13 ms·

Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

170 points by known 9y ago

u_int16 9y ago
Mayhaps not just Teenagers. My grandfather has slowly been slipping into a deep depression. Not trying to slap correlations with a causal label, but man oh man how he has started to rely on social media. To continue being anecdotal: getting rid of my Facebook has (after a few years) greatly helped me feel butter (intentional typo, you betcha).
Kenji 9y ago
Governments all over the world will use the agenda "social media is bad, people need to be protected from it" to regulate how we interact with each other over digital media. This will stifle our ability to communicate and organize against laws and government actions that are not right. Meanwhile school homework gets more and more ridiculous and children get medicated with who knows what kind of psychoactive substances because they cannot deal with it, but no, that's not the cause of teenager mental health problems.
- visarga 9y ago
  > Meanwhile school homework gets more and more ridiculous Parents need to adjust their expectations, or the kids are caught between a rock and a hard place. The school won't show mercy.
  - fwn 9y ago
    > The school won't show mercy. I guess this is very specific to the US phenomenon explained in the article. In my German schooling history, cheating the homework was trivial and well established. Everyone got the degree and it was a running gag that grades are inflated. If you fail you can just switch systems and do the degree somewhere else; no hard feelings. If you don't want to switch (because let's say you can't get another school to take you in the area and want to continue to live with your parents) there is a second educational path (zweiter Bildungsweg) which allows you do retry to get the degree. From my perspective, the pressure I was feeling was entirely self-made and - in retrospective - unnecessary. Therefore: I would love to see evidence whether or not those findings get approved in other educational systems like in the German speaking countries.
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    The schools need to come up with ways to teach more material, more rigorously, in fewer years -- at least for the intelligent students with healthy upbringings. You cannot expect the school system to function as psychological counselors, remedial educators, baby-sitters, and rigorous educators all in one. Society's choice has been to take the first three and sacrifice the last one, as a result of which, students have more and more "work" imposed on them, with standards for excellence becoming steadily more inflated, without undergraduate-, postgraduate-, and professional-level outcomes improving linearly.
adtac 9y ago
These days I use facebook just for its messenger. On my computer, I skip facebook.com and go to messenger.com directly. On mobile (I refuse to install their apps), I go to mbasic.facebook.com because Facebook doesn't let me access the messenger tab in the mobile facebook website, nagging me to install their messenger app. Messenger is a really useful tool to stay connected. Pretty much everyone I know is available there, so using it is a net positive for me. Can't say the same about the news feed itself. (I know that the article isn't talking about Facebook in particular, but I just thought this is worth sharing.)
- svara 9y ago
  Also, you can export the event and birthday calendar to a different calendar app (https://www.facebook.com/help/152652248136178?helpref=uf_permalink https://www.facebook.com/help/152652248136178?helpref=uf_per...).
- fit2rule 9y ago
  Messenger is at least as good as a decent IRC server, with your friends all agreeing to use an IRC client app, instead. Super weird to see that we're coming full circle; it used to be that you had to install a special app to chat with your friends, same as it ever was today ..
  - chrisseaton 9y ago
    > with your friends all agreeing to use an IRC client app I can’t imagine what world you live in where this is a realistic options. I couldn’t even persuade my tech friends to do this, let alone my wider friend group who work in different fields.
    - fit2rule 9y ago
      Its basically a no-brainer to set up an IRC app .. if you can install Messenger, you can easily set up a jabber or IRC client. The hard part is sending the URL to your friends so they can just easily join you, but who needs friends like that? ;)
- 9y ago
genericacct 9y ago
As opposed to growing more anxious and depressed due to television watching?
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  Television is fantasy for the most part. I use it as because I'm lonely. I have it on all the time. I don't watch the depressing commercials though. It's a little friend. Facebook on the other hand is different. It's a bit too much realism. I go on, and I don't feel better. My first reaction is why are people so self-aware. Second is why do people love to argue, or look for self adoration at this never satiated level. Then I think about all the people I knew who passed. I thought at first, I felt depressed, was over jealousy, but jealousy is not the main factor. My hope is people are not like the person they try so hard to be in that website. Then again, I'm kinda crazy? I've always been a square peg in a round peg world.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  Or just about any other media, if you listened to my parents you would think the world is about to end.
- bernardino 9y ago
