, but the balance of genuine communication versus amusement was still leaning towards communication. This changed very rapidly, and at a time where phones in schools were already ubiquitous, though their use in class might not have been.

nerdponx
0 replies
14h16m

Plenty of kids in high school were BBM/texting during class on their flip phones, Sidekicks, etc. They were told not to do it, but they did it anyway under the desk. Only a handful of strong-willed teachers actually took the phones away. However none of the younger kids did that kind of thing.

etrautmann
0 replies
15h11m

Yeah - it pains me to say this is exactly right. Security concerns trump rationality too often.

andrepd
0 replies
20h15m

I always brought my gameboy to school, just never in class obviously (and the times I did it and got caught it obviously got confiscated for a while).

Aerroon
0 replies
4h18m

I don't understand how people aren't differentiating between bringing a phone with you into class and actually using it on class.

I find it absolutely ridiculous that anybody would even suggest that kids shouldn't be allowed to have a phone at school.

Equally, I don't understand how having a phone at school is a problem during class. Of course you aren't allowed to use your phone during class unless given explicit permission. If you do it your phone gets confiscated. You get it back after class. If it happens too often your behavior grade gets marked down.

And if a kid uses a phone during a test then that's just cheating and they get an F.

cedws
10 replies
20h30m

Why 16 specifically? Apparently the brain doesn't stop developing until much later, around 25.

verall
4 replies
20h27m

The brain never stops developing, why 25? Where does everyone get this darn 25 is when you're grown number from?

verall
0 replies
2h29m

Literally from that wiki article:

There is no actual evidence suggesting that impulse control only finishes developing in humans in the twenties. It is a common misconception in popular psychology that the brain only fully develops by 25.[13] This may stem from a misinterpretation or oversimplification of studies which determined that development of the prefrontal cortex continues into the mid-twenties
hadlock
0 replies
20h3m

Until recently, most people had kids by the time they were 25 and it's hard to tell people who are in charge of raising other people, that they can't do something. You have to pick a cut off date somewhere. The chasm between 21 and 25 is vast, though.

Aerroon
0 replies
4h16m

It's a pop sci myth that has been repeated enough times that it has a life of its own. It's a meme.

hn_throwaway_99
0 replies
19h39m

He explains the details in his book, https://jonathanhaidt.com/anxious-generation/, but I think the gist of it is that his recommendations are reasonable and actionable. Below age 16 it seems quite possible, policy-wise and parent-wise, to keep kids off social media. But the older they get the more they would push back (being teenagers after all).

Saying something like "no social media until 25" would immediately have people discount Haidt's rational policy solutions as something not practically achievable, never mind probably not legal either.

goatlover
0 replies
14h45m

So you want to ban smart phones for young adults? Good luck with that.

an_aparallel
0 replies
14h42m

i read today in Peter Sterling's - What is Health?... that the brain doesnt stop maturing until 45...i dont think social media is good for anyone - at any time.

Glyptodon
0 replies
13h56m

I mean it's a standard age for allowing privileges (driving) to start in the US at least.

bigstrat2003
0 replies
11h38m

As usual, Haidt is spot on. There's no reason a child should have a smartphone, or be on social media having the algorithms warp their brains. Honestly I would say kids shouldn't have phones at all, except that these days they can't easily find public phones to call their parents (unlike when we were kids). But solving that problem certainly doesn't require a smartphone.

tayo42
5 replies
20h28m

Are Chinese people happier then Americans or Europeans?

zipping1549
1 replies
19h5m

Do you think that the only factor to that variable is the usage of social media?

tayo42
0 replies
15h8m

is the article more or less saying that? is the west and our way of living perfect other then our social media use.

I dont think so, but seeing how chinese people under those circumstances view their lives and satisfaction with their social lives, etc would be one more data point in a complicated problem

worthless-trash
1 replies
15h20m

We as a society need to stop associating happiness with good mental health.

Sadly contentment doesn't sound as good, but is a better measure of emotional state.

worthless-trash
0 replies
8h57m

For those who disagree with me speak up, just dont downvote, or I will assume that you are mentally weak and unable to back your emotional outburst.

imp0cat
0 replies
13h49m

Definitely. They have to.

spxneo
3 replies
14h13m

Ah but you see the problem with West is that it fears and mistrusts any type of government interference but okay with covert surveillance (because im not a terrorist).

The truth is Asian merit based dictatorship has transformed farm lands to economic giants within a generation, stable, peaceful society. Singapore wouldn't be where it is without government intervention. South Korea would've never been able to create Samsung without military rule. Japan certainly would not have survived a full open democracy. Taiwan wouldn't have lived to see TSMC without Chiang Kai Shek.

But China's model is not based on merit but on lineage. This is why that society will never be stable, peaceful like its neighbours. It's actually a lot worse than Western democracy and should serve as a warning to those that wish to experiment with benevolent dictatorship without merit.

rangestransform
2 replies
2h18m

fwiw i'm not ok with either overt government interference or covert warrantless surveillance

spxneo
1 replies
2h3m

1) escape The Five Guys country via acquiring citizenship in a non-Five Guys country with a small government. I don't know which ones out there hasn't signed a treaty with Five Guys besides China & Russia (not very popular)

2) escape countries with overt government interference wary of western liberal progressivism/multiculturalism

very little places to go in this world, pros & cons

pfisch
2 replies
20h32m

I think this is too far, but you should have to be 18 to post on social media, except chat rooms like discord.

Frankly, social media should maybe be highly regulated like prescription drugs. A lot of people can't handle social media and it is tearing democracy apart.

yieldcrv
1 replies
20h27m

we could regulate feedback loops, "the algorithm"

BriggyDwiggs42
0 replies
29m

Wait yeah that sounds like the solution. The actual behavior of companies is easy to regulate and requires no great firewall. Just stop them from doing the most addictive stuff and it’ll almost certainly help a ton of people.

rangestransform
0 replies
2h19m

better habits and cultural norms is not the business of the state to enforce

hot_gril
0 replies
20h30m

This is what I'll do for my kids, but that's my own choice.

firstplacelast
0 replies
15h15m

Or we could not do that and mint more millionaires.

hot_gril
33 replies
20h54m

It's electronics in general. I was in 7th grade at the inflection point, when the iPhone 3G first widely popularized having a pocket computer. Facebook went mainstream around the same time. Suddenly kids became a lot less social, and that never flipped back.

api
14 replies
20h34m

Hard disagree. It’s algorithmic “engagement maximizing” systems, specifically. (Engagement is code for addiction.)

If those pocket PCs had useful and creative apps only and maybe some non-addiction-optimized games they’d be fine. The problem is the apps, not the hardware.

With kids the absolute worst seem to be YouTube, TikTok, and Roblox. All three are banned in our house. The kids have their own devices (with monitoring) and can play games and explore other stuff but we do everything we can to keep addiction systems away. It works fine. Our kids engage with real people when they are available and tend only to go to the screens when bored.

We don’t have a hard time limit but if we notice too much screen time we set up play dates or book activities. They’ll go for those things over screens… or at least they do now that the worst stuff is gone.

Banning YouTube was the single highest impact one. The whole mood of the family and home noticeably changed. We got our kids back. They liked their friends again. To this day my #1 piece of parenting advice is to ban YouTube. A few others too but that one seems the worst for some reason.

Engagement maximizing algorithms and UI dark patterns work incredibly well to the point that they can behave like a drug.

andrepd
10 replies
20h18m

YouTube has a treasure trove of creative, stimulating, enlightening, entertaining, and didactic content. There is more interesting stuff there than you could watch in many lifetimes: science from Veritasium to lectures from Stanford on every topic imaginable, thousands of hours of high-quality content on every topic from WW2 to the most niche retro computer you can thing of, the best orchestras in the world playing at your demand — all at your fingertips.

Unfortunately, it has 1000x more utter filthy trash.

Seriously, I dare you: open the default YouTube homepage on incognito. It's terrifying. The dystopia is already here.

---

My advice for parents: curate a few channels or playlists yourself, manually, but UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES give them unsupervised unfiltered access to YouTube. So-called "YouTube Kids" included. Those turbo-consumerist hellscape videos make my stomach churn.

lloeki
2 replies
20h2m

My child is not there yet, so I'm experimenting ahead of time with Jellyfin + downloading select content instead. The idea is to have sizeable content in there to explore in autonomy but no way out.

Not particularly doing this happily WRT the content creators but I just can't get myself to trust platforms such as Youtube to not have unsuspected ways around.

heavyset_go
0 replies
13h44m

My library system offers streaming services that are high quality, might be something to look into. Same platform with videos offers e-books and whatnot, as well.

daelon
0 replies
14h28m

You should also look into alternate video sites. A couple of creators I like(Practical Engineering, others I can't remember) have promoted Nebula as having curated high quality educational content.

rsanheim
1 replies
11h10m

Ah yes, but then how do you actually enforce these curated playlists are the only things your kids have access to? Especially when your kids have Chromebooks at school, and friends with unrestricted access on their devices, and learn ways to workaround any screen time restrictions?

Feels to me like attacking the problem from the wrong angle.

api
0 replies
8h33m

You can’t 100% prevent them from accessing trash but you can limit it as much as possible.

We’ve had success so far but I am concerned with what happens as they get older and get social pressure to join social media.

I guess we have to parent. Paraphrasing something I saw elsewhere:

“Raise your girls or meangirl anorexia influencers will; raise your boys or Andrew Tate will.”

It’s always been important to keep your kids away from bad influences. It’s just that now they can get life guidance from sociopaths, creeps, unhinged ideologues, and self destructive losers in their pockets.

lxgr
1 replies
15h48m

I generally agree, but as for the Youtube homepage in incognito mode: It’s now empty!

api
0 replies
7h57m

That’s an improvement! I’m going to give it a spin and see what it does when you search a few mundane things. Probably still rabbit holes you into trash.

mnsc
0 replies
14h3m

I understand that YouTube has zero incentive for this but this is the kids mode I would like to have. A white-list of channels that I could negotiate with my kids. A couple of their favorite streamers that I also know that release material every other day, some weekly, so that the content can run out. "oh you watched YouTube all afternoon and you watched it all? Oh too bad, go out and play". And when I think about why YouTube never will add this feature, I get angry.

Edit:sure I could also add a couple of education channels but my kids would sooner go out and play.

hot_gril
0 replies
14h18m

Just tried, and YouTube in incognito mode says "Try searching to get started" and shows 0 recommendations. That seems like a recent change. I remember it used to show junk.

hot_gril
0 replies
20h12m

Even if kids watch only quality educational stuff on YouTube and plays non-addictive games, if that ends up being a lot of time and it replaces social interaction, it'll come at a cost (though they'll also learn a lot).

jay_kyburz
0 replies
14h29m

My kids are 11 and 12. We have a YouTube time limit of 30 mins a day, and there are some videos that are just not allowed. Nothing with too much bad language, Nothing with people doing dangerous things to be funny, nothing with rich people buying stuff to break. I did spend some time in both my kids accounts blocking streamers I thought where just bad influences. It has given us a chance to talk about why some of the stuff on YouTube is stupid.

Nobody in our house has used or is interested in TikTok so I have not had to deal with that.

My kids know I hate Robox but they are allowed to play. (I'm a game developer). The kids are are not allowed to spend pocket money on Robucks, but they do get gift cards from friends and family on special occasions and because the Robucks are so rare they have become very precious. The kids agonize over every purchase. They carefully evaluate the value of things. They look for the scams, they avoid gambling and loot boxes, and instead look for things with more value.

We have also had the opportunity to discuss that when the servers go down, all this virtual stuff they seem to own will disappear. That they don't really own it.

As much as I like to hate Roblox, it has been good for my kids. There is a wide variety of free content and you can try before you buy. Its multiplayer by default so it's social in the good way, you are actually talking, thinking and playing with your friends. And both my kids use the editor creating new content and leaning programming.

bingbingbing777
0 replies
5h39m

I've seen parents with babies in a stroller with their phone strapped to the handle, so the babies can watch YouTube while they go for a walk. They are all going to be completely fucked.

TheCleric
0 replies
20h12m

I think that they are both to blame. The algorithms increase the desire and portable electronics increase the availability. More powerful together.

mrob
8 replies
20h41m

It's mobile devices, not electronics in general. Social networking was around before widespread mobile computing, e.g. MySpace, but it was a supplement to offline social interaction, not a replacement. Back then, you had to make a conscious decision to use the computer and log in. Having the device in your pocket at all times drastically changes how it's used.

spxneo
2 replies
14h20m

100% and the people who created Facebook, Instagram all know exactly what they were doing. This is why many people hate Mark Zuckerberg and the Instagram founders and they need to be protected at all times by armed guards.

speff
1 replies
2h44m

Every big corp c-suite executive has armed guards. It's not related to the ire they draw, but rather the board weighing the risk of someone taking them hostage vs the cost of the guards.

spxneo
0 replies
2h34m

but theres so many execs without guards all over the world even bigger than Mark

who and what is Mark so afraid of that he needs a platoon of special forces soldiers guarding him?

hot_gril
2 replies
20h35m

I mean how much time is spent on electronics and away from people overall. Mobile devices increased that a lot, but they aren't the only part. There are way more PC gamers than before, for example. My classmates also used early Facebook more on PCs, maybe because some features didn't work on iPhones (Flash content?). They'd just sit at home on the PC all night.

I'd even count remote classrooms/work. In 2020, people didn't need phones to be always-online, they were at home anyway.

still_grokking
1 replies
15h9m

Thirty years earlier people were also "always at home". Watching TV, or playing console games…

The big difference was: At least the youth was at home together with others doing so. You went over to your neighbor to watch some TV show for example.

What changed quite lately are indeed the always online smartphones. You don't need to go to your neighbor, even if you want to "do something together" (of course online, like everything nowadays).

Also people don't even call each other. The default is chat, or very often voice messages. But no real talking.

So no, media and electronics aren't the main driver here. It's the always online devices everybody uses everywhere the whole time. Human minds likely aren't constructed to be always connected (or one could argue, actually disconnected) in such a way.

It's not primary the quantity, it's the quality of media consumption that significantly changed. Also the media is the first time completely interactive and personalized. Compare to for example TV (which was back than "the devil who destroys the morale of our youth" according to some elder people). You didn't get targeted personalized ads the whole day on your TV…

The psychological manipulation that the pre-smartphone media could possibly exercise on individuals was much more constrained compared to what's possible (and actually gets executed) today. Smartphone apps are a great example as they're now mostly constructed to induced addiction (the companies selling ads call it "engagement").

bart_spoon
0 replies
13h1m

I agree with you, but it goes beyond just smartphones.

TV shows were linear, so unless you had an interest in every single show being aired, your viewing was naturally limited to specific times.

Video games didn’t use to have online capabilities, nor did they provide endless matchmaking with completely strangers across the world, so if you wanted to play with other people, you had to do it in person. And games didn’t have endless streams of new content being released.

What changed is that everything became built around endless streams of content. Smartphones are a key enabler of that, but even legacy media like TV and video games have evolved to become bottomless content pits. Social media feeds never end, video games always have another match, there are always more shows and movies to binge on demand.

andrepd
1 replies
20h27m

Absolutely. Being "online" changed from being a place you go (your computer) at a certain time (after school/work, a couple hours a day max) to becoming an always-on experience. It's a qualitative change.

