Bad FOR you, yes; bad as an experience, no. It tastes good and facilitates socialization.
>social media has some good sides in that it allows you to keep in touch with family and friends who may be far away. It was fun
Again, this speaks more to the experience than the health effects. Note that you said ‘it was fun’ in the same way that I can say the cigs I’ve smoked were fun.
I don’t think the comparisons are too wrong to be honest. They are both activities that can facilitate ‘fun’ social interactions but with a deleterious effect on one’s health (cardiovascular and mental)
Like the original comment, I won’t be surprised if social media becomes stigmatized as people continue to realize more negative effects, but I doubt any of the effects are going to be as serious as cigarettes.
It’s hard to compare the data, but I’m pretty sure smoking is much worse for you. A bad smoking habit is likely to kill you. There’s a point at which you smoke so much that it’s more likely to be the reason you die than anything else. Social media just makes you miserable.
While tobacco might be a first-order cause of its ills (cancer, etc), the second order effects of social media might have cascading effects that is too early to tell on a long time frame.
I’d be intrigued to read any decade long studies looking at the well-being of users of MySpace and the early adopters of Facebook.
I highly doubt we’ll ever see anything even remotely akin to the risks of tobacco. Tobacco is a medical nightmare. The problems that would likely be caused by social media can be treated and reversed. It’s night and day between the two.
As the commenter stated, it’s an unpopular opinion that social media is as bad as cigarettes.
How can you be so sure, that we will never see anything as bad / risky as tabacco? Sure, we do know a lot about the physical consequences to our body, but there is so much more to it than just that. Getting cancer, any other illness or damage to our body sucks, however these are consequences we do know exist. Do you consider, that you probably will hang out with different kind of people and as a consequent develop differently? Do you consider the addiction, not beeing able to concentrate for a long time without a breake, because you are longing for the next cigarette? Do u consider ...
This list could go on and on and each of these aspects gets worse the younger you are. Of course I can't tell if these example truely have a big negativ effect on you, but I am sure, that these and other factors shape you as a person.
Now we look at social media, which tend to have not that many physical consequences for your body. However there are so many more psychological factors shaping your brain, behavior and habits. Addiction, false role model, always having social pressure just to name a few. You are rigth, these factors did exist before, but in a much smaller scale. Furthermore a parent can only raise and help his children grow and develop as much, as they are spending time together. Nowadays kids spend a lot of time on the internet / social media, which it used to spend with other children playing and while playing with other kids, learning how to behave in a society. Of course we didn't always do as our parent told us, but we never even come close to the f*cked up stuff we see on the internet daily. We never had a million eyes watching every step and be judged by them. Home was a safe place.
I spent quit a lot of time on this comment, way too much to be honest, but what I am trying to say is:
-These 'normal' factors are on a massive scale and the impact they have, direct or indirect, shouldn't be taken lightly -There is no safe place anymore. If you are not on social media, you are 'different' / 'weird' -Parents have way less influence on the development of their children
The problems you list are significant and bad, but many of them will improve as society as a whole learns to parent in an age of social media. Not just this, but as people grow to see how negatively social media affects you, the public attitudes toward it will change and adapt. At no point in this process is social media going to be killing people.
I’m not saying that social media doesn’t cause the very negative things you outline. I’m just pointing out that it’s not as bad as smoking.
That being said, I’m all for legislation that stops young people from using social media. I think it would be totally reasonable to make it illegal under a certain age.
It seems like it’s too early to tell how severe the second and third order effects of social media are on one’s own well-being and the well-being of society.
Or it tastes like shit and facilitates people running away from the stink of your poison. Maybe they'll socialize over it.
It does become a vile sludge, you're not wrong about that.
Smoking has far more benefits than social media, especially social benefits.
If you have a pack of 20 cigarettes at a bar, you have 20 new friends you haven't even met yet. Smokers stick together. Sharing a cigarette is a bonding moment for a lot of people.
I could go on. Fuck social media. I don't want to see underage girls whoring themselves out. I don't want to see man children acting cringe for likes. If I WANT to keep up with my family, I'll call them on the phone.
Sure, but there are numerous other ways of doing that without bringing in the problems of social media.
The harder part is figuring out how to handle public content, because there are still innocuous or positive uses for it as well.
Framing it as self control problems is also a non starter. That shit is skillfully made addictive - if your outcomes are a high chance of chronic use and related illness or a low chance of occasional use and questionable benefits then the overall expected value is still deeply negative.