  You're right, also television! But also other things. Which makes me think of the products that I use that are algorithmically built for addictiveness - not to say all products are initially built with the intention of being addictive, but products gradually become so and a company then unethically pushes new features that will further the addictiveness since that keeps the user coming back/on the product. An example of the latter is Netflix or Spotify. Netflix, last time I checked, now auto plays previews of shows on the main page - a way to get the user to be intrigued, stay on the product, and keep watching more shows. Spotify, while a revolutionary product, I find is addictive - millions of songs a user has yet to listen to? Well, then that is more of a reason for the user to plunge into two hours of music searching and while the user is at it, why not create a playlist for every occasion that might occur. The latter two examples being poor examples, but yet, there are products/services all around us which manipulate our mind. I have always been keen on building something, a product or service, something morally and ethically just - no advertisements, no gimmicks, etc. I.e. Spotify should have a optional pop-message say: "You have been listening to music for five hours. You should let your ears rest and make some pumpkin pie." Or from Netflix: "You have just watched the entire season of two shows. You should really go lay under a tree in a park and eat some grapes." Again, the latter two examples are not likely, they are dream-like features but this is what I dictate to be a movement towards more healthy products/services to which we need. In modern day, we must then be extra aware of what we consciously consume and put in our head day in and day out in our everyday life. We might even decipher if this is what we want to consume, if it is healthy, if it is the way we want to lead our lives. The latter being an approach I took to deciding to stop: watching, reading, and listening to the news, bookmarking countless of articles I find (Pocket, the bookmarking saving tool, is particularly overwhelming), sticking to just a few websites I regularly visit, not using/having any social media account, etc. Above all, I'll finish this comment off with two of my favorite quotes and a video about everyday virtue that I think is appropriate in regard to the article and something teenagers should come to know: Thomas Merton: "The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds.” Andrei Tarkovsky from Sculpting in Time: “Modern mass culture, aimed at the 'consumer', the civilisation of prosthetics, is crippling people's souls, setting up barriers between man and the crucial questions of his existence, his consciousness of himself as a spiritual being.” Everyday Virtue, an analysis of the independent film Paterson with support from ideas of David Foster Wallace (it's about awareness, normal and ordinary everyday life, etc): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnGvWTRQ9j4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnGvWTRQ9j4
throwaway413 9y ago
My wife just left me due to the rabbit hole that Instagram has taken her down. She’s a completely different person now. Social media addiction is real, and scary.
- PuffinBlue 9y ago
  Can you expand on this? I don't really understand how x lead to y as i don't have much idea about social media addiction at all or its effects.
  - throwaway413 9y ago
    We moved to a new city. I work full time (from home) as a SWE. She is a stay at home mom. She met new people on IG in our new city, made friends. I thought it was great. My wife has a hole deep inside her from years of childhood abuse. She has no career, is early 20s like myself, and has yet to figure herself out. As the months went by, she filled that hole more and more with her connections on IG and less with our family/relationship. Her follower count grew from a few hundred to 10,000. She started spending more and more time taking videos for her followers. It got to the point where I would come home from work, ask how her day was, she’d say “fine.” And then about an hour later or later that night, there would be a multi paragraph long post of hers about her day. She put more effort into her relationship with IG than she did with us. It makes sense, I mean shit, every single post she would get hundreds of comments saying all sorts of nice things. I tried to keep up. But IG filled that hole in her heart much faster than I could. Keep in mind we weren’t just some random marriage. We were best friends for a year before we even started dating. She decided she is “pansexual” and “polyamorous” and no longer wanted to be “tied down”. She refused to leave me because I pay all the bills. So I suffered for a few months while she brought home different people. Eventually I got my own apartment and walked out. Even though I technically walked out at the end, she left me mentally long ago. She now spends all her free time with her IG cliques instead of getting a job or going to school...or anything worthwhile really. Just more photoshoots. More posting. More spending. She doesn’t have an remorse or regret to her. She thinks she is on the path to her greatness, blah blah blah, monogamy is ownership, all these things she just keeps repeating from memes she reads from “woke” accounts. Fake facts and stats from “sources” that are just anonymous accounts posting bullshit. Millenials (my generation) browse this shit, read it, and believe it without any doubt in their heads. Meanwhile I’m paying about ~$4k a month in just rent and car bills for her. Not including anything else. OH and did I mention - the main girls she hangs out with from IG, 4 of them, are ALL going through divorces in the past two months. 4 of them. And they don’t see any connection between them. Either they are lying to my face and have some sort of secret pact going on to be single...or that’s some seriously strong groupthink right there. Social media echo chambers are real. Edit - I left out this private details because I originally deemed it unnecessary to share, but I think it might explain why I’m being so “nice”. She thinks she’s lesbian, or bi. She’s been bringing home women. She has a girlfriend now. If it was guys then yeah I think it would be easier to just be all pissed off. But the fact that it’s women, rational or not, for some reason makes it more confusing for me to deal with. Sorry for leaving this out. Thank you for all the feedback and advice. All if it is extremely helpful.
hacker_9 9y ago
I'd say this is more a problem with human nature, that social media is just exposing at a whole new level. It's basic biology to want to be the best, in order to attract the best mate etc. Social media has blown open a world where not only is there always someone better, more attractive, more fun, more social-able etc than you but also that the levels these people reach will always be unobtainable for you.
- polskibus 9y ago
  Of course it is, but then if it wasn't for that, social media would've never gotten so successful in the first place. What matters is the effect it has on the society, esp. on the immature minds that are taking shape. If you break it early, it may never unlock its full potential or be happy.