Ekaros
0 replies
11h28m

It is both qualitative and quantitative change... From limited time to unlimited time with limited place to unlimited place... From couple of hours with other tasks, to ever present thing you turn in slightest moment of boredom...

ben_w
7 replies
20h37m

That's a very common description of hitting puberty, so witnessing this in 7th grade specifically doesn't demonstrate your claim.

I lack the domain knowledge to evaluate the evidence against the null hypothesis, so you may well be correct — you just haven't actually demonstrated it with your anecdote.

ianstormtaylor
5 replies
20h28m

I’ve never heard puberty described as making kids “a lot less social”, so not sure where you’re getting that from. A source would help your argument.

hot_gril
4 replies
20h27m

There's no source I'd believe on this. Kids don't become shy when they turn 13.

ben_w
2 replies
11h57m

The word wasn't "shy", they were "less social".

Hide in room, grunt when asked questions, moody, "disrespectful to their elders", that kind of thing is all "less social".

Although I can think of one specific context where I would say "shy" for a bit: suddenly developing a new axis of emotional drives (lust) that they have to learn to navigate socially.

ianstormtaylor
0 replies
2h56m

I see what you’re saying, but this was an anecdote by the 7th grader in relation to their peers. Sure puberty makes teenagers not want to interact with their parents, but I’ve never heard it make them not want to interact with their classmates—usually the opposite.

drawkward
0 replies
2h8m

That's not "less social" as much as "less social with specific people".

ianstormtaylor
0 replies
20h25m

I’d tend to agree with you, it doesn’t track to anything I’ve heard either.

As someone who happened to hit that inflection point at the summer after high school I consider my cohort extremely lucky.

codezero
0 replies
20h32m

This just as easily describes the rise of AOL when I was around that age in the 90s.

Funes-
25 replies
5h34m

Social media has ruined society, indeed, but only because the exploitability was always there to begin with. Just look at everyone in this thread opting for letting their kids cave in to peer pressure and dodging responsibility for their upbringing because "past a certain point" you can't do shit about it, and God forbid they try to develop themselves into a worthwhile adult without using any of those time-sinking, mindless apps, because then they will be "left out". Left out of what? A vile cesspool of shit in which everyone seems to bathe nowadays, at the expense of their potential?

Lack of impulse control, no critical thinking, laziness and general negligence have always been at the root cause of many of societal ailments like this one, and until a large enough group of people chooses to come up with healthier alternatives and sacrificing hedonistic and mindless tendencies, they will keep festering across the globe. In the meantime, I absolutely prefer to be "left out" and interacting solely with similar minded people.

afavour
9 replies
5h21m

I’m curious, are you a parent?

lemoncookiechip
6 replies
5h13m

Or a kid? The parent comment is either forgetting what it was like being a kid and doing things behind their parents back, not out of disrespect, but because they're young and it's what young people do, they are their own people as much as one might try to control them.

Also, good luck ostracizing a child from their peers for their "benefit"? (I remember a time where not having the same brand of clothes would get you ostracized, much less not being in the known of the current gen media)

This argument that social media is destroying the youth is the same old tale as old as time. Everything has been destroying the youth and rotting their brains since before anyone on this page was born. The devil music, violence in media, pot, unorthodox romance, (or you know, being a nerdy teen who spent a bit too long on their PC growing up in the 90s and their parents complained it was rotting their brain, which I'm sure a lot of people here can relate to and have made it their professional life) literally everything is destroying children, which we all were once.

gdilla
1 replies
4h56m

for real. enterprising kids had access to porn in the 80s - via dad's stash. i was there.

carimura
0 replies
4h52m

yes but you a) had to be enterprising, and b) had pretty limited access to whatever was available in the recycled magazine bins and blurry TV channels (which wasn't much. I was also there), etc. Now it's 100% of anything you're told to desire, mainlined directly to your undeveloped brain with the flick of a finger.

spacephysics
0 replies
4h48m

I think there’s a thread of truth here that it’s always “the kids are doing detrimental things” (which is kind of their duty in a way, to rebel and learn the lines of society)

But equally valid argument is the general moral decline we’ve seen in society over the last 80 years or so. Is it from a lack of spirituality/higher power belief? Is it just a byproduct of the Information Age?

It’s not just kids doing dangerous things, then growing up to have functionally healthy lives, we’re now seeing enormous levels of reported meaninglessness, even in higher age brackets.

Dating has become a crap shoot for many, especially after college.

For guys, if you’re not above average in looks, job, or life situation, you don’t attract average women. You essentially attract nothing. The apps are more zero-sum, and don’t follow a bell curve. You need to go to bars, or join a community of sorts (which have also been in decline outside of metro areas)

For women who want to start a family relatively young (mid 20’s let’s say), many of the men available are still living at home (housing affordability), without a stable career (expensive degrees that don’t produce jobs), or honestly haven’t grown up.

There are pieces for sure that resemble past generations, but layered on top is a multi-generational ailment that is culminating into a very dangerous societal discontent.

jader201
0 replies
4h57m

This argument that social media is destroying the youth is the same old tale as old as time. Everything has been destroying the youth and rotting their brains since before anyone on this page was born.

So therefore nothing will ever truly destroy our youth?

Obviously not literally, but I can see how social media can have a much more measured negative impact on youth vs. all the things above.

I don’t think any of the other things you mention have ever been blamed for also “destroying“ adults, but I’d argue there is evidence that social media is having a measured negative impact on all of society. But especially youth.

carimura
0 replies
4h58m

As a parent of young children, I'm trying hard not to be the "but this time is different" guy, but it sure feels like this time is different. Just look around any "real world" setting and almost every single person is staring at their little dopamine-releasing devices.

Anotheroneagain
0 replies
4h42m

This argument that social media is destroying the youth is the same old tale as old as time. Everything has been destroying the youth and rotting their brains since before anyone on this page was born.

It's less than a cemtury old. Any older quote appears to be fake. It began with the boomers, who grew up on iron poisoned food, and it's been getting worse from the increasing lack of lead and other heavy metals. Similar events happened when an effective method of producing iron was discovered (people killed each other, and burnt almost the enrire civilization) and in late rome, when lead mining declined. High lead consumption was followed by eras of prosperity. You people really need to pull your heads out of your assess, and accept that the effects are too severe to be caused by some social bullshit trend, and the cause has to be biological (even if you disagree with me what the cause is)

amerkhalid
1 replies
4h59m

These type of comments almost always come from non-parents.

In a way, they are right. You can raise your kids without influence of social media but that is not easy or cheap. It would definitely require homeschooling. One of the parent will need to be stay at home parent. Probably need to avoid urban and suburban areas where kids can easily hangout with neighborhood kids. Avoid social gatherings where other kids will have access to social media. Basically, unrealistic for most of the people.

Or we as society can come together and regulate social media, just like how we do with alcohol, cigarettes, speed limits, etc. Yes, there is less freedom in this but living in societies always had some freedoms removed.

commandlinefan
0 replies
4h53m

You can raise your kids without influence of social media but that is not easy or cheap. It would definitely require homeschooling.

I have some neighbors who insisted on raising their kids this way. The parents are insane. Their kids haven't turned out super great, either.

hatenberg
6 replies
5h28m

Guns kill people but that’s only because the vulnerability of the flesh has always been a problem.

Like guns, we have a hard time coming to the right conclusions

dylan604
3 replies
4h56m

It seems only Americans are struggling with the guns issue, so your conclusion falls very flat

commandlinefan
2 replies
4h52m

That's true. America is the only country where people are killed by guns in the entire world.

dylan604
1 replies
4h43m

That's not at all what I said, and you know it. If you want to be trite and contribute nothing positive to the conversation, I would suggest you are in the wrong place

Funes-
0 replies
4h27m

That's not at all what I said, and you know it.

It's truly appalling the precision with which my experience here for the past five years can be summed up with these exact words you just wrote. And this thread seems but a reenactment of that.

ed_elliott_asc
0 replies
4h37m

We didn’t have any problems outlawing guns in the UK and various other non-American places.

BadHumans
0 replies
5h6m

What's the right conclusion?

lupusreal
3 replies
5h17m

Even if parents tried to be fully responsible for keeping their kids off social media, it wouldn't actually be possible for them. What you are proposing is akin to a world in which it is wholly the responsibility of parents to stop their kids from smoking cigarettes and drinking liquor, but whenever the parents weren't around kids could walk into a store and buy them legally. Do you expect 24/7 unceasing parental surveillance? Get real.

And as for technological means of surveillance and content control, parents here on HN struggle to make that work. The average parent with average tech skills stands virtually no chance of making it work. Kids have been known to do things like get old phones from somebody in school and use it on the neighbor's wifi. Trying to control their devices and access to the internet is basically impossible.

Funes-
1 replies
5h12m

What you are proposing

I did not propose any of the straw-man nonsense that you wrote after this. Nothing in my previous comment implies such a thing. Come on, now.

wwweston
0 replies
4h47m

Come on yourself.

Just look at everyone in this thread opting for letting their kids cave in to peer pressure and dodging responsibility for their upbringing

It’s entirely reasonable to read this as implying that a key issue is parental management of access to social media.

And it might even be reasonable to assume you don’t actually care about this topic at levels beyond the self-gratification that comes from assuming a posture of easy contempt, given that’s the majority of what you’re offering by weight.

maerF0x0
0 replies
5h3m

keeping their kids off social media, it wouldn't actually be possible for them.

This is false binary thinking. I would argue that effortful attempts by parents would meaningfully reduce their kids social media usage. Social medias negative effects is a spectrum/sliding scale of effect based on amount of exposure.

Even if they cannot entirely keep their kids off social media, they can dampen the usage. Think about alcohol, as a society we focus on keeping kids off alcohol and in the main it works (until we give them free and full access and they experimentally binge, but most regain selfcontrol in short order).

falcor84
0 replies
4h44m

It sounds like you want to live in a digital version of a monastery. It's a nice ideal and can work for some, but the vast majority of us do need to live in the full world, with all its flaws, and even if we don't like it, we need to interact with it in order to improve it.

everdrive
0 replies
4h43m

Lack of impulse control, no critical thinking, laziness

I agree with you, but I believe these qualities are a bit more fixed that people are willing to admit. I'm not suggesting that we can't do better than we're currently doing. Instead that the impulse control & maturity required to handle smart phones and social media responsibly escapes most of the general population in a way that other technologies have not previously.

In other words, you can rightly yell at folks that they need more impulse control, intelligence, etc. But you'll be yelling into the void. Most people lack the mental tools to deal with these things successfully, and will keep coming up short.

LeifCarrotson
0 replies
4h39m

It's hard enough convincing exploitable human nature to be thoughtful and empathetic and kind and generous and diligent in the absence of social media. It's like teaching kids to want to eat green vegetables.

Natural selection results in people and animals who are impulsive, selfish, greedy, and lazy, it's only by great effort that people can overcome this and be better animals. We naturally trend towards these base instincts like a child trends towards eating the bread and fruit on their dinner plate, ignoring their vegetables. Even children know that actions have consequences, and can demonstrate some self-control.

But social media is like a highly addictive candy bar. Completely unregulated, laden with high fructose corn syrup, MSG, and artificial flavors, and (for the sake of analogy) addictive drugs engineered with the only goal being maximum profit.

Human nature can only withstand so much! There's no reason to expect our brains to be strong enough to resist the machinations of millions of brilliant engineers with sophisticated technology trying to overcome our self control.

AlexandrB
0 replies
3h57m

Social media has ruined society, indeed, but only because the exploitability was always there to begin with.

Sounds a lot like gambling. Perhaps we should regulate it the same way.

spxneo
23 replies
14h46m

When we was teenagers we had unrestricted broadband access to the internet but what was missing was the constant comparison hellhole like Instagram that is causing mental illness.

WaReZ, KaZaA, Ogrish, CD-Keys, drugs, weapon making tutorials, Mail-order-drugs. This was the wild west days of the internet. You could literally put up anything you could sell anything and everything. Classmates were downloading roms, porn, warez, emulators and selling it on CDs. One kid would hack for hire. A black market of sorts was born out of the basketball court. No verification and adults didnt know how to handle it other than installing spyware which we quickly knew how to disable at school.

We would play basketball after middle school and talk about all the crazy stuff we found on the internet. The most disturbing memories were of my classmates talking about snuff films coming out of the second Chechen War (1999), beheadings, crazy stuff . We would always try to out do one another.

Some of us even successfully manipulated our parents to watch porn ("dad i think i like boys i think i need to watch straight porn")

I turned out just fi

Aurornis
13 replies
13h48m

the constant comparison hellhole like Instagram that is causing mental illness.

Anecdotally, Instagram ranks much lower than Reddit for causing problems among the young kids I’ve worked with.

Reddit is an absolutely cesspool of misinformation, fake stories, propaganda, and rampant doomerism. Scrolling Instagram can’t hold a candle to the militant doomerism that seethes from sites like Reddit.

I think it’s an uncomfortable truth for techies who grew up with Reddit while sneering at photo sharing social media, but the content on Reddit is extraordinarily cynical and depressing.

tick_tock_tick
6 replies
10h45m

Reddit now is not even vaguely close to the site it used to be. Doomerism is popular on Reddit because the power users are Reddit are basically everyone who failed life. Can't get a job, can't find a partner, no friend, and normally for reasons their own fault.

Those people used to be social shunned and live on the edge of town but now their voice gets amplified 1000x because they are willing to live online 24/7 and take control of discourse.

Teever
5 replies
8h10m

Can you really say they failed at life when they have so much power over society? Some moderators have control over an audiance of millions, something media moguls like Ted Turner dreamed of in the beginning of his career.

If anything the real losers are the people like you and me who frequent the site but didn't take advantage of the opportunity that it provides.

doublerabbit
2 replies
4h24m

If anything the real losers are the people like you and me who frequent the site but didn't take advantage of the opportunity that it provides.

What am I exactly losing out on by not visiting?

What opportunities do reddit provide for me in comparison of me going swimming tonight?

What are the benefits of an hour worth of scrolling, exhausting myself mentally reading people's comments?

Strom
1 replies
3h55m

Reddit is so huge that making general statements about it is as useful as making general statements about the web.

You could be reading about interesting places near you where to go swimming. About swimming techniques. Cool adventure stories related to swimming. Etc.

There are plenty of useful posts and comments. They are also hidden in a sea of shit, just like the rest of the web.

doublerabbit
0 replies
3h24m

There are plenty of useful posts and comments. They are also hidden in a sea of shit, just like the rest of the web.

Sure, but such information I could look up the same from some swimming book at the library and find it quicker. The time required to discover those comments are not of worth when I just want to go swimming, I don't swim for anything other than leisure and just paddling about.

spxneo
0 replies
55m

I think its hilarious you think reddit mods hold sway over society when the rest of us who don't use reddit consider it to be 4chan with login

one good examples are city subreddits. they are almost always toxic and negative. lately they cleaned it up but I remember subreddits like r/vancouver were a cesspool of angry white locals who were convinced the CCP laundering money was why they couldn't afford homes

dimgl
0 replies
7h19m

Can you really say they failed at life when they have so much power over society?

