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Comment by notyourwork | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone remember Cosmopolitan and other like magazines. Teenage body issues and associated anxiety are not new. What has happened is we gave everyone internet access so now they can look at pictures of unrealistic bodies all day everywhere they go. The result is body dysmorphia on steroids.

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I don't think this is quite it, I think you're underrating the social aspect of it, and the algorithm aspect of it.

When I was in high school (livejournal and myspace era), I had a friend group where most of the hanging out occurred IRL. I hung out with the dorks, so there was not a lot of focus on being hot and stuff. And IRL, there aren't algorithms that constantly shove pretty people in your face. Of course you see them around, but you also see tons of normal looking or even ugly people. None of my friends really read Cosmo and stuff, because we were focused on our interests.

But in today's era, so much of the social scene is online. And the systems are set up in a way to basically constantly show you pretty people. It is hard to avoid the aspects of it you don't like without also missing out on things you do like.

> It is hard to avoid the aspects of it you don't like without also missing out on things you do like.

Your comment resonates with me. Facebook completely sucks the air out of the room by monopolizing online social networking. The newsfeed makes the world seem so small and vapid. No room for weird.

Yea, I think the other aspect is this isn't just internet. When I was younger, going on the internet meant going to the upstairs bedroom, turning on the computer, waiting for it to boot up, then waiting for AOL to connect, then chatting with people. It would take like 5 minutes of effort. Now, most of the time when I go out, for fun, I just look how many people are hunched over staring and scrolling at their stupid rectangle in their hand all day everyday. It's usually at least 80% of people. It's the social, the algorithm, and the fact that the addiction is sitting in people's hands at all moments of the day and night.

At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, I remember 15-20 years ago talking to people next to me in public transports and meeting a lot of people who eventually became friends.

Now when I'm in a subway, every one is hunched on their mobile phone, no one is available to engage in conversation, to meet people. They're instead focusing on that tiny bright rectangle.

And I can see that I'm also guilty of the same. I'm always either on my kindle or my phone nowadays

I got the iPod on release day and got so many confused glances/stares wearing headphones around the college campus and buses. That was a short phase for me but now I’m surrounded by people who are present but without presence. The world will never be the same.

Same in a bar. I go in to shoot the shit. But often times now, I will see people spend their entire time scrolling while sitting at the bar. It's sad. I switched back to a flip phone almost 1.5 years ago and while I do miss certain things, the overall experience of just not having the option to scroll is so much better for me in terms of being present.

Anecdata but my brother lives in a major Scottish city and cycles a lot.

He says that the biggest threat to his safety isn't traffic, it's people walking across the road looking at their phones. Often groups of them at the same time.

He reckons that when he's out cycling (and by this, I mean he cycles about 4 or 5 miles at most) he encounters at least 5 or 6 incidents on average.

I see it in the mornings when I walk my son to school. If I had to guess, I'd say more than 40% of the kids are looking at a phone.

I've also heard of some European cities putting traffic signals on the pavements so that phone users don't have to look up: I 100% disagree with this - They get killed? It's their fault!

I truly don't understands this perspective. It used to be that mass media was a tightly-controlled, walled-off garden. The set number of popular and accessible magazines, tv stations and films suffered from far more centralized control, had far less inclusion in its leadership and staff, and resulted in a hyper-narrow range of acceptable beauty and image standards. It was borderline dystopian.

Young people, by and large, could only view media that was part of this monoculture. They were already seeing it all everywhere they went. Now, with just a little looking, people can find an entire universe of body-positive media and communities that simply did not exist in the 80's and 90's. So while there may be more ways to transmit body negativity thanks to the internet, I'd argue there is not more body negativity because we had already maxed it out. It's just as bad as it had been for decades. The difference now is an alternative exists!

Maybe this body negativity came from inaccessible people, who were famous/connected enough to be on these pages.

Now, everyone can do it, and many are around you, accessible. They are your friend's friends or your friends.

Moreover, mobile applications and web applications allows you to touch up your appearance. You look and say "I'd be so much beautiful/handsome this way, but I'm not, and never will be".

Self criticism inflicts the greatest damage since there's no restraint, no barrier to dampen down to its effects. It's very destructive.

I think the problem is people think there isn't an attractive main stream that people look to regardless of microculture (see Kaitlin Jenner for example as someone who finds themselves an outsider within a small community). But even if that were not the case, being anti-X is also a problem in itself as you are defining yourself against X.

Wanting to be "popular" has its problems but wanting to be "anti-popular" is also a problem because in the end it's not yourself. Being the not-popular also has it's own mainstream so it will have the same popular and anti-popular dynamic. So the only ones benefiting are the company and aware "influencers".