- 0xBA5ED 9y ago
  This is how I feel about all the people on HN who are vastly smarter than me.
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    The thing is, if you're going to compare yourself to others (which is something I'd recommend keeping to a minimum), it's easy enough to find someone who is more knowledgeable about something than you, but if you treat it as an opportunity to learn more then there's no downsides. Also, it's unlikely you'll find many people who are more knowledgeable than you on everything you know something about. Our own experience leads to different specialisations. I don't know your background, but I'm sure there are some things you have more knowledge about than me, and some things I have more knowledge about than you. If you only see someone as smarter you're only seeing part of the picture.
  - k4ch0w 9y ago
    I like being around the guys here on HN. I don't mind that they are smarter than I. You always learn something new and are surrounded by the latest in Tech. I'd say just surrounding yourself with the people here will in turn make you smarter/knowledgeable.
enord 9y ago
Did this trend start with social media? We are doing lots of stuff to teenagers these days that we didnt do before. They are beholden to expectations far narrower than we were. We treat them as adults in school (by making them responsible for their own performance through grading and measuring) from a very young age, yet we don't really cut the umbelical cord (grant them autonomy) until they're in their twenties. Socially they're expected to act in their long term interest, at the expense of social and emotional self-realization (i.e. "maturing") for a long time, and the only alternative is failure (now on prominent display on social media heh...)
- throwaway613834 9y ago
  > We treat them as adults in school (by making them responsible for their own performance through grading and measuring) from a very young age Really? I feel like even in college students don't always feel like they are responsible for their own performance & grades (and an honest one at that). Look at all the cheating and grade inflation and grading complaints (even by parents!!) that have gone towards becoming the norm over the last decade or two in college. In the adult world it's not like your mom can call your boss and complain about the fact that you got a bad review or something (at least not successfully...). It's not like it always used to be like this in school either. Kids are honestly just not maturing into adults as they used to, whether it their own fault, or their parents', or social media's, or the government's, or anyone else's.
  - std_throwaway 9y ago
    > In the adult world it's not like your mom can call your boss and complain about the fact that you got a bad review or something (at least not successfully...). Don't be so sure about that. Parents are starting to talk to university professors on behalf of their adult children.
    - jghn 9y ago
      That was the point they were making
timthelion 9y ago
I believe that social media is a symptom, not the cause, of the great loneliness that our modern aloneness has caused. We are alone much of the time, especially in American suburbia. Even when we are in the city filled with people, these people are just blank faces whom we do not know. We are seeking any form of connection that we can get. And when the only connection to others that we have is through the computer, we become addicted to it. That said, I believe that once addicted to social media, the bubble of safety that we feel from "eating social junk food". The screen bubble, can become alluring and some people fall into it. I remember at the Prague hackerspace, how we'd all be sitting around the table, and I'd be confused, why people were laughing and interacting without words. It was a while till I realized that they were chatting on IRC.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  "Social junk food" is a good description Though I think the hacker space example is not bad, the technology helped people come together, and brought them closer (at least initially)
- olivermarks 9y ago
  http://nautil.us/blog/-why-facebook-is-the-junk-food-of-socializing http://nautil.us/blog/-why-facebook-is-the-junk-food-of-soci...
- hux_ 9y ago
  The cause is 30-40 years of a mindless consumption culture. It has given us growth but at a price. The good news is we it seems to be hitting it limits. And that's when things change. For the better.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    While I hate consumerism, I wonder why you say that it has caused our loneliness. Wouldn't it be possible to buy large numbers of board games, and other social goods while not becoming isolated? It actually seems to me that consumption is for the most part social. I mean, if I spend all day at home on reddit, what do I need to buy besides cereal and soylent powder? But if I'm going out all the time, I'll buy clothing to keep up with the local fashions, I'll buy wine to bring as a gift, ect. Even the constant home improvement, that basement cinema and the pool room, are initially understood as social purchases. "We need this patio so we can have parties." "I'm gona invite all my friends over and we'll play X-Box."
tc7 9y ago
So what is it about "Social Media" that's causing this? Article has a passing mention of coveting exotic holidays. (I haven't read the mentioned book.) So is it (just) comparison? "Everyone else's life is amazing / I'm the only one who's faking it." What about unhealthy levels of screen usage in general? Do kids who play video games instead of going outside/socializing face-to-face feel the same way (to some extent)? Maybe media (news/commentary) intake through these services contributes? We all have our echo chambers of ever-spiraling outrage at the Evil of the Other Side -- does this add to feeling powerless, or that the future is hopeless? Certainly aren't being exposed to reasoned debate... Broader, do our modern technologies now allow more complete, socially acceptable escape from 'real life'? And the further we get from non-virtual interactions with _anything_ the more ill we become?
roman_savchuk 9y ago
“People only post what they want you to see, so it can seem like their life is better than yours.” Not mention how often these displays of a better person/better life are exaggerations or straightforward lies.