They don't, it's all temporary. Other communities and companies are being created to circumvent this.

zigman1
1 replies
12h8m

I think that the first lesson anyone whos signing on Reddit should be, to approach each post with a belief it is fake and is trying to see if it can deceive you. I know that for the hn crowd this sounds as obvious as the everyday weather, but not for kids with tech-illiterate parents.

Ekaros
0 replies
11h38m

Whatever there is to say about 4chan at least I think at one point it directly told this message.

still_grokking
0 replies
12h5m

extraordinarily cynical and depressing

You mean, like the reality humans created for themself to suffer in?

hackerlight
0 replies
10h16m

Anecdotally, Instagram ranks much lower than Reddit for causing problems among the young kids I’ve worked with.

It's hard to tease out causality because Reddit overuse would have more self-selection of kids with preexisting depression. Happy kids would see no reason to doomscroll Reddit.

Instagram on the other hand is more compelling to everyone, and what you might interpret as positive content could be interpreted by a teen as being excluded by the popular kids yet again, with no easy way to opt out because unlike Reddit everyone at your school uses the platform and expects you to be on it.

goethes_kind
0 replies
8h59m

You need a social life to be on Instagram, so it has some kind of positive selection, even though those same people might get lost in the fake Instagram world.

dnate
0 replies
3h56m

I'd like to see this backed by data. I believe the anonymity of the platform helps remove a lot of the stress, bullying etc. that make instagram so toxic for teens. There is shit content on both platforms. But no one at school associates your social standing with your reddit account karma.

idle_zealot
4 replies
14h21m

What you're describing sounds more socially healthy than modern usage. It was kids exploring the world digitally. Now that's been captured by digital fiefdoms actively manipulating their users into unhealthy levels of engagement by any means necessary.

drkleiner
2 replies
13h37m

Internet used to be a village, with nice cozy places and communities but also shady weird individuals and houses you're not supposed to enter

Now it is a shopping mall, sanitized, organized, brands and ads plastered all around, not really for socializing and community but more for products and marketing, you can still find a bookstore or a cafe but in the end, shopping mall is there to make you shop

idle_zealot
0 replies
12h23m

This interpretation is funny considering the other post in this thread bemoaning the loss of the shopping malls of their youth. As a metaphor it's on the right track, but the way the internet has been commercialized is even more extreme than a shopping mall, in the sense that experience is individually curated for each visitor and every tap, moment of hesitation, and utterance between friends is catalogued by the "store owner".

brazzy
0 replies
12h31m

And it's a shopping mall that has a bunch of big stores that openly sell meth, and advertize for it aggressively.

spxneo
0 replies
13h55m

Internet before 9/11 and after 9/11 basically. What the Patriot Act did was eat at the foundations of freedom that American founders set out to create and the internet became public enemy #1 overnight, something that had to be controlled, regulated, and monopolized by American corporations in the form of social media, search engines, youtube etc.

Like the rebellious soviet youths finding itself through Viktor Tsoi, the pre-911 internet offered us Western kids a brief moment of true freedom, we didn't need heroes, because our minds were free from algorithms designed to sap every bit of happiness.

yifanl
1 replies
2h56m

The difference between the internet of the 2000s and the 2010s is how profitable it was to push things. No one got paid to get me to click on lemonparty, they did it because it was (to them) funny. Nowadays, there are industries that exist solely to get me to click on garbage, and it turns out profit is a much more powerful motive than comedy.

I can ignore/laugh with/block/modreport That One Guy, I can't do anything about an infinite number of marketers.

spxneo
0 replies
2h50m

just a testament to how much freedom of speech and expression we had then vs now

hai2u has strangely been scrubbed from the internet while lemonparty, meatspin, 2girls1cup lives on

the person in hai2u was actually jailed for the content he produced in American court

luzojeda
0 replies
8h5m

We didn't have a portable pocket computer with access to all the practically infinite multimedia refined (to be increasingly addictive) content either...

Sounds a bit cliché but those days we used internet to escape the real world. Now it's backwards. But the real world is getting worse. Those days with internet 1.0 that was a wonderful digital world for lots of us.

batushka3
0 replies
5h31m

Internet would be like this 80% if you used PC and avoid social media scrollholes. The infinite scroll of phone app is the adictive cancer. Internet usage with PC is like slow food.

ryandrake
17 replies
20h17m

If parents really want to set a good example, they ought to also quit their smartphones and Social Media--or at least hide it better. Kids are really good at identifying hypocrisy. When they see their parents glued to their phones and scrolling Instagram all day, after being told "Oh, don't do that, it's not good for you" they know their parents are full of shit.

And, the trouble is: Most of these adults are addicted to their smartphones and social media, too. Everyone is. I go to birthday parties with my kid, and sporting events, indoors and outdoors, and other kid activities, and the kids are for the most part jumping around having a ball, while the adults are huddled up by themselves, bathed in smartphone light, scrolling through their feeds getting their fix. Don't think this doesn't leave an impression on kids--it does.

WheatMillington
5 replies
14h54m

Ugh as a parent I know I need to be doing this, but I'm so bad at it.

dimgl
2 replies
7h21m

Just do it? Get off your smartphone.

It's like the people who willingly pay $15/mo for World of Warcraft and wonder why the game doesn't get any better, play for one hour and then watch Asmongold for 8 hours (I love Asmon btw).

Stop doing the things that hurt you.

orzig
1 replies
5h19m

Look, I basically agree with the goal and am trying myself but: Try watching the Little League World Series on YouTube twice weekly for 4 years and you will have 1% of an understanding of why this is hard.

doublerabbit
0 replies
4h33m

Its addiction and FOMO, you form connections. Even if you never talk to folk, you have an instant connection if the topic is to arise in face.

However if you previously and stopped watching and the conversation comes up you don't have have the up to date information to connect in to the conversation.

So because your part of the community by whatever feed you feel part of the community. The fear of not being part, subconsciously is what drives you to keep up the habit.

Same goes for all, communities, fandoms, cults; toxic or not.

rkuykendall-com
1 replies
2h29m

I'm going to address you because you sound like a parent as well and I want to seriously discuss the alternatives.

For three hours in the evening 5 days a week plus ~12 hours on weekends at least half of watching kids is almost as engaging as staring at a wall. Keeping them fed, entertained, alive, and healthy can be fun and engaging like rolling around or story time or singing songs, or if she wants help learning about a toy. But the rest of the time I'm just around while she plays semi-independently to make sure nothing dangerous happens and give her validation when she shows me something she did.

Are we just supposed to sit there and stare at the wall for 20 hours a week? When you try to go phone-free what do you... do?

navane
0 replies
1h54m

Cook and clean? Long roasts with a side of dusting?

riskable
3 replies
5h17m

My kids watch a lot of YouTube/TikTok and playing computer games... Yet I don't. I sit in front of my PC all day for work and after work (after dinner) I also spend a ton of time in front of my PC doing things like learning how to make circuit boards, learning new programming languages, OpenSCAD (CAD) design work, and more.

I tell them they spend too much time watching videos and playing games and should "branch out" into new hobbies. Do they do this? No.

That is to say, I don't think hypocrisy has anything to do with it.

ziddoap
0 replies
4h34m

I sit in front of my PC all day for work and after work (after dinner) I also spend a ton of time in front of my PC doing things like [...]

If they see you watching a YouTube video about circuitry or whatever, are they registering "that's an educational video about circuits" or are they just seeing the YouTube logo and thinking "Wow, $parent watches a lot of YouTube"?

Any kid is just going to register that you spend 10 (or whatever) hours a day on the computer, they aren't going to be categorizing your use into educational or not.

hnuser847
0 replies
3h43m

I mean, it sounds like your kids are just following the example you set. They're watching you sit in front of a screen as a form of recreation and they're simply doing the same. I think it's also worth noting that your hobbies are solo activities, so even if your kids did want to connect with you in a non-screen hobby, you'd be unavailable anyways. Maybe you could make the first move and invite them to do something outside with you?

foobarian
0 replies
3h52m

This is tearing me apart. On one hand I believe if we blocked all the bad stuff like YT, social media, games... they would certainly be bored more easily and get into more "wholesome" activities. On the other hand, I don't know if there are negative side effects of going full authoritarian that would outweigh the benefits. For now we walk the line, limiting social media but allowing some YT and games.

One unintended consequence I noticed already with time-limiting YT, is the kid is carefully planning her YT viewing usage and ends up not branching out to crafting/educational/etc. videos because she doesn't want to run out of time for the fun stuff. So this ends up unintentionally killing the desired content.

My gut feeling is that setting an example by doing (so like what you described) and occasionally recruiting the kid for assisting (but not forcing them to participate too much) is the right way forward. We'll see I guess...

doctorpangloss
2 replies
13h12m

Well the author isn't doing a good job. He's complaining about social media on a thing we're only reading because of social media.

Media critics: the biggest hypocrites.

luzojeda
1 replies
6h42m

But it's a post in substack. Not an Instagram reel or tiktok video.

doctorpangloss
0 replies
1h41m

The downvotes are interesting to me. Apparently Hacker News readers think Hacker News isn't social media. The ratio of user generated commentary to content on this site is 1000:1.

Is Substack social media? I don't know. We can't measure (don't know) what percentage of Jon Haidt's audience came from people who heard about his books or saw him on TV appearances. He should have a dashboard showing what audience comes from Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and syndicated news (like Business Insider). Substack is social media in all the ways that matter - it wouldn't exist in the absence of Twitter and Facebook, surely, and syndicated news like Business Insider which would cease to exist in the absence of Twitter too.

This is to say that the reason media critics are hypocrites is because they're really saying, "Anything that amplifies voices or ideas I like is good, especially mine, and everything else is bad." Like yeah, sure Jon Haidt, maybe your opinion about TikTok would be different if you were a successful influencer on it. You would simply say that there are more good things than bad, and that you shouldn't throw the baby away with the bathwater with it, or whatever. Well I think Substack is just a bunch of low effort syndicated opinions, but I have the wisdom to not say we should get rid of it, or that because Substack is stupid, people reading it are stupid. It wouldn't be true, but it would be a vibe.

I'm not sure if anyone is immune to media criticism hypocrisy, even Alexandria Ocasio Cortez criticizes Facebook while in the same breadth spending millions on political advertising on it. What can we do?

musicale
1 replies
15h24m

When they see their parents glued to their phones and scrolling Instagram all day, after being told "Oh, don't do that, it's not good for you" they know their parents are full of shit.

Watching your parents turn into smartphone zombies should be a warning sign, maybe even something to rebel against.

Unfortunately children do tend to pick up their parents' behaviors, bad and good.

mcmoor
0 replies
14h42m

I'm not surprised that some children do becomes Luddite, just like some becomes teetotaler because of drunkard parents. Unfortunately most of them also become drunkards.

fire_lake
0 replies
46m

Maybe when you get home, smartphones go into a box by the door. Like how you take off shoes. Then you pick it up again to go out. Maybe leave the ring tone on loud in case anything urgent is needed.

enasterosophes
0 replies
15h33m

So much this. I notice it a lot since I only use a dumbphone, and haven't bothered setting up a new laptop since my old one died during the covid times. It means that in social situations, I'm actually on board to engage with real people, since I'm not carrying any other distractions.

I feel a distinct drain in the social energy when some of the people present have their eyes glued to their phones. It would actually be better if they weren't even there.

I think that feeling of draining comes from the fact that if you do want something from them, like asking what they're ordering for food, or if we should go to another venue, you have to put in more effort. They need to do a context switch in which they look at you blankly while you bring them up to speed on what is happening.

hn_throwaway_99
17 replies
20h37m

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 interactions and relationships are good for mental health. With so much technology and so many things going remote (I'm not just talking jobs, but I'm talking about the fact that it's very easy, for example, to never need to walk into a store anymore. I recently went to a fast food restaurant and there were no customers inside at lunchtime, normally a busy time, and I ordered on a kiosk and everyone else just ordered at the drivethrough) it's harder and harder to just see random people and our friends without explicit planning.

2. As someone who recently got over a severe episode of depression, I strongly believe time spent in nature and just outside in general is really good for the mental health of humans. With so much tech it's easier and easier to basically never go outside unless you make it a point to do so.

brailsafe
12 replies
20h2m

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 having valuable social interactions, whether it's social media or betting that their work friends will still be there when they get laid off. They'll rely on Tinder for sex and try to bridge that to something more meaningful out of thin air, or they'll buy a dog and hope that solves the problem. Some of these are uniquely millenial and onward, some others carry over from Gen X and boomer culture imo, whereby you isolate yourself from the rest of society in the suburbs or wherever and count on personal relationships you acquired for free.

Along with this, in many places we've let the catalysts for social growth get stripped away by commodity bullshit and simulated interaction. Costco is probably the closest thing many people have to bumping into someone, no shot are they going to do it at the adult version of the playground, because there often isn't one and they won't go. (obviously this is more true in some places and for some people than it is for people who've realized this or who innately direct their life this way).

My theory is that to meet a new person and have it be substantial, you basically need to spend a few hours, a few times per week, in the same space doing some arbitrarily interesting thing for a common reason, without being too eager but with a signaled sense of openness. You don't become a pro anything spending 30 min a week on it, and no valuable personal relationships come about that way either. That's how you met people in Uni, that's how you met people at work, you gotta branch off of those places and ya gotta keep it going gradually. If you don't live in a place that facilitates that, vote with your wallet and try to find a new one.

This goes for nature too, if you're only exposure is 2 days of hiking once a year when you travel, and the rest is spent in an office, it's not something you can remedy any other way.

If you drive to work 1 hour each way, and work 8 hours, you're probably doomed, unless you've already done all that and can keep your existing things going. It's just not enough margin, be real about what you're sacrificing and why.

firewolf34
8 replies
13h17m

My theory is that to meet a new person and have it be substantial, you basically need to spend a few hours, a few times per week, in the same space doing some arbitrarily interesting thing for a common reason, without being too eager but with a signaled sense of openness.

I like this concept, and I feel like I've experienced this as well, but I'm having trouble picturing an example of what you're describing, practically speaking, for the average city-dweller. Care to elaborate on this?

klyrs
4 replies
12h55m

I kinda met a gal in a class I was taking at a community center. Couldn't tell if she's into me or just nice; didn't push it. Maybe I'll see her in another class in the future, but I'm there to learn.

throwaway2037
3 replies
9h52m

Why is this downvoted? It answers the GP. It seems reasonable to me. Taking classes at the community center sounds like a good way to meet people.

abnercoimbre
2 replies
9h22m

Made no sense to downvote him, it's actually relevant to the discussion.

klyrs
1 replies
3h29m

Her, but alright.

abnercoimbre
0 replies
7m

Sorry. I'm gay, I get it :)

rsanheim
1 replies
11h21m

This the much discussed “third place” that has all but disappeared in much of western life. See _Bowling Alone_ for a very early (pre social media) analysis of this idea.

A third place could be a coffee shop, a bar, a church, a softball league, a book store, or even just a nice park. By and large people don’t go to these places nearly as much anymore, except to consume and leave. And if they do go there they are on their phones until they finish their transaction and leave.

Tade0
0 replies
7h16m

This the much discussed “third place” that has all but disappeared in much of western life.

American life if anything really.

