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Comment by KittenInABox | Hacker News Reader

I doubt that the only thing that will help is education. Education cannot win over something where other, more educated people are putting full-time careers in psychological hijacking of children. A 12 year old doesn't stand a chance no matter how much they accept themselves.

This stuff needs to be regulated like cigarettes.

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I don't agree because the contact with real teenagers at school and other places where children meet was as brutal as it is today even in the past. Now there are new elements, that is, the fact you have to confront yourself with a lager audience of people and you can see unreal standards. But even at school with 400 children there will be the extremely pretty, the extremely good at sports, and so forth. And what is likes in social networks, in the real world translates to certain folks getting all the attention and other being regarded as trash. I think that certain problems that are embedded in being humans in a modern society are now all attributed to social networks, but this is not the case. Similarly people already used to vote for crazy folks: we in Italy had Berlusconi in '90s. Before there was Hitler and Mussolini. Similarly to think that US got Trump because social networks is a simplification that fails to capture reality.

> Now there are new elements, that is, the fact you have to confront yourself with a lager audience of people and you can see unreal standards.

You nailed it here. Social media heavily rewards extreme outliers.

School bullying is bad, but scaling it up to global bullying is worse.

Also you bullied teens can get potential help from late bloomers who were bullied in early years; thus, placing the bully in from of their moronic supporters as a big loser.

I agree. SM operates on a subconscious level by exploiting all kinds of cognitive biases. Rational thinking won't solve this issue for the majority

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