have_faith 9y ago
The internet has become a world wide soap opera that we are all characters in. ISP's sell a subscription service to minutely episodes of the whole spectrum of human emotion. I also get as much negative and positive feedback as I desire and can take a hit whenever I open my phone.
amriksohata 9y ago
Don't forget the effect modern day food with all the added estrogen in diary, antibiotics given to animals, pesticides, added sugar and palm oils all now in their gut, mix in less sleep and social media and no wonder their moods are screwed. You are what you eat.
alva 9y ago
I think a large part of it is due to excessive exposure to life of the rich and successful. Seeing these images through Instagram feels more like a personal interaction than through a magazine, not to mention the frequency. I have felt this myself having for a period followed the 'it' group in my city. These people were in the best clubs, restaurants, yachts, holiday destinations almost all the time surrounding by beautiful and what appears to be interesting people. Hard not to feel deprived when your monkey mind perceives that as somewhat normal. Despite a very, very small number of people who have this lifestyle, there are enough for this type of life to appear pervasive. In the past our exposure to this subset of people was extremely limited. Fashion and gossip magazines would do profiles giving a small glimpse into the world. Generally the incredible lives some people have was hidden. I think it is probably best not to be frequently reminded of a lifestyle that is likely out of your reach. If one thinks not obtaining this lifestyle is a failure (work on this thought if you do!), don't reopen the wound several times a day.
menacingly 9y ago
To me, this overall cheapening of life is a problem bigger than social media. Before recorded music, getting to hear a performance was an event in itself. I can only imagine it was savored. Now, the constant, high-speed bombardment of new music has made our tastes fickle and cheapened the experience. It's not "bad", but it has changed that part of being a person. We've done it to everything. Food, film, clothing, books, and social interaction. These things we criticize are just specific symptoms of the overall trend, but I can't imagine a scenario where it doesn't happen. It's an unavoidable outcome of our increasing the pace and availability of things. Again, not even sure it's bad, it just feels weird. I don't know how you scale a civilization any other way. As you get older, it's common to think of yourself as having been born "too late" for something, and I try to be mindful of that tendency. However, it's one thing to lament not being able to be a cowboy, it's another to wistfully look back on life having any manageable pace.
dawhizkid 9y ago
I find instagram to be, by far, the most damaging to my mental health of all the social networks. The explore feed must be optimized to relentlessly show "all the people I wish I could be but will never be."
- exodust 9y ago
  Are you saying that if you were unaware those people existed, your mental health would benefit? I don't understand. "Ignorance is bliss" surely can't be an antidote to depression.
  - dawhizkid 9y ago
    The point is that it's so easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to the artificial lives of professional "influencers" on Instagram who are selling you a lifestyle for their own gain. It isn't so much "ignorance is bliss" so much as realizing the life they sell isn't really real. Even among "non-influencers" everyone is optimizing posts to show the happiest parts of their lives, which is a tiny slice of our reality. When you're feeling depressed or anxious, being bombarded with a feed of artificially happy people only makes you more depressed or anxious.
- icodemuch 9y ago
  Instagram was never my favorite, but I could at least get behind the old news feed sorting by "most recent". I recently deleted the app bc of the new sorting algorithm, which I'm not a fan of. At least Facebook gives the option to switch the news feed sorting back to "most recent".
brndnmtthws 9y ago
If you take a train or a bus, or are in any other public space, you may notice that a bunch of people (young and old) spend their time staring into their phones. And most of the time, if you glance at their phone, you'll see they're on Instagram. They're staring into this machine fantasizing about some image of how great life is, meanwhile their real life is passing them by. And they wonder why they're not getting all the likes. As the current president would say, SAD.
- greeneggs 9y ago
  Or, perhaps they are being inspired. Planning their own art or adventure. If you're sitting on a train, why not? (Is reading a book equally objectionable, or is going to a museum?) It's rather offensive to judge people about whom you know nothing. (As is quoting President Trump as if he is an authority on anything.)
  - brndnmtthws 9y ago
    Are you a FB employee or something? Sounds like you're making an ad sales pitch.
    - saagarjha 9y ago
      But their point still stands-it’s entirely possible to use Instagram in a “positive” way.
      - brndnmtthws 9y ago
        I think that's an idealized view. My opinion is that it does more harm than good. On a large scale, at least. Individually, sure, there are some people who can handle it, but it's mostly a net-negative for the world.
        aalleavitch 9y ago
        I'd like to see the data, personally. I'm sure there have been plenty of studies of how social media affects society, but do we have much of a consensus?
osrec 9y ago
Comparatives are too easy to draw these days because of social media. Everyone has an image of the most popular/successful person in their face all the time. It's hard not to compare yourself! And when you fall short in comparison, it makes you feel unhappy. Then it makes you feel like you need some moonshot idea to elevate your standards - that puts pressure on you and invariably drives anxiety. I see growing levels of anxiety in the interns I hire - and ironically, I see them resorting to social media to find solace of some kind!
- exodust 9y ago