Southern Europeans especially are an extreme example of how it is to essentially live outside.

anonfornoreason
0 replies
3h13m

Lots of opportunities for friendship in something like jiu jitsu. It's not for everyone, but it's interesting because it is a physically close sport, you get used to basically hugging everyone for a sport, it's both physically and intellectually hard to learn, and there's a common language around it. Easy to identify people at your skill level and meetup for open mats, share videos of techniques, etc.

There's a million examples of this out there, regardless of what you find interesting. Art, music, sport, working out, adventure, travel, computers, flying, whatever.

I find it baffling people keep talking about disappearing third spaces. There's so much opportunity to do interesting things with interesting people!

luzojeda
0 replies
8h6m

My theory is that to meet a new person and have it be substantial, you basically need to spend a few hours, a few times per week, in the same space doing some arbitrarily interesting thing for a common reason, without being too eager but with a signaled sense of openness. You don't become a pro anything spending 30 min a week on it, and no valuable personal relationships come about that way either. That's how you met people in Uni, that's how you met people at work, you gotta branch off of those places and ya gotta keep it going gradually. If you don't live in a place that facilitates that, vote with your wallet and try to find a new one.

This is why for many of us the last place we made meaningful relationships was university: lots of time in a same place physically + common objectives + relativeley same age and interests = friendship.

The formula is simple but today the first component is what is most difficulty. Along with #3 I'd say. Many people recommend taking "classes" such as theater, ceramic, etc. but after doing all the hard work of finding a place near you, that you can pay if you find the average age is +- 15 your age it gets really desmotivating. There is nothing bad of going to classes with seniors but reality is you can't make true friendships with someone your grandfathers' age.

itronitron
0 replies
10h47m

I agree with all of your points and would add that the metrification of social interactions degrades social connections as it fosters a bias towards competitiveness. Furthermore, the people that are put off by that reduce their participation so it becomes a market for lemons.

As a solution to teenager anxiety I would propose a compromise solution wherein all school communications, school groups, and extracurricular activities must not use any social media platforms for communication.

OkayPhysicist
0 replies
1h28m

In my experience, most people are adequate at making setting-specific friendships, like "gym friends", "work friends", etc. What they struggle at is progressing those relationships to not being setting specific. Which involves inviting people places, and eventually progresses to full-blown planning, both of which are skills only learned with practice.

sourcecodeplz
1 replies
7h59m

Depends on where you live and maybe for how long. For me for example, I live in the city in an apartment. I go out in the morning to buy bread. It is 50% likely I will meet someone from my neighborhood and chat for a minute or just say hi.

If I really want to chat a little, I will go to one of the other small shops next to me and buy a beer/coffee and talk with the owner or whoever is outside the store.

Because I work from home most of my friends are at work during the day. But come evening and you can hang out for at least an hour, with someone you know, every single day if you want. There is no planning, you just go to the places you know people hang out, and they will be there. And if you don't want to talk much, you can just listen.

I feel I am blessed to have this because I was an expat for some years and you don't know what you have until you don't have it anymore.

misiti3780
0 replies
5h54m

you live somewhere in europe i assume?

epolanski
1 replies
11h10m

With so much technology and so many things going remote it's harder and harder to just see random people and our friends without explicit planning.

The average american adult went from socializing with friends and family 12+ hours a week few decades ago to less than 4.

tnel77
0 replies
1h36m

One complaint I have is that it feels like I have to put in almost all the work to make plans with friends and family. Also, these plans must be well in advance. My immediate family and I might decide to go to a park and I’ll text a friend that lives nearby. “Hey, if you’re looking for an excuse to get out of the house we will be at <park>.” No one has ever taken us up on this kind of invitation even though they’ll later complain about being bored or needing to get out.

cyanydeez
14 replies
20h59m

It's also the cause of most of American fascism

maxcoder4
4 replies
20h24m

Just like in 1939, ...wait. Maybe blaming social media for fascism is a step too far.

But I'm interested to hear what you have to say about that. Why did social media enable fascism now, and why did fascism exist before it?

ergl
1 replies
11h1m

There are actually a bunch of studies that explore the role of mass media, in particular the radio, in the spread of Nazi propaganda in the years before Hitler came to power.

hackerlight
0 replies
9h3m

The radio played a big role in the Rwandan genocide as well.

Mass media was central to fascism because fascism requires the ability to build collective consensus over a broad geography that wasn't easy before mass media. It's hard to otherwise align the morality of millions of people.

I share the concern that social media will be like this, but more potent. And it won't just be a distribution channel, it'll be a breeding ground for the ideas that create extremist ideologies in the first place. It's like the wuhan wet market, but for ideas. The ideas that come from this breeding ground are not necessarily good ideas, just popular ones. And fascism is one subset of bad ideas that have been historically popular.

panarky
0 replies
18h39m

PFAS chemicals have been used in various industries and products since the 1940s and 1950s.

We now know that PFAS chemicals cause cancer in humans.

Humans have suffered from cancer since ancient times even though PFAS chemicals are a modern invention.

How can that be?

cyanydeez
0 replies
19h24m

India, Brazil, Russia, China...globally, fascism is some how rising in all these countries.

cyanydeez
3 replies
20h58m

Which is basically a mental illness.

satellite2
1 replies
20h30m

Exactly, I just saw a post today about someone's grandpa barricading himself in his house and fearing the eclipse would kill him. On the comments section everyone was insulting him, treating him like an idiot. I couldn't help but feeling this was not a result of poor media choice as everyone was suggesting but an underlying medical illness.

I really hope mental illnesses would be better treated and that people in very edge cases would spend more time in counseling and maybe less time on the internet.

maxcoder4
0 replies
20h22m

Also, in general, people are quick to insult others online. Somehow it's easier to degrade someone online than I'm person, and there's less incentive to look for the common ground.

That also can't be healthy.

eBombzor
2 replies
20h43m

Or any ultra radical movement. The internet promotes extreme ideologies, as seen through hyperbolic, overly dramatic headlines and videos that make the front page of Tiktok, YT, news everyday.

cyanydeez
0 replies
19h25m

Yeah, I recall my friend helping start the ironic flat earth society 20 years ago.

Kooks reinforcing kooks.

andrepd
0 replies
20h13m

Anger and the basest, most thoughtless of emotional responses are those that drive the most """engagement""". Fuck whomever invented and promoted this crap.

amelius
1 replies
20h35m

Democracy was a nice idea until the internet came into existence.

komodus
0 replies
20h28m

It was never a nice idea, but there is nothing better for the moment

burningChrome
13 replies
14h43m

I will attempt to at least inject some hope into this discussion.

My formative years from ages 15-25 were spent in the 80's and 90's. It was the apex of the mall experience. We saw the mall as a place to get away from our parents, hang out with our buds, run into other classmates and feel some sense of freedom while running amok playing video games in the arcade and chowing down tacos in the food court.

Then smartphones and the internet came and all the malls started closing up, dying off and there was an entire generation that just ignored or forgot about them. Most of the malls around where I live have all but closed.

There are still a few open and now? They're thriving. My family now goes together on the weekends and its amazing. All the teenagers are in the food court, in their groups, talking, eating and socializing. You see groups of teens wondering in and out of the stores. I see a very similar cultural revolution happening and its really refreshing. The mall is truly a phoenix rising from its once former ashes. The major anchor stores are constantly busy no matter what night you go there. The movie theater is busy almost every night and its packed on the weekends. Its like an entire generation has re-discovered the mall again and its refreshing to see.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a dream because so many other malls just north or south of us have either died and been leveled, or are in various forms of trying to reinvent themselves as something else before its too late.

Either way, what I saw in my experiences at our local mall gave me hope that the Zoomers are in some ways, taking a break from their phones and going out and having a different experience and returning to socializing with their friends and creating a new way of connecting with people they're close to. My son said he still uses his phone when he's at the mall, but just to make plans to meet his other buddies and coordinate where they're all going to meet up. For the most part, once they meet up, they all stop using their phones.

So yes, there is hope yet.

edg5000
5 replies
11h50m

Interesting point you bring up. With e-commerce, I am surprised that malls can work at all.

There is a brand new, massive and beautifully designed mall in The Netherlands called Westfield Mall of the Netherlands.

I went there once to quickly grab something and I got hopelessly lost, even while my phone navigation actually was able to display and navigate the layout of the mall, due to the sheer size I underestimated the navigational challenge my little trip would pose.

The mall really blew me away with its beauty and I am still completely flabbergasted how this can work financially, I perhaps incorrectly assumedthat everybody is like me, ordering everything online.

Although hard to believe, your argument may actually have a lot of thruth in it.

throwaway2037
2 replies
9h39m

I had to Google about that mall. There is a separate Wiki page!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westfield_Mall_of_the_Netherla...

    > Total retail floor area 117,000 m2 (1,260,000 sq ft)
    > Parking 4,000
That retail floor area is enormous!

And, LOL: If this was US, parking would be 10x!

FYI: Westfield is a huge global mall developer. Before 9/11, they ran the mall under NYC World Trade Center. It was one of the highest grossing retail spaces in the world. They must have done a lot of market analysis before they built that mall in the Netherlands.

ljlolel
0 replies
6h22m

Westfield has a huge mall in SF and Paris center I’ve been to

OkayPhysicist
0 replies
49m

That's not really enormous. It's big compared to most buildings, but ~1million sq ft of retail space is just about the minimum viable mall today. People aren't going to the mall to fulfill a specific need, they're going for the variety. It's hard to cram enough variety into much less space than that.

For context, Valley Fair, Westfield's mall in San Jose, has 2.2million sq ft, and looking through their list of holdings, it doesn't look like they operate any malls smaller than a million sq ft in North America.

giarc
0 replies
5h17m

Malls provide a few benefits and attract some key shoppers in my opinion. Many malls near me open at 5am to "walkers". Basically seniors looking for a place to walk indoors. They often populate the food court once it starts to open. When I'm in a mall, many shoppers are older adults (remember, they didn't grow up with same day shipping and one click checkout). Lastly, as a parent with kids, there's huge benefit to holding up a pair of pants to my 3 year to see if they will fit. A 3T size from X clothing company is very different from a 3T from Y clothing company. We pretty much buy 100% of our kids clothes from a mall. These are just 3 examples of heavy mall users, I'm sure there are many more.

OkayPhysicist
0 replies
55m

Westfield's basically the only company left making money on malls, because they made a crucial observation: The anchor store is dead. Sears, Macy's, etc., they're in direct competition with Amazon, and they're losing their shirts. Most malls had made huge concessions to these anchor stores, operating under the assumption that they were why anybody goes to the mall, but Westfield pushed the opposite: People go to the mall when they want attainable luxury. People going to the mall in the 21st century aren't going there because they need something specific. People go to the mall to see a wide assortment of luxuries, recreational activities, and food options, so that they can treat themselves a little. Board game shops, brand-specific retailers like Doc Martin or Abercombie, Lego stores, jewelers.

And it works. Walking around Valley Fair (Westfield's flagship location in San Jose) is fun. You can wander the place for a good long time, being presented with a seemingly never ending array of frivolous luxuries, and even if you don't end up buying any clothes or jewels or whatever, you can swing by the food vendors for some fancy ice cream at Salt 'N Straw.

zigman1
4 replies
11h45m

Its like an entire generation has re-discovered the mall again and its refreshing to see... Sometimes I feel like I'm in a dream

I am really really sorry to go off-topic here, but as an European this is... So strange and slightly hilarious to me. We went to a park. Or local river/lake.

brushfoot
1 replies
2h39m

So did I, as an American. Locale, culture, and parents' values probably have more influence on this than continent.

That said, I don't think there's anything particularly strange/hilarious about people congregating in spaces built for congregation or feeling nostalgia for those spaces and experiences as they've begun to fade away. Memories can be made anywhere, and not everyone has access to the green spaces that you and I did as children.

zigman1
0 replies
43m

I don't think there's anything particularly strange/hilarious about people congregating in spaces built for congregation or feeling nostalgia for those spaces and experiences as they've begun to fade away.

You are right about that, and I admit I didn't thought of that perspective when I was writing my comment. The reason it evokes those feeling of me, is my immediate view of malls as purely consumer space, where everything is aimed at you to spend your money and this is their primary function. My knowledge of malls is limited either to their depiction in movies or experience of shopping malls in my country, where they are probably a bit different and not the most pleasant hanging out space I could imagine. But again, you are completely right about that and thanks for pointing that out!

throwaway2037
0 replies
9h44m

Where in Europe?

mike_hearn
0 replies
10h31m

"As a European", no we didn't. Europe is far too big to generalize so casually like that. In many northern parts of Europe it is frequently raining. In the 80s and 90s me and my friends spent our time indoors because when it was either cold, or cold and wet. You might get a month or two in summer when the weather was better - if you were lucky. So we spent our time indoors, doing homework or on computers, or round each other's houses (playing video games with each other).

A mall would have been a useful place to hang out because it's under a roof and there are things to do, but there were very few good malls in that part of the UK and anyway to get to them you'd have to be able to drive. But there's no culture of young driving there. In the USA in some states you can drive at 14! In the UK you can't even start learning until 16 and in most of Europe the minimum driving age is 18.

rsoto2
0 replies
14h31m

idk if I feel that relieved that malls are our only hope

rsolva
0 replies
11h38m

Not only malls, in Europe and Scandinavia, many small towns and cities that has seen greater days are working hard to make it more livable for people of all ages, incentivizing small shops of all kinds and prioritizing bikes and pedestrians while the cars have to stay on the outskirts of the town center.

It takes time though, but I see a trend and a hunger among people to reclaime physical spaces and to spend more time amongst each other, making room for chance encounters etc.

genrilz
10 replies
6h5m

This is a post in a debate between Jonathan Haidt and Candice Odgers. If you look at the meta-analysis cited by both, Haidt cites one which does seem to show a high effect size correlational link between screen time and depression. Odgers cites 4 meta analyses, one of which is actually a meta-meta analysis, which all claim that the effect size on depression and other measures of well-being are small.

I'm not quite sure what to make of Haidt's cited analysis, but it seems like there has been quite a bit of research on the effects of social media, and the majority of the evidence seems to point towards it not causing large well-being problems.

giarc
5 replies
5h24m

"the majority of the evidence seems to point towards it not causing large well-being problems."

I can't see how this is true. Anecdotally, everyone I talk to, and you most comments in this thread (and any other thread) is full of people admitting that they A. use their phone too much B. wish they didn't and C. it makes them feel bad. Again, n of 1, but I've never met someone that openly wants to use their phone more or will say that social media has been great for them.

Admittedly I haven't read the research, but how does it come to the conclusion that social media isn't causing problems?

genrilz
2 replies
4h17m

I at least skimmed all of the meta-analyses that both of them cited. It seems like social media has both positive and negative effects on people, and these average out to fairly near zero.

From this, I can make a hypothesis about why you are seeing what you are seeing: Assuming you are in a society which values hard work, (like the US) then the people around you probably think of social media based screen-time as being lazy. Thus they derive some amount of self-loathing from their own social media use, and are more likely to focus on the negative effects and not the positive effects of social media use.

I don't have the data to prove this particular story, but hopefully it at least demonstrates how both the research and your personal experience could be true at the same time.

giarc
1 replies
3h47m

"social media has both positive and negative effects on people, and these average out to fairly near zero"

Is that the right way to think about it though? Opiates have many positives (medical pain management) and many negatives (drug misuse and overdoses). Do we simply say "the effects average out so there's not a problem"?

genrilz
0 replies
3h29m

I do think it is worth considering how social media effects people at a more granular level. For instance, I think the focus on "engagement" probably makes the negative effects worse, and we would see less negative effects if social media companies weren't optimizing for that.

