Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

Man. Those charts are dire. I'm not entirely sure how much social media is to blame, but it certainly can't be helping. It's certainly pretty telling that most people when asked seem to innately know that social media is bad for them.

However, I find the proposal here kinda lame:

- Mandate academic access and fund research - Ban young children from social media or create a "suitable environment for them"

We all basically know it's bad, but we are going to spend a ton of time figuring out specifically why. Which makes the "suitable environment" kinda self-defeating - we don't know what a suitable environment is! And banning teens from doing something popular... I'm not even sure how seriously to take this suggestion.

So we know something is bad (probably for all ages), but no one really wants to stop doing it. (Someone will probably comment about business interests, but come on, HN doesn't make money and we are all still here). So I'm really not sure what the end game is. What does fixing/ending social media actually look like?

Personally I think it looks like going back to when your online and offline identities were totally separate. Inhabiting the internet under your real name is living in two different worlds with two different rulesets and pretending the same identity is well-suited to both.

100% of your online identity was under your control in my day. You were exactly who you chose to be. Not anymore. Now if you're ugly, fat, gay, a minority in real life you're the same online. The internet is not an escape anymore. That's why it's making more kids kill themselves now than it was twenty years ago.

Are there any studies showing using 4chan, tumblr, or reddit has better mental health outcomes than non-anonymous social networks? I'm skeptical from my own experience.

Probably depends on how much you identify with your alter ego.

I grew up on 4chan, it’s nice to be a total flaming fuckface every now and then. Even on this website I throwaway accounts after a while.

Anonymity is an escape from the drudgery of this pseudo “real life” created by social media. You associate your real anything and you will pay the price.

Whether it be a photo or video, saying something that someone somewhere might find offensive—you end with all hurt and pain with nothing to gain.

Living on Twitter and Twitch et al for a while now, my thinking has become that there's only one way to derive well-being from these platforms: humor.

The best way to engage with these platforms is to not take shit on them seriously and have fun (whether that's being a total flaming fuckface or otherwise). If some subset of the population can't handle that, that's their problem, and they should get off the platform; otherwise, everyone's well-being collapses down to some lame common denominator, and no one's happy.

A thing that sucks is that the platforms themselves are inherently at odds with their users' well-being. Not taking things seriously? That's low-engagement. Humor? That's bound to upset some advertiser, somewhere. No sex, no jokes, only solemn outrage with no bad words plz.

That's true, also considering how many people believe or pretend to believe in conspiracy theories as absurd as reptile people and looking at violent protests that have been happening in the last years. So at least the negative effects have become most apparent in adults actually

> Personally I think it looks like going back to when your online and offline identities were totally separate.

Even this backfired at me when I was dating. Everything is completely separate and I get misjudged entirely.

But maybe I'm talking to the wrong people, but a lot of people are kinda the same in that regard.

My current girlfriend was kind enough to take a chance on me, despite having only a single photo on a rarely-used Facebook account. While it worked out, her next guesses were "I'm being catfished" and "Dude's definitely a serial killer".

I fully get how having a smaller online footprint makes tracking down a date harder.

> "...despite having only a single photo on a rarely-used Facebook account. While it worked out, her next guesses were "I'm being catfished" and "Dude's definitely a serial killer"

Well, I had that too with a girl, no clue if I'm being catfished. But the worst part (I think) is that I'm being very sarcastic on social media, mostly car stuff and I.T. and nothing else.

Haidt and Lukianoff offer a much clearer and stronger case for how social media and other influences are harming youth in their book "The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure".

The link discusses it being international, not just American.

I'm also curious how "coddling" would describe social media.

In my mind they intellectually coddle users by providing an echo chamber where they can spout their ideas to a group chosen specifically of people who will agree with them.

Is that different compared to teenage social groups of the past?

In the past most, especially school aged children and college age adults, needed to carefully craft your acquaintance group and police them through concerted effort, sometimes over years, to get a self-selected group who would challenge you so little. Now all the work is done for you using data you’ve been submitting for review literally the entire time you use the internet.

The real tragedy for me is how many kids and adults go online out of curiosity on a subject and end up on twitter, or facebook, or YouTube. The curiosity gets replaced with seeking those dopamine hits from endlessly scrolling.

Edit: dont forget youtube.

Imagine you have a history of buying into hysterics (or “enjoys controversial science”) and are curious about astronomy, or politics. Log on to youtube or facebook to find communities where people are discussing these topics and you’re directed to flat earth, and qanon, pol pot fans, among others.

These established groups are full of people who will tell you whatever you were on about is dead on, any time someone comes in and shares evidence to the contrary can be banned so you don't need to think about it anymore, dogpiled on so that their responses become less and less informative, accused of brigading. All this gives you a good out if you'd like to avoid being challenged and just straight pulling in those dopamine hits.

Again you can do this in real life but it takes work to keep and maintain an echo chamber in the real world. On social media you’re effectively automating away the problem.

Edit: don't forget about the tankies

The coddling argument is imho just weak. It is "the kids these days have it too easy" argument to devalue their positions without really arguing with them.

>And banning teens from doing something popular... I'm not even sure how seriously to take this suggestion.

This is such a strange thing to me. I understand that kids want to fit in, but really are parents supposed to always make sure they fit in even when trends are actively harmful? Kids haven't always even had so many peers-- 300 years ago you'd spend most of your time with relatives much older than you learning life skills. Was that really so terrible for them? If kids must fit in, then parents are basically screwed because many children and adults overuse social media. I just find it so strange that limiting kids activities is just seen as not worth even trying.

Here's an old idea: don't believe anything you see on the internet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com