  I still don't see how comparing to success causes unhappiness. This theory is too convenient and is spreading like a disease. When you see someone who is popular and successful, the normal and healthy response is admiration and inspiration. If you fail to have your own wins of some kind, then this could be the source of unhappiness, but that is because you didn't have a win, not because others did.
  - stri8ed 9y ago
    The problem is, you are seeing people in completely different environments, some of which are infeasible for you to attain. Its worth noting, the issues related to income inequality are due to relative inequality, not absolute.
  - osrec 9y ago
    It causes unhappiness because it highlights that you are relatively worse off. And I wasn't talking about comparisons between yourself and some random celebrity, but moreso a comparison between yourself and a person you might have been at college with. If that person is doing exceptionally well, and you're doing just okay, there is a strong chance it will stir up jealously and negativity rather than admiration. This is also the topic of multiple sitcoms, which generally tend to zoom in on relatable facets of human nature ;)
johnsprial 9y ago
"You’ve reached your article limit" economist.com. :-/
riledhel 9y ago
Is a TL;DR version for the people on the other side of the paywall?
- known 9y ago
  http://archive.is/jsxCD http://archive.is/jsxCD
borplk 9y ago
One way to think about some of this stuff is that "the society has changed too much too quickly for our biology to catch up".
vowelless 9y ago
There is more social isolation, less meaningful relationships, less sex, debt, overwork, medication and a DDoS on your attention via YouTube, Netflix, CNN, foxnews. It's not just social media and not just teens.
danschumann 9y ago
I think it takes a tiny bit of courage to look around the room, to have thoughts in public, and to have an image of "I'm not constantly busy". There are millions of George Costanzas, who are constantly acting busy in and high demand, not because they don't want more work, but.. well I don't know why. Maybe they actually ARE busy with social media, but I always look at them like they're pretenders. Being free is better than acting busy.
- exodust 9y ago
  Actually I think in this case the problem is yours. Imagine if you were actually doing something on your phone, somewhat important or necessary in some way. And you found out the person near you was assuming you were pretending, that you were acting, in other words you are fake. Not very nice of them to assume that is it?
rayiner 9y ago
Is there any real research that suggests iPhones are the cause? Couldn’t it be things that are much more mundane: we just went through an enormous recession, which caused a lot of money problems in families. We’re at an unprecedented point in the level of acrimony in politics, which is filtering down into parents’ everyday conversations. We’re on the precipice of being destroyed by global warming and pretty much all experts agree that today’s kids will have a lower standard of living than their parents. Maybe kids are anxious and depressed because they’re reading the news (on their iPhones?) and realize how fucked they are?
SolaceQuantum 9y ago
Having directed this to my teenaged younger sibling (he is intelligent and expressive) he explained in his view, teenagers have a poor prognosis for their career prospects and are aware of this. Technology allows them to be aware that life doesn’t look good for them, that they cannot look forward to retirement, to a stable long term career, that the amount of education and debt they will need to accrue is ever-increasing, that their success in this society will rely on using and stepping on others who will now have less as a result, if not in their own community then in the international stage. He attends one of the best schools in the nation and he believes most of his peers feel the same pressures both of their career prospects and their place in the greater international stage and all the things that are wrong with it that they cannot change because they cannot be in a position to change with any sense of ease (e.g. to have enough money to buy jeans not made via human exploitation requires an amount of success that feels as if it is becoming rarer,and even then how do you help people who cannot afford them to avoid exploiting other humans) All in all, I think a growing awareness of the worlds problems and their individual struggles to be in a position for themselves is a pretty good reason for teenagers to feel more anxious and depressed.
- akhilcacharya 9y ago
  > that life doesn’t look good for them, that they cannot look forward to retirement, to a stable long term career, that the amount of education and debt they will need to accrue is ever-increasing > attends one of the best schools in the nation um, what? I get this feeling if you don't go to one of the best schools in the nation - like me - but I'd be very surprised to see the same attitude at Harvard or Stanford. Those guys are so happy!
- draw_down 9y ago
  They know they've been swindled. At some level, Boomers know it too, which is why they prefer to focus on the phone stuff. Millenials can't afford to buy houses because they pay too much for iPhones, not because their jobs pay shit and housing prices have gone way up and they're drowning in student debt. Et cetera.
- downandout 9y ago
  >their success in this society will rely on using and stepping on others who will now have less as a result That reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. While there are indeed predatory business models where this is true - casinos etc. - most highly successful people and businesses become successful by creating value, not siphoning it from others.
jpster 9y ago
Columbine, 9/11, the financial crisis and student debt were all mentioned in this article as possible contributors to teens’ depression. What about climate change? The young will bear the brunt of of it, they know it and they can see that “no one” cares enough to do anything substantive about it. This could be a strong dynamic in this depression trend, too.
mnr 9y ago