However, my understanding is that Haidt wants to completely kick kids off of social media. This is a bit different from how we engage with opioids, which are still used for pain management. Opioids only really have positive effects for pain management, and so I think that it is reasonable to keep them regulated. (although I've heard grumbling from doctors about how them trying to be careful about who they give opioids too leaves a lot of people in severe pain) On the other hand, social media's positive effects are things like staying in touch with old friends, building community with people like you when people around you hate you, and learning new skills. I don't think that restricting or eliminating social media use will help here. Instead I hope that people take the design of social media more seriously. (for instance, HN or Mastadon)

EDIT: additionally I'd say that the negatives of unregulated opioids do far outweigh the positives, which is not the case for social media.

saulrh
0 replies
4h59m

Probably that there's an underlying common cause that means the effect disappears when you analyze the data properly. For example, if screen time is caused by lack of parental presence and lack of parental presence is caused by poverty and poverty also causes depression, then a naive analysis would find a correlation but a proper analysis or meta-analysis would subtract out the common causes of poverty and parental absence and find no effect.

makeitdouble
0 replies
4h14m

This article's threads are also filled with people talking about being on their phone too much and wishing they/other people weren't.

It's all self declared though, the same way people will complain they don't exercice enough, they don't eat enough vegetable, they don't read enough books, they didn't stick to their new year's resolution etc.

We can't take people's guilt or self loathing as an indicator of an actual critical problem.

tootie
1 replies
4h28m

Since we're all applying our own anecdotes, I can tell you my kids have had unfettered and unregulated screen time pretty much their whole lives on account of I don't really believe Haidt's point of view. They have absolutely zero interest in any social media platform except YouTube which we all frequently watch together.

My son got inspired to cook by watching youtube. My daughter loves Vihart and wants to study math in college. I use Reddit and HN, but no Facebook or Tiktok. We also pretty much all have elevated levels of anxiety and it's all due to things happening in real life. Too much homework, annoying coworkers, annoying neighbors.

And I also observe that my kids and their classmates are just so incredibly good. There is nearly zero bullying. My son got picked on recently and his classmates jumped up and formed a circle around him like heroes. There is zero tolerance amongst even middle-school kids for anti-LGBTQ sentiment that was just basic banter for kids when I was in school. I hear this from a lot of parents. I think Gen Z and Alpha have anxiety because the adults in charge of the world are such worse people than they are.

s1artibartfast
0 replies
2h56m

I think Gen Z and Alpha have anxiety because the adults in charge of the world are such worse people than they are.

I think this is an interesting insight and I wonder if the anxiety and cynicism is related to a significant miss-match between expectations and reality.

They were sold an bunch of ideals which are essentially maladaptive because the world operates so radically different than how they were told it does/should.

This is similar in concept to how Generation Y erroneously learned from watching TV shows like The Simpsons that a typical middle class lifestyle includes owning a 2,000 ft house, which was never the case. When the "promised" good never arrive, people are naturally outraged, angry, or jaded.

If Gen Z and A are taught that for the world to be good, it must be a place of peace an justice, their teachers have burdened them with a Sisyphean task, and doomed them to living miserably in an evil world.

I place the blame on the idealism and absolutism of earlier generations, which rejected realism, incrementalism, and compromise. In my opinion, to find happiness, people need to be able to come to terms with world as it is, and then accept that they can only incrementally improve it.

I know I would be anxious, depressed, and neurotic if I was told that the world was broken and evil, and it was my responsibility for the impossible task of fixing everything.

wk_end
0 replies
2h27m

It's frustrating. Odgers' initial review [0] is clearly inadequate, for all the reasons Haidt outlines in this post: she basically says Haidt has no evidence (simply untrue) and asserts without evidence that youth mental health trends are due to socio-economic problems in the US, when Haidt has long made it clear that the problem is international. Her response either suggests that she's an overly-motivated and sloppy reader/thinker, or outright deliberately dishonest.

On the other hand, Haidt's response is also inadequate, simply because he doesn't really tackle the evidence Odgers cites.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00902-2

giacovecci
0 replies
5h27m

Yeah, Haidt's is a compelling entry but sounds too good to be true. I haven't been following this discussion or the studies, but just a quick check of one of the two studies he uses as examples of evidence for harm caused by social media (and benefits of withdrawal) shows that a) he misquoted the protocol (daily usage reduction to 30 minutes instead of by 30 minutes a day) b) the study is hardly conclusive due to major methodological weaknesses (homogeneous sample, self-reporting of both protocol compliance and results).

kypro
9 replies
19h34m

I'm sceptical of the claim that social media is causing teen mental illness. I've thought about this quite a bit, but never wrote my thoughts anywhere so I guess here and now is as a good time as any.

I think Haidt's assertion that social media is to blame for the rise in teen mental illness is likely indirectly true, but from what I've observed personally even kids that don't frequently use social networking apps still seem to have much higher rates of mental illness than I recall when I was younger.

My bet is that social media use itself isn't that harmful (I understand this is a radical position), and that it's actually far more related to the pathologisation of normal emotional states as mental illness which social media has exacerbated.

In recent years I've occasionally spoken about my own negative thoughts and struggles with depression, and almost without fail someone will try to encourage me to seek help, and more worryingly they will often recommend medicating. This has even been true when I've visited doctors in recent years where a couple of times now I've been asked if I'd like help for depression and anxiety after making passing comments.

Furthermore, in recent years whenever I have tried to suggest that someone probably isn't mentally ill, but just a little more anxious / depressive than the average person I've been attacked and told I'm causing harm by questioning their need to be on medication.

I'm writing this because just today an 8 year old boy in my family was put on ADHD medication. The school told his mum that he was struggling to remain quiet in class and has been distracting children at his table, so recommended he see a doctor. The mum took him to the doctor and within a single meeting the boy was put on ADHD medication. Notably, this mum has 3 children and all 3 are now on medication (the other 2 are being treated with anxiety and depression, both at a similar age).

The truth is I'm not convinced any of these children even have mental illnesses. I'm not a doctor, but they seem extremely similar to me and many of my friends growing up. But when I was growing up I didn't know anyone on medication for anxiety or depression – certainly not any children.

The only evidence good evidence to suggest that there's some difference between my generation and teens today seems to be the suicide rate. But I think we need to be careful here also. Something that has concerned me is how powerful some of these drugs we're prescribing children are. I don't know how common this is on SSRIs, but one boy in my family seems to have lost his ability to feel normal emotions after being prescribed what I understand to be a high dose of SSRIs. Shortly after starting medication he started to become increasingly physically violent and started to self-harm. Absurdly in light of this when taken back to the doctor they decided increase his SSRI dose because the kid said that he was still feeling unhappy. When I spoke to him to try to understand why he was being violent his answer was basically that he just didn't care, which struck me as strange to hear from someone who was if anything an overly emotional and overly affectionate boy.

I'm bringing this up because teen suicide trends also seem to track very well with the increased prescription of SSRIs like Sertraline to children, and my understanding is that there is good evidence that these drugs can increase risk of suicide. So with more children taking these drugs we should assume that one of the outcomes of this will be increased teen suicide.

Finally, I'd also be interested in better understanding the role loneliness has on children and whether this is more likely to be part of the explanation. Children today are less likely to play outside with friends, and declining birth rates mean children also less likely to have siblings and cousins of a similar age and gender to play with. Even if they're not on social media children today are far more likely to stay at home watching YouTube or playing XBox on their own, which probably doesn't help with their mental health and their ability to deal with the real world and the social conflicts it brings their way.

It would be silly of me to suggest social media plays no role of course, but my guess is that the role it plays is more indirect and more related to the over-diagnosis and hyperawareness of mental illness. And also in its contribution to children spending too much time inside on their own.

That's just my thoughts on this anyway. I'm obviously not a NYU professor who's studied this in great detail so I'm probably talking nonsense. All I can say is that in my anecdotal experience doesn't really align with this idea that social media is causing these problems. worry those like Haidt who are quick blame social media are primarily getting attention not because they're pointing to the correct cause, but because blaming social media for all societal problems is in fashion right now, while people like me suggest that we may be over-diagnosing mental illness in children attracts a lot of negativity in a world that increasingly wants to destigmatise mental illness.

giraffe_lady
2 replies
15h31m

Isn't she the one that wrote that anti-trans moral panic book based on interviews with parents of trans people, but not actually any trans people?

Her other book was pure culture war opportunism, what's different about this one that makes it worth reading?

gherkinnn
1 replies
13h8m

This might be more opportunism. There might also be a kernel of truth. As an example, the NHS has gotten a lot more restrictive on puberty blockers [0], something that would have been unthinkable in the 2020/2021 climate.

0 - https://www.bbc.com/news/health-68549091

giraffe_lady
0 replies
4h58m

That doesn't indicate that she was right just that the moral panic was effective.

verteu
0 replies
14h50m

'Bad Therapy' does sound in line with GP's thoughts, but I'm not sure it's a high quality book.

The author took a real paradox ("More treatment but no less depression: The treatment-prevalence paradox") and chose the explanation least supported by evidence: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027273582...

slily
0 replies
13h48m

I'm inclined to disagree based on my personal experience. I was never subjected to the kind of pressure you're talking about with regards to mental health and medication, but I spent too much time on social media and not enough in real life since I was a teenager and I am almost certain that it negatively impacted my mental health. The only thing is that I wasn't really aware of it and so I didn't dwell on it too much. I could see the fixation on mental health exacerbating the issue.

On the Internet it's easy to feel surrounded with people even though you're not really socializing. Low-res text-based interactions that characterize most social media today don't provide enough signal for people to develop their social skills adequately, and the asynchronicity doesn't help either. Most people won't just tell you how they feel about what you're saying, but in real life that's what body language and other indirect signals are for. We've all heard stories of zoomers being less socially capable than previous generations. Now consider that the social awkwardness is not only curious from an outside perspective, but is also a perpetual source of anxiety to the people affected with it and can lead to self-isolation and other unhealthy coping behaviors.

plaidfuji
0 replies
14h36m

I agree with this, but I will also do my best to limit smartphone and social media usage by my son.

To me the single biggest problem with western society is the idea that happiness is the ultimate goal in life. Happiness is an emotion, and you can’t force your body to experience one emotion all the time. Equanimity is the goal, and emotional control. If you tell someone they’re supposed to be happy all the time, they’re going to think something is wrong with them when they’re inevitably not.

life-and-quiet
0 replies
15h25m

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I have to wonder if, at certain frequencies, normal emotions become harmful. Like it's normal to experience sadness, and our brains are built to process it. But I'm not sure our brains are able to cope with reading about (and seeing video of) industrial warfare, genocide, and serial killings all in the same afternoon. It's similar to how our physiological stress response remains constantly elevated in the modern world. Once adaptive, now harmful. We know that social media companies target normal emotions like fear of isolation and outrage because they are addictive. In our ancestral environment, those fears probably triggered from time to time and our minds could handle them. But can we stand having that button pushed all day every day?

Pannoniae
0 replies
14h46m

Sorry for the short answer but the rest of us who weren't glued to our phones were impacted too. You know how hard it is to gain meaningful friendship in a nihilistic, dopamine and scrolling-addicted environment?

WalterBright
9 replies
14h52m

I find sadly amusing the argument that kids need their phones in school in case of emergency.

If the kid has an emergency, the teacher can call the parents. If the parents are having an emergency, the can call the school.

logicchains
4 replies
13h11m

If the kid has an emergency, the teacher can call the parents. If the parents are having an emergency, the can call the school.

What about if the kid's being bullied? Half the time the teacher will side with the bully, especially if the bully's a more popular kid.

WalterBright
2 replies
12h28m

Have cell phones ever stopped bullying?

nicolas_t
1 replies
9h10m

I know it's rhetorical but just to answer. No, in general phones increase bullying. Before phone and social media, bullied children would finish the school day and leave the bullying behind them. Now, it follows them on their phones with countless mocking messages... Messages like "X should kill himself for being so ...." and so on.

It makes the psychological part of any bullying that much more relentless.

WalterBright
0 replies
1h7m

Today, when a kid gets bullied, other students stand around recording in on their phones and posting it to the internet.

jimbob45
0 replies
11h56m

In any case, the bully and the bullied will likely be separated for the rest of the day once the teacher is involved so the phone never needs to come into play.

_heimdall
2 replies
13h48m

From what I've seen, parents have been made extremely fearful of a mass shooter type of incident. The "need" for smartphones in school is seen as a way to get in touch with a child when the absolute worst has happened.

Ironically, the same logic often isn't appreciated for those who choose to legally carry a gun.

seattle_spring
1 replies
13h35m

Give the kid a LifeAlert. If it works for gram grams falling down the front stoop, it'll work for little Billy when he's dodging lead from the bullied kid who couldn't take it anymore.

zigman1
0 replies
11h49m

or give them a flip phone

eviks
0 replies
11h24m

Or you can connect directly without an intermediary, reducing the risk of communication fails from the extra link in the chain

jameslevy
8 replies
15h5m

It's surprising how many parents I know who are in denial about this. It must be because they themselves are constantly using social media and don't want to accept what it is doing to their own mental health.

ZaoLahma
4 replies
12h20m

I, Millennial, am seeing a huge decline in social media usage among my peers. It's reached the point where I didn't even bother to install any of the apps when I got a new phone last year, other than Facebook Messenger which we still use for planning activities.

The vast majority of my friends and "friends" on social media haven't posted anything for years. I think my last contribution was back in 2017.

I thought social media in general is boomer / gen X town nowadays.

Springtime
3 replies
9h35m

Just to clarify, is the scope of social media being referred to here particular, typical apps (eg: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), or any app/service that has interactive social and media elements (eg: Discord, Reddit)?

ZaoLahma
2 replies
9h3m

I really think we need to make a (large) difference between platforms focused on user interaction and discussion (Discord, Reddit, old school forums, ...) and platforms where the person behind the user is the focus and placed in front of the entire world to be judged (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, ...).

The former is not focused on you as a person and you are judged by the discussion that you participate in, while the latter is focused on you as a person and you are judged by how interesting you are or can appear to be.

My peers are disappearing from the latter category (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, ...)

I don't think I know the user name of any of my friends on Reddit even, or who are active there, which is exactly the point - nobody cares about the connection to the real life person.

wildrhythms
0 replies
8h40m

100% agreed, I really have to question the motives of people who lump the likes of Discord in with Instagram or Tiktok. They are not comparable.

Springtime
0 replies
8h0m

I agree about more specific definitions of what is being referred to in discussions under the umbrella term 'social media', particularly given those pushing for regulation.

A couple things that stand out in discussions about social media negative consequences are: service-led algorithms and UX which actively fuel addictive patterns, an emphasis on a single and often IRL identity (Zuckerberg famously saying there should only be a single user identity[1]) and audience reach which is far too broad for various content.

On Discord people often become familiar with other users via their pseudonymous handles, even sharing IRL details as they're comfortable. However a few things help with this: no leaderboard-style gamification of posts like there is with Twitter or Reddit, chat is inherently lower stakes and the scope is limited to that community not the wider internet.