I'd agree that 'body positivity' is easier to find in this climate, but is it what's being often served on these platforms algorithmically? Is it the default prior to your personal 'profile' being recorded? Does it pump the 'engagement cycle' at a better rate than these 'body negative' cultures? If not, then we're not better off in this era because-- as we've seen-- the engagement cycle is a feedback loop. It amplifies itself. And the qualities of the people it attracts.

I personally do not take issue with these cultures existing; however i do take issue with how they are propagated and promoted. These systems don't afford users the full breadth of 'response options' as we would have in real life. You can't even express simple dislike or disagreement, unlike 'love' and 'like', etc. Not to mention the black-box engines of recommendation and discovery of new content in the first place.

And though i don't agree that there's ~less body negativity in the aggregate that wouldn't mean that is has less impact. A small culture highly-addicted to body negativity could have larger social impacts than widely-held-but-less-addicted. We see it across many other domains already in our 'American' culture.

This is probably 90% rose-colored glasses, but to play the devil’s advocate, the monoculture did give people more commonality and I wonder if people were more social - and maybe even less divided - as a result. There is something to be said for people to have something in common to bond over and not being at each other’s throats all the time - often over mundane things.

It's true, but how many girls bought/could afford Cosmo, Elle, etc. subs? I suspect it wasn't as many as have Insta/Fb accounts --which is world-wide and reaches into every class and society.

And given we now know it's severely detrimental to their well-being, I think it deserves serious consideration and requires change. I don't mean to censor people, but we must stop fomenting the image problem on purpose via programming and advertising and social engagement.

Facebook knows it's a problem and they should tackle it (as well as any such legacy magazines and the fashion industry in general).

>"Facebook knows it's a problem and they should tackle it"

Preface: Not a lover of Facebook and "social media" in general and do not use it as such.

However having FB "tackle / promote" way of life I think is totally wrong. It is up to the parents and schools to tech kids that there are more interesting things in the world than this mental masturbation on computer / phone screen watching somebody else's life.

> but how many girls bought/could afford Cosmo, Elle, etc. subs?

This is not a particularly relevant question. The number of girls with their own subscription to Cosmopolitan vastly undercounts the number of girls reading Cosmopolitan, which was every girl who was interested. These magazines are stocked in libraries, shared friend to friend, and left in public places. The only thing a subscription gets you is that you can read the new issue a few days earlier than everybody else.

Where I grew up girls read Cosmo and talked about it even as teenagers. That's my point, it wasn't as prevalent or accessible as it is today. We made it more accessible and hence the problem exacerbated.

> so now they can look at pictures of unrealistic bodies all day everywhere they go

In 2018 "obesity prevalence was [...] 21.2% among 12- to 19-year-olds." [0] according to the CDC. That's one out of 5 being obese, not overweight. And it has more than tripled since the 70's [1].

Maybe our definition of "realistic" changed too.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_child_15_16/obe...

Doesn't is show that body shaming might actually work, because the growth means the cause is likely a lifestyle choice rather than something about nature.

Young men are vulnerable to this, too. In fact, it's not unreasonable to think that it doesn't do any good for older men and women, either.

Setting unrealistic expectations and then failing to meet them is bad-feels for all brains.

If I recall the FB research from that other thread correctly, it's about half as bad for young men. Instagram is bad for everyone.

As another example "fake news" isn't new either, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

However, I'd suggest that the new challenge isn't simply scale and omnipresence but algorithmization - modern platforms can tune and target to the level of the individual. In the past, (dis)information had to be broadcast in a far more one-size-fits-most style, perhaps segmented by broad geographic or demographic groups at best.

> now they can look at pictures of unrealistic bodies all day everywhere they go.

It's worse than that. Now they will be subjected to those pictures whenever they socialize online, like if 30 years ago every telephone was next to a stack of them.

Thankfully, we don't make people sit and stare at cosmo ever time they socialize. We only make people stand and stare at it whenever they buy groceries.

I think the parasocial element of engagement on Twitter and Instagram have a big effect as well. A cover model in a magazine has an air of inaccessibility. She’s clearly an aspirational figure and held above “normal” people.

The way the influencer model works, though, they’re all focused on seeming accessible and relatable. It’s not just that this is a supermodel who is above us all, she’s trying to look like your hot friend. All the products she shills are stuff that’s supposed to make you look like her.

> What has happened is we gave everyone internet access so now they can look at pictures of unrealistic bodies all day everywhere they go.

Not just that. The entire model is to chase you down, pester you with it, and shove products into your face. Which products? Whoever bids the most!

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