I have always felt that seeing other people’s success and happiness is not the cause of this type of behavioral change. I think that social media causes damage in two ways. First of all, the feed/timeline/wall delivery system of information delivery must have some play in this. On instagram, I follow friends, family, coworkers, artists, creators, meme curators, technical brands, etc. They all deliver very different content, but I’m generally exposed to them in the same feed. So while I scroll through my feed, I do so much context switching that I get attention-motion sickness. I enjoy the post as I scroll though but I don’t retain anything. I could scroll through hundreds of posts in just a few minutes, and I’ll hardly remember any of what I’ve seen. It’s like an exercise in half paying attention, or an exercise of forgetting. But, we do it every single day, all the time. The information highway has gone from an open platform for sharing to a fast lane of content mixed with brands and ads shooting right through my conscious. Then, we have the nerve to call it social. Yes, there’s a lot to say about the amount of connectivity these platforms have given us. But they’ve also changed the conversation we have. Sure, when I directly interact with people on these platforms, I’m doing something kinda social. But you know what’s not social? Staring at, or talking to a wall. No matter who has wiped their shit on it. I’m no biologist, but I know humans have mirror neurons which fire when interacting with other humans/things. So, we have a mechanism(s) in the body that respond to actual face to face interaction. How does an abstraction of technology interact with those mechanisms? I can only assume that the iPhone does not account for this in their UX meetings. It is a little silly to me to assume that the staggering rates of depression and suicide come from reflection on the content these kids are seeing on social media. Social media, when used as designed, does not offer the time to reflect. (I want to say that there are obvious other dangerous aspects of social media that may lend themselves to dangerous behavior as a result of reflection, such as obsession and stalking, bullying, etc)
cbanek 9y ago
I'm sad to say that I think this is the intended result of social media from the corporate/business point of view. Instead of TV, with its advertisements being broad and un-targeted, people are building their own hell by searching for what they want. Then the machines learn get an idea what they want, and show it to them. Part of the nature of advertising is convincing people they need these things, otherwise they will be "out" (old, poor, unpopular, etc.). Instead of maybe one ad in an hour (or a day) triggering you, you're bombarded with reminders of what could be, if you could afford it. Of course the promises are unrealistic and easily broken, but I don't think most people have the mental tools to realize that at the time. There's all this great positive content out there too! Educational videos, science, all that. But it seems the impact of bad things outweighs the good, which just seems to be human nature - we regret things a lot more than we are thankful for what we do not regret. Even if they aren't selling anything to us. It's true that we're comparing across the world now, and there will be someone better than you. But that's almost always been true, although for a lot of the time you didn't know who was better, or they were simply some distant name written in a book, easily forgotten. For example, I think few will rival Aristotle, but nobody seems to care about that. Fear and regret are powerful motivators, but dangerous ones as well. If you can't act for some reason (lack of money, lack of opportunity/ability) it just seems to gnaw at you until you snap. I don't think it's any different than TV, except now amplified via personalization.
indubitable 9y ago
Rather than just e-devices alone, I wonder about the shift in parenting and style of education today. One of the most marked shifts in society today has been the change in direction towards treating everybody as special. Yet children know who the 'smart' kids are, they know who the athletic kids are, they know who the artistic kids are, and so on. How is a kid supposed to feel when he's constantly told he's special, yet he knows he's not particularly great at anything? A wall full of participation trophies isn't going to change that disconnect; unless the child is completely obtuse, it's going to be a reminder of all his failures to ever achieve. Now enter the internet on top of this and it's a perfect storm. The media loves stories, however fake they may often be, of wunderkind 11 year old creates nuclear reactor in basement during downtime between giving violin solos at Carnegie Hall and solving world hunger. And the image crafting of social media only further adds to all of this. Most people are not special, and that is okay. Even when I was young this sort of treating everybody as special had already started to seep into education. The anecdote of Einstein failing at math in high school was one that came up more than a couple of times. Of course he didn't. His response to that rumor, perhaps started by a misunderstanding of a grade change scale, was a laugh and comment that he never failed in math and statement that before he was fifteen he'd mastered differential and integral calculus. It's similar with efforts to posthumously diagnose him with various sorts of disabilities, or even attributing, in part, his success to his wife who failed to achieve a teaching certification -- unable to pass the mathematics component, she gave up after two attempts. Ultimately I think we should treat nobody as special. And require people prove it through their own deeds. There should be every possible opportunity for anybody to achieve such merit, but people should not be expected to be special. It's simply unrealistic and, even if it may make us (as in the parents and teachers creating this facade) feel better about ourselves, I don't think it's achieving the intended effect.
dgudkov 9y ago
It very well can be because teenagers are more vulnerable to the flood of shallow and sensationalist information pouring on them from media, amplified by social networks. Even for adults it can be hard to keep positive thinking after watching/reading news nowadays. No wonder teens struggle with it even more.
kelvin747 9y ago
This is an urban planning problem. Plain and simple
kelvin747 9y ago
This is an urban planning problem
vorotato 9y ago
Wages stagnating, costs of college increasing, and most teenagers are pretty upset about the political climate, but I'm sure it's social media. Sure the markets have improved, but that improvement hasn't really been reflected in wage growth.