Traditional forums are interesting since I know various who were addicted but in a user-led rather than service-led way (ie: they've been addicted through habit of non-gamified checking of content/participation). Even expressing having anxiety posting threads due to the expectations of peers. However the benefit is still an awareness that the primary audience is mostly an in-group of (mostly friendly) peers. Whereas on Twitter for example, a user may say something for a specific intended audience but someone in bad faith re-contextualizes it and initiates dogpiling—which is an inevitability of almost any community but for sites with such broad scope is extremely difficult to moderate.

Like you mentioned, on Reddit there is almost zero emphasis on the user, whether as an OP or commenter, so there's much less interpersonal community building but OTOH much easier distancing from self 'performance'/anxiety.

[1] Some critique: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37284960

logicchains
1 replies
13h8m

Or maybe their mental health is just fine? Who are you to believe you know their mental health better than they do; very presumptuous of you.

xandrius
0 replies
12h17m

Hey logicchains, being a little bit aggressive today, aren't we? Is everything ok?

mike_hearn
0 replies
10h15m

I'm not a parent and hardly use social media (well, except HN!), but I am still willing to deny this, because Haidt has never properly addressed the serious demolition of his work presented by Aaron Brown. Have we all forgotten how weak and FP prone social studies are?

To Haidt's credit he did at least try a rebuttal, which is better than most situations in modern academia where outside criticisms are just ignored entirely. But he lost that debate because his responses were bad, and in this article he doubles down on the bad arguments he made last time.

He attempts to suggest that the large number of studies he collected with Twenge means there must be something there. This argument fails because when Brown randomly spot checked some of his cited studies they were all of garbage quality. Often they had nothing to do with social media at all. Haidt's response was the same as in this article: they can't all be wrong! But yes, yes they can all be wrong and Brown has strongly shown that this is likely to be the case.

Then Haidt suggests that you can derive signal from a large pile of bad studies, because if the null hypothesis were true then you'd see random results. But you can't assume that due to publishing biases, spurious correlations and other problems. For example he says that if social media didn't affect mental health, then there'd be no gender signal. That doesn't make sense. It's possible for girls to have worse mental health, and spend more time on social media, and for social media to not be the cause.

After making spurious correlation/causation arguments and denying he's doing so, he moves on to an even worse problem making his entire theory is unfalsifiable:

> much of my book is about the collective action traps that entire communities of adolescents fall into when they move their social lives onto these platforms, such that it becomes costly to abstain. It is at that point that collective mental health declines most sharply, and the individuals who try to quit find that they are socially isolated. The skeptics do not consider the ways that these network or group-level effects may obscure individual-level effects, and may be much larger than the individual-level effects.

In other words you can't even attempt to establish causality by cutting out social media use and seeing if it affects depression, because he will just immediately change his claim to assert that it was the ambient social-media-ness of society causing the depression (a much harder hypothesis to prove), and thus individual interventions can't help. And because this hypothesis is so vague, he can always fall back to claiming that whatever group intervention size is tried it wasn't big enough.

His whole essay is full of problems like this. It's basically a Gish Gallop. Vast reams of unusable paper is presented, along with panicked assertions that it's unreasonable to request valid evidence or a testable hypothesis before making law, due to the nature of the (self declared) emergency: a classic circular argument of the sort that emerges way too often in public health spheres.

There's actually a better supported alternative line of work that shows a completely different and much stronger correlation related to political ideology. But of course Haidt would rather not discuss that, as it's not amenable to legislation.

_greim_
8 replies
19h46m

Phone-free schools seem like an obvious way to fight this, but supposedly modern parents need constant access to their kids and tend to oppose the idea.

tiznow
7 replies
15h24m

You don't get phone-free schools in a post-Uvalde world.

wildrhythms
0 replies
8h38m

In short, the police department's involvement (or lack thereof) has made parents feel that they can't rely on the police to communicate or coordinate during a mass shooting.

bart_spoon
1 replies
13h9m

Indiana literally just banned phones from schools state-wide this month.

markus92
0 replies
9h5m

Same with The Netherlands (not legally, but all schools have agreed to implement these rules).

xeromal
0 replies
14h31m

There's always a market for dumb phones.

drawkward
0 replies
2h12m

Maybe freeing kids from the grip of social media addiction prevents future Uvaldes?

Buttons840
8 replies
13h17m

The charts in this article are deceptive and cause me to not trust the author.

Look at long term teen suicide rates and you will see that suicide rates were quite high around 1990, and then rates dropped until about 2005, and are now on the rise again but have not yet reached 1990 levels (I think).

So, the author of this piece wants to make it look like suicides and self harm are on the rise because of social media, so where does he choose to start the charts? 2005.

logicchains
2 replies
13h15m

They also don't compare with other countries. Social media use isn't unique to America; if it's responsible for teen suicide rates, we'd expect to see similar rises across the globe, but that's not the case.

ergl
0 replies
11h6m

They also don't compare with other countries

Did you miss the graphs showing the same trend in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Nordic countries?

drawkward
0 replies
2h26m

Obviously, you did not read this article.

tokai
1 replies
8h42m

This. If you go even further back like 1890-1920s today numbers are also looking very good. This whole mental health pandemic is over blown. People had it even worse just recently - and they didn't get much help outside of drinking.

10xDev
0 replies
3h32m

So our bar of what is considered acceptable is now anything above the levels it was during a period that include the first world war and the 19th century?

haswell
1 replies
5h0m

On the one hand, I can see how starting the graph in 2005 feels misleading. On the other, past high rates don’t necessarily invalidate theories about the current spike.

Another way to frame this is that whatever factors were leading to teen suicides in the early 90s improved.

The question now is: are the same factors in play? The fact that rates were higher is not by itself a good reason to conclude that Haidt’s theory is wrong. The world has changed drastically, and a new upward trend is still a problem even if it never reaches previous highs. At a minimum, it indicates that something is going in the wrong direction after apparently going in the right direction for awhile.

Could the current trend be caused by the same factors in 1990s? Possible, but it’s also possible that social media is the problem in the same way airplanes cause global pandemics.

Even if the reasons are the old ones, we have a new operating environment to contend with.

makeitdouble
0 replies
3h56m

It would be a fine question to ask, if the rest of the rethoric wasn't so biased and lacking imagination.

Haidt isn't looking into what actually happened during these periods, he's just throwing his hands in the airs preaching "I can’t see a causal path linking X with Y outside of social media".

A lot of things have been happening all around the globe that were also fundamentally different from the past, including sensitivity to corruption and awareness of global warning, which younger generation could arguably be more prone to take seriously.

A lack of clear link can't just be brushed off as a proof of irrelevance of the other probable causes.

DHPersonal
0 replies
5h10m

The author has made a pretty big splash across the media in the past few weeks and has received some pretty damning criticism for his cherry-picking of stats, enough for me to doubt his claims as being accurate.

stahorn
6 replies
12h16m

I grew up in Sweden, where strong alcohol is only sold in a state owned company and the same for gambling, so this probably make me have another view of this than people from other countries. I do believe that there has to be some sort of laws around how social media, or really "endless scrolling of content" is done. It's seriously addictive, I feel it myself, and just letting people "be free and choose what to do" results in addicts in real life. If people and society is hurting because of this, it would be good to fix it.

I think that an easy start is to require every platform that has addictive endless scrolling, or endless suggestions for what to watch next, to have a soft limit. After some regular time, information is shown that "you are on an addictive platform and taking breaks from it is good for your mental health". "Algorithms are made to keep your attention, often by making you angry and upset. Remember that this is easily fixed by stepping off this platform". It is basically a version of "smoking kills", or "don't drink and drive", but for the digital age. I think it is an easy thing to legislate (as easy as those things get), still allows people to be "free", and that could actually have a positive effect on the world.

fransje26
5 replies
9h21m

I grew up in Sweden, where strong alcohol is only sold in a state owned company

It worked so well, that alcoholism rates in Sweden are higher than in some countries where the sales of strong alcohol are not a state monopoly. A closer look shows that even the neighboring Scandinavian countries are doing better..

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcoholis...

rsolva
1 replies
8h44m

The closest neighbouring country, Norway, also have a state monopoly, only with even higer taxes on alcohol.

tokai
0 replies
8h38m

And the just as close (sea borders are borders too) Denmark has low alcohol taxes and no state monopoly.

abigail95
1 replies
8h58m

if you're implying causality by saying it worked well, that's probably backwards.

a country with no problems with alcohol consumption won't have any need to create strong regulations.

the implication that deregulating alcohol in sweden would decrease consumption seems bizarre.

fransje26
0 replies
8h9m

I'm replying to the postulate made by OP that potentially addictive items need to be regulated strongly, using the example of strong alcohol restrictions from the country he grew up with.

The sarcastic comment that "it was going well" was made to highlight that the very example cited was unfortunate, with many, many countries with unregulated strong alcohol having notably lower alcoholism percentages. Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, etc.

So perhaps the root of the problem is not the lack of prohibition, or the lack of monopolistic state control, as, clearly, other countries have done better without. Which bring the thought that perhaps, it is not much more than an unsatisfactory, overbearing measure due to a lack of more fundamental approach to "healthy" alcohol consumption, whatever it might be.

drawkward
0 replies
2h14m

Your comment makes zero sense. Are you implying that the sales restrictions are causing the high alcoholism rates?

If so: that's an absurd contention.

If not: perhaps the regulation is a response to the levels of alcoholism? Or is entirely independent of them? You present no evidence that the monopoly is either harmful or ineffective.

pksebben
4 replies
3h29m

I'm all about most of this. I disconnected from facestagramitter a while ago, and it was the best thing I've ever done for myself bar none. Got a change of career out of it and a vast improvement in my personal life.

But...

Did life in America suddenly get that much worse during President Obama’s second term, as the economy was steadily improving?

Yes. Yes it did. The bank bailout was one of the worst things to come out of the oval office in my lifetime - a significant portion of the middle class just dried up and financial security for everyone but the wealthiest was all of a sudden a pipe dream. "The economy was steadily improving" is an incredibly ignorant and narrow take. The numbers for GDP looked good, but that doesn't account for distribution.

Social media in the form it has now is toxic. But it's not outlandish to think that a whole generation watching their parents lose homes and having what meager inheritance they might have relied on evaporate would be a little depressed about it.

kbrackbill
3 replies
3h13m

I'm curious, how did disconnecting lead to a career change?

pksebben
2 replies
2h54m

Was bartender, always liked computers and wanted to work with 'em. Self-taught my way into the field (which is a gross simplification but broadly gets at the meat of it).

Disconnecting from social media was part of a larger effort to remove distractions - around the same time I also deleted steam and cancelled my netflix account. The wealth of time this left me to focus on self-development was absolutely critical to figuring out how to 'take my computer hobby pro'.

My guess as to 'why it worked' is this; in those moments when I'm sitting around with nothing to do, there are no easy outs (facebook/insta having been the easiest and lowest-drag options for spending time, they were the biggest offenders) so you sit with your discomfort at being underoccupied for a moment, get frustrated, and pick up a tutorial, technical manual, or start googling around for answers to a question you have.

By no means was it "deleted facebook and productivity gods smiled upon me, bestowing me with champion focus and a fulfilling career", but without the disconnect, I'm confident I would have failed. The times when I would be doomscrolling also turned out to be the times I had the best bursts of inspiration, besides being the entry point for more focused bouts of actual, real work.

belthesar
1 replies
58m

One of the things I do agree with, and personally struggle with, is that the attention economy makes it incredibly easy to fill gaps with things that spark the good brain pleasure chemicals, but do not create any positive outcomes. Removing the space to process complex information, or think about ourselves and our needs/wants/desires seems to lead to a lack of capacity to think critically, at least in my own experience.

It sounds like you made more space, and that allowed you to invest more in things that interested you, which translated to being able to make a career change. I imagine that could be swapped with "thinking about how to improve one's mental well being" or "engaging with other folks to discuss things that bother you".

pksebben
0 replies
11m

You hit the nail on the head, there. Facebook et al represented a large enough timesink / extreme enough "attention shelf" adjustment that removing them provided a dramatic and measurable change to what I was capable of.

Just try telling people about it, though. I can't count the number of times someone's been telling me that they're depressed b/c they can't accomplish their goals and I've tried to invite them to disconnect, only to come off sounding like a know-it-all. It's a really hard thing to communicate.

qwery
3 replies
12h26m

As many point out every time this comes up, regulating access to social media products by requiring ID checks and age gating will almost certainly not work effectively, will harm the web overall and that's if its not implemented in a half-arsed way. It's a bad idea.

You want people to stop buying cigarettes? Don't let the cigarette companies advertise. Require warning labels, plain packaging, increase tariffs, etc.

The society doesn't exist to support the businesses poisoning it.

manmal
1 replies
12h24m

I mean how would you bypass an ID check? Parents can’t share a FB account with their kids.

qwery
0 replies
12h12m

Sorry, I was trying to summarise there because the points get repeated a lot. I'm not saying that all ID checks are easy to bypass, but that:

- a lot of people do not want effective ID checks, for a lot of reasons

- effective ID checks are not necessarily easy or even feasible to implement (this may vary depending on your region/government)

- there's a fair chance (some would say high likelihood) that any implemented ID checks are not effective

- ineffective ID checks can fail to do what they were supposed to do (age gating) while still having negative impacts (reduced privacy, more data to the datalords, lower barriers to law enforcement access to your activity, connecting government ID with day-to-day identity, etc.)

xandrius
0 replies
12h21m

I think if social media were required to have a subscription (even $1/month), they're usage would go down overnight.

Of course, how can anyone force them (as then they could argue that a platform is social media vs online forum or else) but that could be interesting.

Also it would prevent having to be on all the platforms, since you have to pay, one would choose the one(s) they strictly prefer/need, not literally all of them.

fungiblecog
3 replies
10h44m

Social media just projects our toxic culture back at us. It a symptom not a cause. Until we address the reasons why our culture is toxic, mental health will continue to be a problem. Blaming social media, or any other easy target, just distracts from asking difficult questions and looking for real answers.

wildrhythms
0 replies
8h34m

No. Social media algorithmically creates bubbles that isolate people into certain interests. It's a 'culture' manufactured by an algorithm to drive engagement i.e. ad buys. If anything it's a gross manipulation of culture.

throw_m239339
0 replies
8h29m

Social media just projects our toxic culture back at us.

When I see Youtube trying to bait me into clicking on videos with disturbing, egregious, disgusting or sexualized thumbnails even though they have nothing to do with the keywords I entered in the search box, I fully disagree. There are also algorithms at play in order to maximise social media site bottom lines.

Some social media do promote and amplify some forms of content, in spite of the user, because it's lucrative to do so for them, otherwise they would not do it.

If you browse the internet without an ad blocker, you'll see these ads on mainstream websites that are optimized for clicks the exact same way.

c048
0 replies
10h34m

This has little to do with "how toxic our culture is", but more "how social media is engineered to enable toxicity".

We see the problems with large scale social media in every culture, and the issues are the same everywhere.

The question should be raised if humans can actually deal with large scale social media. Perhaps, just like gambling, it should be outright banned or strictly enforced to comply with heavy restrictions

SirMaster
3 replies
1h12m

As a 36 year old, I still don't understand what people find so compelling or addicting about social media.

