IMO, this is more a case of social media bringing deeper problems to the surface than social media being the actual cause.
I think its a combination of both. You draw a parallel between social networks and budweiser. Alcohol worsens depression and I believe social networks do as well. Whether or not they CAUSE depression is a totally different matter of course.
> depression... distorts your worldview
I think this should be up for debate as well. Even though I've echoed this sentiment myself, as someone with depression I'm starting to suspect that my own is brought on due to a very accurate understanding of the world. I've been painfully aware of my own and my family's place in the world (lower-middle-class) since I was a kid. My own and my family's mortality is another thing that makes me extremely depressed if I allow myself to think too deeply about it. Wars, world injustices, the ultimate meaninglessness of life... I've been thinking about all of this since I was around 5 years old. That's not a distorted worldview, its reality.
I think a lot of my own depression stems from the inability to block out all of the negative things in my life. Once I started meditating, stopped following the news so closely, got rid of my repressive religion, stopped letting lack of funds ruin my day (partially by blocking out all advertising), deleted my social networks and got into an excellent sleep routine I've been able to manage my depression and I feel a lot better.
I downloaded a video of a monk teaching it a while back (have since lost the vid so I can't say which one it was) -- i don't agree or believe in any of spiritual teachings associated with meditation but the physical / mental benefits were impossible for me to deny, even if it was a placebo effect.
I think it probably has to do with focusing your thoughts rather than letting them run wild -- i can't help but think of brains like a computer, and mine tends to get stuck in a recursive loop of negativity, but mindful meditation would almost always break me out of that loop.
Interestingly when I was religious I would pray during those same panic attacks (and always at night) and it would also calm me down. My former religion would have us pray as though we were actually carrying on a one sided conversation with god... being that I'm an atheist I think of prayer as a form of meditation now so i think the effects are very similar.
Sleep and "news deprivation" have both been very helpful to me as well, as has meditation.
> very acute understanding of the world without pleasurable inputs.
This sums it up perfectly. It's also what makes depression so dangerous. When you're at your lowest point you don't feel like you have a distorted worldview at all. You feel like you're seeing the world perfectly clearly. Of course, you're actually not. You're blocking out all the wonderful stuff that actually makes life worth living.
Blocking out news and advertising wherever possible has helped me too. And yes, this included quitting Facebook.
I've since realized that a lot of my unhappiness was created when I started reading all this news about how much money people like Zuckerberg were making while fucking up the world. It's great and amazing that we have access to this information, but expecting my own life and experiences to be different, or expecting myself to be wealthier or more powerful than I am just causes unhappiness when I'm not. I can't ignore these problems, but I had to accept where I am and stop beating myself up over it. Part of that comes from realizing I can remain calm, and work towards a better future, fixing problems as I know how to solve them.
The whole point of the Facebook platform is to manipulate you -- it's a advertising engine. We don't have a lot of experience as humans with mass delivery of tightly targeted marketing designed to press your specific buttons.
I don't know that it's a bad thing, but I'm not willing to say that that type of intense marketing is ok for a person in a vulnerable mental state. If you're vulnerable to getting depressed, is Facebook exposure akin to putting a gambling addict in a casino or an alcoholic in a gathering with an open bar?
This isn't Facebook's problem, as someone else pointed out: 75% of Facebook users are almost certainly not suffering from depression. But it is a problem, and she wrote about her condition (as someone who's written about his own issues with depression, this is not easy to do) to present it to others, for them to maybe see a way to get a little better or perhaps to be more aware of what the condition is like for those that have it.
Absolutely not. Facebook is engineered to be addictive, and happiness is based to a very large extent on perceived relative position in a social hierarchy.
Facebook is more like a horribly insidious version of advertising than food or alcohol.
People largely only post things that are happy, such as birth of a newborn baby, smiling kids, winning awards, having fun on vacation, while cropping out the sad or dull moments.
Those posts garner a lot of likes. And then those rise up in importance on feeds.
It's not uncommon to feel a bit envious of seeing these. So then we eventually we post something of comparable significance. Perhaps a new house. Or an achievement of our own like releasing a first version of something. Or a vacation we've scheduled.
It's creates a weird cycle detached from reality. I'm not depressed but I can't honestly say the experience doesn't affect me.
Except they don't. I see political garbage like outrage pieces from some liberal rag or some conservative website garnering all the votes. Everyone gets outraged, argumentative, etc. Facebook is like an eternal thanksgiving dinner with your overly political uncle.
The baby photos, vacation photos, etc are the ignored content here.
Dunno about that. I can avoid beer and ice cream or buy them at my own pace but due to familial, work, and social obligation I pretty much MUST use FB. My feed is a lot of hot cause celebres like the debunked Clock Kid or outrage political articles with questionable facts. Its overwhemling and I can see it driving people into sour moods if not aggravating depression. Its an endless chorus of extreme negativity. Hell, I think how much poorly sourced and biased political junk you post on fb is a character judgment and its sad to see how many of my acquaintance fail this basic test. I just want to log in to see whats going on professionally or see people's baby or vacation photos.
Worse, FB is gamified to produce these results. People crave likes and just cater to their audience, hence the political crap and other negativity. There's a lot of work in this field and the FB guys know how to exploit people's desire for attention and validation.
>IMO, this is more a case of social media bringing deeper problems to the surface than social media being the actual cause.
As technologists, I think this kind of attitude is especially dangerous. Our products cause harm. Lets stop pretending they don't.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/02/facebook-s...