170 points by known 9y ago

Mayhaps not just Teenagers. My grandfather has slowly been slipping into a deep depression. Not trying to slap correlations with a causal label, but man oh man how he has started to rely on social media. To continue being anecdotal: getting rid of my Facebook has (after a few years) greatly helped me feel butter (intentional typo, you betcha).

Kenji 9y ago

Governments all over the world will use the agenda "social media is bad, people need to be protected from it" to regulate how we interact with each other over digital media. This will stifle our ability to communicate and organize against laws and government actions that are not right. Meanwhile school homework gets more and more ridiculous and children get medicated with who knows what kind of psychoactive substances because they cannot deal with it, but no, that's not the cause of teenager mental health problems.

visarga 9y ago
> Meanwhile school homework gets more and more ridiculous Parents need to adjust their expectations, or the kids are caught between a rock and a hard place. The school won't show mercy.
- fwn 9y ago
  > The school won't show mercy. I guess this is very specific to the US phenomenon explained in the article. In my German schooling history, cheating the homework was trivial and well established. Everyone got the degree and it was a running gag that grades are inflated. If you fail you can just switch systems and do the degree somewhere else; no hard feelings. If you don't want to switch (because let's say you can't get another school to take you in the area and want to continue to live with your parents) there is a second educational path (zweiter Bildungsweg) which allows you do retry to get the degree. From my perspective, the pressure I was feeling was entirely self-made and - in retrospective - unnecessary. Therefore: I would love to see evidence whether or not those findings get approved in other educational systems like in the German speaking countries.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  The schools need to come up with ways to teach more material, more rigorously, in fewer years -- at least for the intelligent students with healthy upbringings. You cannot expect the school system to function as psychological counselors, remedial educators, baby-sitters, and rigorous educators all in one. Society's choice has been to take the first three and sacrifice the last one, as a result of which, students have more and more "work" imposed on them, with standards for excellence becoming steadily more inflated, without undergraduate-, postgraduate-, and professional-level outcomes improving linearly.

adtac 9y ago

These days I use facebook just for its messenger. On my computer, I skip facebook.com and go to messenger.com directly. On mobile (I refuse to install their apps), I go to mbasic.facebook.com because Facebook doesn't let me access the messenger tab in the mobile facebook website, nagging me to install their messenger app. Messenger is a really useful tool to stay connected. Pretty much everyone I know is available there, so using it is a net positive for me. Can't say the same about the news feed itself. (I know that the article isn't talking about Facebook in particular, but I just thought this is worth sharing.)

svara 9y ago
Also, you can export the event and birthday calendar to a different calendar app (https://www.facebook.com/help/152652248136178?helpref=uf_permalink https://www.facebook.com/help/152652248136178?helpref=uf_per...).
fit2rule 9y ago
Messenger is at least as good as a decent IRC server, with your friends all agreeing to use an IRC client app, instead. Super weird to see that we're coming full circle; it used to be that you had to install a special app to chat with your friends, same as it ever was today ..
- chrisseaton 9y ago
  > with your friends all agreeing to use an IRC client app I can’t imagine what world you live in where this is a realistic options. I couldn’t even persuade my tech friends to do this, let alone my wider friend group who work in different fields.
  - fit2rule 9y ago
    Its basically a no-brainer to set up an IRC app .. if you can install Messenger, you can easily set up a jabber or IRC client. The hard part is sending the URL to your friends so they can just easily join you, but who needs friends like that? ;)
9y ago

genericacct 9y ago

As opposed to growing more anxious and depressed due to television watching?