OK you can argue that HN is social media, and so I understand the reason why I like to participate in this site.

However, I am just a username and comments. I don't understand the (bigger?) social media where you post all the details and photos of your life online like facebook, instagram, and twitter, etc.

I never seemed to have a problem keeping in touch with family, friends and making new friends with my hobbies by just using in person meeting, phone calls, and basic text messaging services.

y-c-o-m-b
1 replies
1h5m

Did you attend high school in the US? It's basically the online version of high school. They've brought all the popularity contest, show-boating "look at the nice things I do, have, etc", and gossip from high school onto social media. Many people don't grow out of that mindset.

SirMaster
0 replies
25m

Yes, I did go to high school in the US.

I didn't really care what people thought of me and my stuff then and so I guess I still don't now.

I guess it's not so much that I don't understand why what you are describing would be addictive and compelling if one cared about those things like being popular.

It's more of, I don't understand why so many people care so much about being popular haha. I guess I am really that abnormal and just have to accept that I will never understand it.

I guess the best I can do is to think of things that I do like and do desire and do care about, and imagine replacing them with the concepts of wanting to be popular or wanting to show off.

Or like thinking of the things that make me happy, and imagining instead that if the things on social media were what made me happy. But does social media really make people happy?

One of the things that makes me happy for instance is hiking and backpacking. Now I certainly understand that there are plenty of people who have no interest in that and if I had to explain to them why I like it so much, it would probably be hard to get them to truly understand why from my perspective.

I mean what really determines our individual interests? I guess I am just always surprised that so many people find social media interesting.

Watching sports is another one. I like playing sports, but I don't understand why so many people find sports so interesting to watch.

patcon
0 replies
1h8m

I don't either. But I understand that different brains have different experiences with it, and many many ppl are "having a bad time". Just like how one persons reaction to being surrounded by unhealthy food choices is different than my own.

taurath
2 replies
10h36m

I think it is a very good thing that alarms were rung about teen smoking, teen pregnancy, drunk driving, and the exposure of children to sex and violence on TV

Excuse me? I remember sitting thru Nancy Reagan’s “good morals” which were mandated to be in kids shoes, abstinence only sex education, DARE, and the ridiculousness of not being able to buy a music album with songs they played on the radio.

Teen pregnancy peaked in the 1950s and has been on a steady downswing since, with a small blip on the 90s.

Kids went through covid for goodness sake. That our society has almost no way to respond to that is probably the biggest cause of teenage mental illness - shit was awful and they’re expected to keep going on as if it wasn’t!

I’m also not even going to bother going into the authors willful downplaying of the arguments and evidence of his detractors, which he kindly and blithely links before avoiding any argument of substance leveled against him.

This is the author of the book “The Coddling of the American Mind”. It’s deeply right wing and deeply wrong in the worst way because there is some insight to be had, but the conclusions of the authors are quite ideologically driven.

luqtas
1 replies
10h30m

what pregnancy & violence has to do with mental disease? sure some correlation but it's not the staple in many cases... depression & suicide among kids/teens ARE increasing over time. now if that's ONLY because social media is another mild take, too

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1414751/

taurath
0 replies
9h31m

I was responding to the second paragraph in the original article, in which the author gives opinions on the success of other initiatives based around moral panics.

If you wanna know what’s going on with kids and mental illness and suicide, ask almost any social worker and they will straight up tell you how kids don’t have any hope and often have extremely minimal support. My generation is depressed and anxious for completely reasonable reasons. It’s a rational response.

egberts1
2 replies
8h54m

Video games are a cause of teenage violence.

Well, Iam going to say that what kids see in real life is the cause of their formative views, like stomping on lying victim's head. Nothing virtual.

dimgl
1 replies
7h15m

Video games are a cause of teenage violence.

Literally no one believes this. I grew up playing Resident Evil and Grand Theft Auto.

egberts1
0 replies
6h19m

Agreed. Too bad that my sarcasm went in too thickly.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos
2 replies
8h41m

Ban smartphones. It really is that simple. Children and adults alike will benefit.

YurgenJurgensen
1 replies
8h24m

Banning things is rarely 'simple'.

What is a smartphone? Any computer capable of connecting to a cellular network? Is an iPod touch a smartphone? Would forcing everyone onto WiFi really change much? Is an iPod touch with a Bluetooth 5G modem a smartphone? Then what? Banning battery-powered computers? You've basically destroyed the economy with how many businesses rely on laptops and tablets these days. Ban the form-factor? Is the PS Vita a smartphone? Ban the operating systems? The architectures? Is a cellular Windows x86 Microsoft Surface a smartphone? Is an Apple Watch a smartphone?

Am4TIfIsER0ppos
0 replies
6h19m

Lets play some yes/no "is it a smartphone" games. Computer with cell modem: no. iPod touch: yes (AFAIK). Changing cell to wifi: no change. iPod touch with modem: yes (AFAIK). Battery powered computers: no. Vita: no (AFAIK). Operating systems: yes. CPU arches: no. x86 Surface: yes (AFAIK). Smartwatch: do they have their own networking?

It is a smartphone if it has wireless networking and is battery powered. A desktop on wifi or cell is not. A laptop on ethernet is not. A laptop on wifi or cell is. It is the combination of portability and networking that is the problem.

Cyberspace is supposed to be separate from meatspace not something that follows you around in your pocket and constantly cries for attention. Unfortunately too many normies have eroded that boundary through the use of the smartphone. That shitty device is the cause or amplifier of many societal ills.

I know that isn't quite good enough to be law. USB cell modems wouldn't be banned neither would laptops with USB ports but if you plug one into the other does it become a banned device? I don't have an answer for that. I cannot picture someone using a laptop for many of the ills I see coming from smartphones but they only need to be made smaller and smaller until they are.

Possibly the cellphone might be just as bad, due to its constant connectivity, but we progressed too quickly from cheap devices available to nearly everyone to the smartphone.

Perhaps some form of user interface is needed too because a sensing device plugged into a battery powered SBC transmitting data over some sort of wireless network is not a smartphone.

10xDev
2 replies
4h55m

The recent Twitter drama over a use of a word is all you need to see how bad things are. It takes nothing to get a mob of mentally ill people on your case which can have a psychological toll on anyone especially teenagers. And if you try to reason with such people you just get sent down a rabbit hole.

We need to have limits on what we allow our brain to process the same way we do for our body with ultra-processed foods by avoiding fast food restaurants as nothing is totally erased and everything nudges your mood and beliefs whether you feel it or don't.

makeitdouble
1 replies
4h7m

Is X/Twitter the barometer of how good social media is for us ?

Otherwise I find it interesting how people attribute toxic discussions to online media, when the wisdom of our elders were to never talk politics at dinners to avoid having people literally beating each other.

We can't be focusing on the absolute worse with the illest use cases, and make it into a societal problem. Looking at our world today, I genuinely think we're in a better place than three decades ago when we had absolutely none of our online networks.

10xDev
0 replies
3h42m

I only highlighted the tip of the iceberg where the behaviour is not limited to Twitter and wasn't even political. And whether the world is better or not than 3 decades ago is not really the topic here, it is about mental health and how it has become worse over the past decade and whether that can be attributed to social media.

0dayz
2 replies
8h43m

The issue isn't social media in itself, it's how social media has become this absurd commercialized parody of what social media should be about.

Back in the day Facebook was actually decently good social life because it augmented it with helping you easily connect with others and get to know events happening (and other stuff too).

Instead everything has turned into some bizarre race to the bottom where communities are slowly becoming glorified cult of personalities, social engagement doesn't mean people socially interacting but instead it's a statistical term now, etc.

Instead of connecting us it's gamed to exploit us and there's plenty of people willing to be 1 step above the exploitation (influencers).

Just looking at how different twitch. tv is now compared to how it used to be, it used to be that pretty much everyone watched streamers just to see someone play something or do something extraordinary, now while it still is a bit true, there's a growing shift that people don't watch for any other reason than the influencer the self.

me_me_me
0 replies
8h37m

Social media probably has some share, but look at the world those people grow up in.

Some of them only remember thing being bad and getting worse.

A 20 years old with basic education is fucked. They will be surviving not living the life.

Then social media reinforces the idea of being destined for failure with all of those 'successful' 'people'

YurgenJurgensen
0 replies
8h39m

Social media becoming an absurd commercialised parody of itself was inevitable. They're for-profit companies and that's where the financial incentives are. If there was a period when you thought social media was 'good', it's because the operators hadn't yet optimised their corporate mind-control machine.

throwitaway222
1 replies
23h3m

It is also not just teenagers. Its effects are extremely broad.

yieldcrv
0 replies
20h21m

I agree, I think the vast majority of us are affected, we just don't have anyone watching.

for example, I had found the antsiness I was reading amongst children in classrooms about to be ridiculous. younger people having fidget spinners to pay attention.

then I took a class at community college, I've been out of school for a long time, and I experienced the same thing the first couple of sessions. then I realized that not only was I having the same traits, my ability to adapt was probably due to knowing it was not normal.

in another anecdote, when I go see even older people, baby boomers, their phone etiquette and attentiveness is waaay off. like, the more disconnected someone is, the more these new things adversely affect them.

I see this as akin to the opium dens. Popular at one point, and a smaller privileged group of people creating a social circle that opted out. We'll probably look back at this dopamine addiction pretty badly.

thih9
1 replies
9h4m

About disproving correlation, the article cites:

college students who were asked to reduce their social media use for three weeks generally experienced mental health benefits compared to the control group

But that's still correlation. Maybe it was the change, the extra attention, or some other factor that caused their mental health to improve? The linked study was short term and lasted three weeks - if they spent more time without social media then perhaps their mental health would get even worse than at the start?

drawkward
0 replies
2h10m

But that's still correlation.

Depends on the experimental design. If it was an RCT with sufficient sample size, it would be causal.

nojvek
1 replies
4h48m

In 2023, I would glue my self to the phone after reading book to our kid. But then our 5 year old would want to see what I am doing on my phone.

One day I was reading a reddit thread while she wanted to tell me something that happened in school. Someone told her her school lunch stinks because it is vegetarian and I brushed it aside.

That moment was a wake up call. I was addicted to a stupid reddit thread ignoring a real issue.

Now I don't use the phone around sleep time. We read books, talk about the day, get bored and tell imaginative stories but no phones.

The nice effect of that is I sleep earlier and have much better quality of sleep. Less baggy eyes.

Not using phone before sleep has increased quality of life significantly. I have longer attention spans during the day as well.

Infinite scroll is the new sugar addiction.

jmathai
0 replies
4h33m

get bored

We really underestimate how negatively it's impacting our quality of life that we don't let ourselves get bored anymore.

My kids liked to listen to the radio while in the car. We stopped doing that - they fight it but we have conversations we otherwise wouldn't. Oh, and less Doja Cat in our lives isn't such a bad thing either.

casey2
1 replies
10h0m

I still don't see any actual casual link. Nor do I see any evidence given that the situation would improve if social media was banned or restricted, the few he does give don't talk about mental illness, but rather general wellness and add in more variables like exercise. There were other problems like "fake" data or non-significant changes labeled as significant.

I haven't even seen enough evidence to show correlation, for example a few of the attempted suicide graphs would have peaks if they went back further, or show no reaction to social media like youtube and myspace, wouldn't you expect the same group of girls who use social media 5+ hours a day to have used myspace at it's peak, and for them to have some negative reaction if social media was inherently harmful? Maybe you could draw a correlation with smartphones or smartphone+social media? But the unspecificity of the claim is a red flag. There is also the general principle that social science simply isn't advanced enough to make these kinds of predictions yet, so the discussion really is moot.

In my opinion this is just the typical modern overreaction to regression to the mean.

He goes on to say "what is the harm" in restricting children's access to communication. Other than the mass economic, educational and social harm none. Just because you as an old man view the younger generations social interactions as trite, nonsensical and worthless doesn't mean it is. I guess if you view education as the top down passage of knowledge then the idea that students use their phone in class must be horrifying. "Children educating eachother over the internet? Do you want society to collapse? Society needs doctors, layers and computer scientists, not dancers and memes"

To me this seems like you are forcing your personal values onto students and their parents have already rejected them.

tgv
0 replies
9h45m

Other than the mass economic, educational and social harm none.

That argument is taken from thin air. There's nothing to substantiate it.

Just because you as an old man view the younger generations social interactions

It's not about their social interactions, it's about the addictive properties of mobile phones in combination with social media.

To me this seems like ...

And to me, you sound like an addict defending his addiction.

camgunz
1 replies
9h36m

I have two big points here: governments should ban social media, and to save its reputation, the tech industry must pull the plug on those services before that happens.

Social media is the new smoking, and Meta, ByteDance, and X are the new Philip Morris. Their products are services that feed you addictive content in an addictive way, such that you spend hours and hours using the service, during which they show you as many ads as possible. That's the money firehose. There's no question it's very bad for kids, and we should ban the shit out of it. We shouldn't do it immediately, we shouldn't do it in a draconian way, but we should slowly chisel away at these services with regulations until we've transformed them from addictive mind manipulation apps to chill forums and blogs.

What does regulation like that look like? "Hey it looks like you've got > 10m MAUs, please make your default algorithm recency and not engagement, please restrict users to 1 hour of total use of your feed a day, please only show users 1 ad every 5 minutes, welcome to a consent decree where we monitor all your content moderation choices, also here's the framework you'll be using."

Does that sound nuts? It's actually what we want: we don't want our kids using social media more than an hour a day, we don't want them served tons of mindbending ads, we don't want some asleep-at-the-switch content moderation crew letting ISIS recruit on these services or weirdos spam our kids with pro-ana content.

True to nerd form, we've really lost the plot on this one. We're arguing like, "kids can use VPNs" or "there's no difference between Instagram and Wikipedia" (lol) and blah blah. Laws and regulations aren't airtight. Kids can still pay people to buy booze for them! We still don't let them buy it themselves because that's way worse! Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good here.

---

Importantly, the debate is basically over. In this poll [0]:

- Americans overwhelmingly are concerned about kids' social media use

- Only 51% think it's primarily up to parents to prevent harms

This poll was conducted over a year ago, so I'm sure even more Americans are concerned and even fewer think it's solely up to parents to prevent harm. Regulation is coming.

Tech is at a crossroads right now. It's been on a downward slide for over a decade. No one thinks tech is on their side anymore. It's very close to being just the latest soulless, corrupt business empire in a long line of soulless, corrupt business empires (tobacco, mining, trains, energy, pharmaceuticals, etc). If social media platforms go down kicking and screaming, it will cement this reputation.

Maybe this is fine! Energy companies are doing pretty well! But I don't imagine the people at these companies think they're working at big oil or big tobacco. If you don't relish the prospect of defending your career at every social gathering you go to for the rest of your life, tech needs to pull itself back from the brink before it's forced to. It's the only way to save its reputation and actually be the positive force for good it thinks it is.

[0]: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/americans-are-greatly-concerned-...

MaxHoppersGhost
0 replies
5h20m

Oil has done infinitely more good for the world (via lifting the entire world’s standard of living) than social media has ever done.

astro-
1 replies
11h33m

girls who spend five hours or more on social media per day are three times as likely to be depressed as girls who use social media only a little or not at all

I mean, I can't possibly imagine the state I would be in if I spent 5 hours on Instagram every day for extended periods. But the same applies to watching reality TV or reading tabloid newspapers.

Social media clearly affects young people — some of them negatively. That said, it's not 100% negative all the time. Maybe it's just changing the structure of society. In the same way that computers gave nerds the option to be the cool hacker kids and highly-paid FAANG engineers later, some skills/traits/behaviours are becoming more valuable while others are losing their usefulness.

Things won't be the same, just like things aren't the same as they were 200 years ago. People will adapt and learn to deal with the new challenges.

justanotherjoe
0 replies
10h16m

I view it the same way. It's evolution. How it plays out is usually too complex to understand. Trying to avoid making decision for yourself (because everyone is different), by making it explicit for all people, is just running away.

Also whatever we have now, a worse thing is coming yet. Or at least, a newer stranger one.

akomtu
1 replies
14h10m

One thing that social media does to young minds is it shatters their attention into pieces, with all those flashing and moving rectangles on phone screens, and squeezes all the value it can from each piece. What's left is a mind unable to focus, that passively floats from one distraction to another.

improv
0 replies
8h6m

Couldn't think of a more efficient way to manufacture ADHD

HAL9OOO
1 replies
5h16m

Does anyone have any ideas on how to cure human loneliness?

jksflkjl3jk3
0 replies
3h54m

Make single adult life economically infeasible for the masses, as it was for most of human history.

2devnull
1 replies
4h18m

Usenet didn’t have this problem. It’s not being online and interacting with others that’s the problem. It’s the money. And we’ve known that forever.

tithe
0 replies
3h10m

I wonder how Usenet would have been different if it had supported profile pictures.

vjk800
0 replies
8h36m

From novels in the 18th century to the bicycle in the 19th and through comic books, rock and roll, marijuana, and violent video games in the 20th century, there are always those who ring alarms, and there are always those who are skeptics of those alarms. So far, the skeptics have been right more often than not

Do we really know that, though? Maybe teens actually were better off before novels and bicycles and rock and roll in some ways? You know, spending more time outdoors, with their families, etc.

Or maybe it's just about time scales. When a new, socially disruptive invention arrives, and it does not fit in the structures of the society, it causes mental illness. But as time goes on and the cultural norms adapt to the new invention, it stops causing mental illnesses.

Alcohol is almost universally available, but it causes different amount of problems (both mental and physical) in different social contexts. In communities where it was recently introduced, it often causes loads of damage since the culture doesn't have rules and norms to prevent overuse of it. As a culture gets more used to alcohol, rules and norms (such as "don't drink alcohol before noon" or "don't go to work drunk") are developed and the harms are reined in.

One thing I think that can be said for sure is that we shouldn't fuck with extremely complex systems like our society just for fun. All changes should be phased in gradually rather than suddenly released into the wild.

uconnectlol
0 replies
7h24m

We are now 12 years into a public health emergency that began around 2012

yes, yes, and porn is also a health epidemic, and so was covid (yes it was, only technically). so what? until you roll out new laws in reaction to this "problem", it doesn't exist as far as i'm concerned. i don't care that you have a large body of proof for it, i don't have time to read that. and when you make the laws they will be bullshit and not even solve the problem which may or may not exist. you are all redditors.

throwaway458864
0 replies
6h32m

The big mental illness crisis of the 21st century is really the same one from the 20th: mass media consumerism. Social media is literally just mass media consumerism in a more efficient, evolved form. It's the car compared to the bicycle: more advanced, with more bad outcomes than before. If you want to cure social media mental illness you'll have to wrestle with the fundamental addiction all humans now have to mass media, which has a symbiotic relationship with consumerism. Since the global economy depends on consumerism, it's not going to be easy to dismantle.

seydor
0 replies
2h38m

I think we should start calling them "social comparison engines". From day 0 they were all about gossip but we pretended they are the 'new media' that will change the world. Now we are back to square 1 , with a few trusted media and a sea of scammers peppered in vacation selfies and baby pics. It's like everyone has become a Sim in the largest game of Sims.

rsolva
0 replies
11h54m

We cannot just ban social media platforms that we don't like for one reason or the other. What we can do is regulate products and markets. Consumer rights is one of the things governments should really care about.

Make sure our food is safe, our water clean and that our cars and bikes are reasonably safe to use. The same goes for products distributed online. The governments around the world has been dragging their feet for decades (probably in no small part to bigtech lobbyist doing a good job) and we are now suffering the consequences.

The European Union has been upping their game recently, with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA), which are regulatory frameworks meant to curb the dominance of large tech companies (gatekeepers) and their malpractices. Instead of outright banning a specific platform or app, they ask companies to adhere to some sensible (from the consumers perspective) standards:

- Provide data access and portability

- Require interoperability to facilitate competition and innovation

- Transparency of algorithms, moderation, advertising etc.

On top of that, big actors have to ensure protection of consumers data (GDPR) and are required not to store more data than necessary. Having these, and more, frameworks in place, makes it possible to crack down on harmful actors from a more principled place. Most of these regulatory components are quite new and barely implemented, but I look forward to seeing them being used more over the next few years.

renegade-otter
0 replies
4h28m

This is real. Those of us who remember pre-social-meeds Internet know. I am no longer able to read books. If the book is a long Twitter thread - I will read more of it.

protontypes
0 replies
9h16m

I use Feedblocker for all social media and have to say it is a real relief. I can still participate when I'm mentioned, but I can now focus on what I think is relevant to me instead of letting big companies decide what might be relevant to me or how best to capture my attention span. This is how I was able to finally finish my PhD.

ponorin
0 replies
8h30m

And what if it turns out that I am wrong? What if, in reality, the multinational collapse of adolescent mental health in the early 2010s was not caused by the arrival of phone-based childhood; it was just a big coincidence. Will kids be damaged by these four norms? I don’t think so. What irreversible harm will be done to children who spend more time listening to their teachers during class, more time playing and exploring together outdoors, and less time sitting alone hunched over a device?

I lived in a twilight zone where smartphone became available to masses right during middle school, and I can attest that if smartphones are banned kids will simply move on to computers or other networked handheld devices. Kids are more knowledgeable than adults give credit for and know how they are being manipulated, as well as workarounds. No phone policy in schools were routinely violated; for example, they carry multiple phones and hand out only one of them. There are guides available online how to break parental control (with varying effectiveness ofc). Trying to weed out the outliers just makes the experience worse for everyone.

Also I would be remiss if I don't highlight the upsides from social media, even for kids and adolescents: It's arguably the only safe haven for minorities. Imagine you're the only LGBTQ+ student in your school (probably not, but when nobody speaks up it's as good as none). Teachers won't tell, parents won't tell, then all you have left is the internet, on which there are plethora of such communities. Blocking access to such knowledge, the community and make them "spend more time listening to teachers" is exactly the recipe for mental illness/self harm, especially considering current trends.

pompino
0 replies
12h43m

Conversations around new regulations on the internet are eerily similar to conversations about regulations on firearms in the US.

"It won't fix anything or address the issue"

"The cure is worse than the disease"

"Doing it half-assed is worse"

"Its not even possible to implement ___"

"The real cause is something else"

"Its against freedom"

"Its too late to do anything because ___"

etc.

lykahb
0 replies
3h37m

With the amount of data that the social networks syphon, they surely know the age. Banning the underage users does not need any more compromise of anonymity than what already exists.

klabb3
0 replies
5h12m

Instagram is a social posturing platform. Kids compare themselves. We already acknowledge that kids have not yet developed a strong sense of protecting themselves. Including against soft influence, which is why advertising for children is highly regulated in most countries. “Social” platforms are next level and much better at exploiting attention than classical advertising.

I feel like in lieu of hard evidence, which naturally comes with a very high bar in social science, the safest path is to stay the hell away from excessive social comparison 24/7. This is, in my experience, medium-to-very unhealthy even for most adults (see exhibit A - LinkedIn). When you have an adversary that openly deploys recommendation systems optimized for engagement, it’s not rocket science to connect the dots. Sure, I guess there’s a theoretical chance it’s correlation. But as a parent today, are you gonna take that risk with your child’s childhood? I would definitely do everything I can to guide my children away from social comparison. I stopped using people-oriented social media years ago, for my own sake. Most of the SV elite keeps their children off that crap, even though they are have high-status potential in “succeeding” in this mindless game.

jononomo
0 replies
5h0m

My workout buddy at the Y related the following story to me this morning:

Yesterday his 11-year-old daughter was without her phone because she was being punished for something or other. They did various activities throughout the day and my buddy noticed that his daughter was noticeably happier and more engaged than she usually was -- he mentioned looking at ferrets at the mall and playing a card game, etc.

He said that had she had her phone with her then there is no way she would have been as interested and engaged in the world as she was that day and that she would have been smiling and laughing less and just been generally less happy overall.

But, nevertheless, she continually begged for her phone back throughout the day.

He had noticed this pattern over time, my buddy said, and it was like you could just give her the phone and then watch her become withdrawn, sad, and angry, or you could take the phone away and watch her become smiling, happy, and engaged but then also beg to have her phone back so that she could be withdrawn, sad and angry.

Just for more context, she was adopted out of the foster care system about five years ago and she seems to need to create a lot of drama at school for some reason.

jauntywundrkind
0 replies
14m

From the man who aimed COVID was 100% about leftists control, who says DEI is also about racial hierarchy. Recent thread, https://bsky.app/profile/romancingnope.bsky.social/post/3kpl... but one can search his name on any social media to get a taste of what he's about. Haidt is insufferable. Haidt can be right that we need better for our kids. But this satanic panic scapegoating shit is crazy. There's massive economic uncertainty, a crazy world, we are short on worthy role models, the environment is going crazy, capitalism has consolidated enormous power, and much closer to home truths that there are so few shared spaces, 3rd places where one can be a free youth. Social media is portrayed like such a crafty monster, but we rarely delve into the other whys of it, are too busy demonizing convenient to snap at companies to recognize how amazing it is to tour the world & get such a great perch watching humanity.

Dragging red meat postings like this into HN greatly lowers the discourse.

incomingpain
0 replies
6h43m

This is cherry picked data trying to cut off at 2001 or later. Go look at self-harm data which included the 1980s and 1990s. Self-harm has been climbing since the late 1990s.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3428496/figure/...

Haidt is cherry picking his data because if you point to late 1990s, there was no social media and therefore the crisis cannot be put on social media.

In my opinion, social media is helping this situation, not causing the situation.

iancmceachern
0 replies
3h3m

Of course, it was deliberately designed to be that way. Just like tobacco, sugary beverages, etc. Before

hzay
0 replies
8h34m

Any parents here who have successfully managed this with their kids? Please share resources or ideas for newer parents.

gigatexal
0 replies
8h54m

The claim of direct causal claim is bold and probably more likely a contributing factor but can it really be the singular or even most impactful cause?

fcantournet
0 replies
4h57m

Your goal using a social media platform is to get the most usefulness out of it in the least amount of time.

Their goal (with very large $$$ incentive) is that you spend the maximum amount of time on the platform (so that they can show you the maximum amount of ads)

Those 2 goals are at odds, in a relationship where the balance of power is very much in favour of the platforms, who deploy adversarial methods to maximise "engagement".

At some point, something has to give. Namely our collective mental health.

exebook
0 replies
8h41m

I'd guess these poor teenagers were mentally sick of something else before the social networks thing came to be. And they will be sick of another thing after social networks get replaced.

Important thing is that we have developed rules that parents teach to kids in regards to many things, but we've developed those rules for centuries, now with internet we need generations before kids will be ready to dangers of internet as good as they are prepared for the dangers of the street for example. Damn we still have bullying in schools, because schools are around just recently, like 100+ years, we have not adapted yet.

eviks
0 replies
11h28m

First, if the skeptics were right and the null hypothesis were true (i.e., social media does not cause harm to teen mental health), then the published studies would just reflect random noise2 and Type I errors (believing something that is false). In that case, we’d see experimental studies producing a wide range of findings, including many that showed benefits to mental health from using social media

No? What's the connection? No harm doesn't mean health benefits, just... no harm

ein0p
0 replies
2h32m

Not just teenagers. A lot of adults are severely affected too. A good percentage of those billions of DAUs got their lives destroyed by FB/Instagram/Youtube/Twitter algorithms I bet.

edg5000
0 replies
12h0m

The way I see it, it is about vendor lock-in; this is what's causing the constant irritation with EU and US regulators. With phones, email and physicial mail there are different autonomous suppliers that have to work together and integrate their systems. You can use any supplier and contact any subscriber worldwide.

However with some of these new online platforms, it is essentially a walled garden ran by one company. You are either in or out.

dt3ft
0 replies
12h8m

Can a 13 year old buy a gun? No. Can a 13 year old create a social media account (by entering a fake birth date)? Yes.

Since we know there are minors on social media (parents can be blamed to an extent), should there not be a fool-proof way of determining the age of the user before allowing them in?

dartos
0 replies
7h20m

So nothing has changed since 2008?

ck2
0 replies
5h42m

I'm old enough to have experienced the invention of cellphones and then smartphones and then "social media"

I am also on the roads every single day on foot or bike all those years.

People have absolutely lost all self-control and are absolutely addicted to connectivity and media, not a little bit, overwhelmingly toxic levels.

Everyone is constantly holding and looking down at their phone, no matter at a bus stop or driving. Even walking and I've seen people biking while constantly looking down at their phones.

We need to start treating it like alcohol or drug addiction, it's the exact same thing.

boesboes
0 replies
8h8m

My personal believe is that the problem is not social media in itself, it is the endless feed that changes interactions from deliberate choice and discovery to drinking from a firehose.

Honestly, we just stop calling this influencer marketing and algorithmic feeds 'social media' and call it what it is: commercials and propaganda that is intermingled into our social fabric. And I can believe that that is damaging..

_def
0 replies
13h33m

How is the author not seeing that both sides of this debate are right and connected to each other? I guess the will to be right enables this

INTPenis
0 replies
12h19m

We as a society need to adapt to this new wave of influence on kids.

I think it goes without saying in this forum that if we try to ban children from using social media they will simply make their own. Any ban will only drive them into using it illegally or on a sort of underground scene.

EchoReflection
0 replies
2h4m

Haidt is also co-author of the extremely relevant, data-rich, and well-researched book "The Coddling of the American Mind", which is definitely worth every modern human's time/money/attention. In the book he and co-author Greg Lukianoff discuss and provide numerous examples of how modern universities are promoting "three great untruths", namely:

1.You must strive to avoid bad experiences at all costs.

2.You must always trust your emotions over reason.

3.The world is a black-and-white battle between good people and bad people; there is no middle ground.

The content of that book made me feel some very visceral contempt (which I realize is not good for ME) tfor the administrators/university bureaucrats that are basically poisoning/corrupting tens of millions of minds every year*.

https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/the-coddling...

https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Coddling-of-the-American-Mind...

---

*I wasn't sure how many people are enrolled in post-secondary educational institutions around the world so I asked chatGPT and it's response was:

me: approximately how many humans are enrolled in college or university in any given year

chatGPT: As of recent data, there are typically over 19 million students enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the United States alone. Globally, the number of students enrolled in colleges and universities is much larger, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. These numbers can vary slightly from year to year due to factors like population growth, economic conditions, and educational policies.

CMYKninja
0 replies
1h23m

Simple switch all screens to eink Displays.