icantdrive55 9y ago
Television is fantasy for the most part. I use it as because I'm lonely. I have it on all the time. I don't watch the depressing commercials though. It's a little friend. Facebook on the other hand is different. It's a bit too much realism. I go on, and I don't feel better. My first reaction is why are people so self-aware. Second is why do people love to argue, or look for self adoration at this never satiated level. Then I think about all the people I knew who passed. I thought at first, I felt depressed, was over jealousy, but jealousy is not the main factor. My hope is people are not like the person they try so hard to be in that website. Then again, I'm kinda crazy? I've always been a square peg in a round peg world.
tonyedgecombe 9y ago
Or just about any other media, if you listened to my parents you would think the world is about to end.
bernardino 9y ago
You're right, also television! But also other things. Which makes me think of the products that I use that are algorithmically built for addictiveness - not to say all products are initially built with the intention of being addictive, but products gradually become so and a company then unethically pushes new features that will further the addictiveness since that keeps the user coming back/on the product. An example of the latter is Netflix or Spotify. Netflix, last time I checked, now auto plays previews of shows on the main page - a way to get the user to be intrigued, stay on the product, and keep watching more shows. Spotify, while a revolutionary product, I find is addictive - millions of songs a user has yet to listen to? Well, then that is more of a reason for the user to plunge into two hours of music searching and while the user is at it, why not create a playlist for every occasion that might occur. The latter two examples being poor examples, but yet, there are products/services all around us which manipulate our mind. I have always been keen on building something, a product or service, something morally and ethically just - no advertisements, no gimmicks, etc. I.e. Spotify should have a optional pop-message say: "You have been listening to music for five hours. You should let your ears rest and make some pumpkin pie." Or from Netflix: "You have just watched the entire season of two shows. You should really go lay under a tree in a park and eat some grapes." Again, the latter two examples are not likely, they are dream-like features but this is what I dictate to be a movement towards more healthy products/services to which we need. In modern day, we must then be extra aware of what we consciously consume and put in our head day in and day out in our everyday life. We might even decipher if this is what we want to consume, if it is healthy, if it is the way we want to lead our lives. The latter being an approach I took to deciding to stop: watching, reading, and listening to the news, bookmarking countless of articles I find (Pocket, the bookmarking saving tool, is particularly overwhelming), sticking to just a few websites I regularly visit, not using/having any social media account, etc. Above all, I'll finish this comment off with two of my favorite quotes and a video about everyday virtue that I think is appropriate in regard to the article and something teenagers should come to know: Thomas Merton: "The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds.” Andrei Tarkovsky from Sculpting in Time: “Modern mass culture, aimed at the 'consumer', the civilisation of prosthetics, is crippling people's souls, setting up barriers between man and the crucial questions of his existence, his consciousness of himself as a spiritual being.” Everyday Virtue, an analysis of the independent film Paterson with support from ideas of David Foster Wallace (it's about awareness, normal and ordinary everyday life, etc): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnGvWTRQ9j4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnGvWTRQ9j4

throwaway413 9y ago

My wife just left me due to the rabbit hole that Instagram has taken her down. She’s a completely different person now. Social media addiction is real, and scary.

PuffinBlue 9y ago
Can you expand on this? I don't really understand how x lead to y as i don't have much idea about social media addiction at all or its effects.
- throwaway413 9y ago
  We moved to a new city. I work full time (from home) as a SWE. She is a stay at home mom. She met new people on IG in our new city, made friends. I thought it was great. My wife has a hole deep inside her from years of childhood abuse. She has no career, is early 20s like myself, and has yet to figure herself out. As the months went by, she filled that hole more and more with her connections on IG and less with our family/relationship. Her follower count grew from a few hundred to 10,000. She started spending more and more time taking videos for her followers. It got to the point where I would come home from work, ask how her day was, she’d say “fine.” And then about an hour later or later that night, there would be a multi paragraph long post of hers about her day. She put more effort into her relationship with IG than she did with us. It makes sense, I mean shit, every single post she would get hundreds of comments saying all sorts of nice things. I tried to keep up. But IG filled that hole in her heart much faster than I could. Keep in mind we weren’t just some random marriage. We were best friends for a year before we even started dating. She decided she is “pansexual” and “polyamorous” and no longer wanted to be “tied down”. She refused to leave me because I pay all the bills. So I suffered for a few months while she brought home different people. Eventually I got my own apartment and walked out. Even though I technically walked out at the end, she left me mentally long ago. She now spends all her free time with her IG cliques instead of getting a job or going to school...or anything worthwhile really. Just more photoshoots. More posting. More spending. She doesn’t have an remorse or regret to her. She thinks she is on the path to her greatness, blah blah blah, monogamy is ownership, all these things she just keeps repeating from memes she reads from “woke” accounts. Fake facts and stats from “sources” that are just anonymous accounts posting bullshit. Millenials (my generation) browse this shit, read it, and believe it without any doubt in their heads. Meanwhile I’m paying about ~$4k a month in just rent and car bills for her. Not including anything else. OH and did I mention - the main girls she hangs out with from IG, 4 of them, are ALL going through divorces in the past two months. 4 of them. And they don’t see any connection between them. Either they are lying to my face and have some sort of secret pact going on to be single...or that’s some seriously strong groupthink right there. Social media echo chambers are real. Edit - I left out this private details because I originally deemed it unnecessary to share, but I think it might explain why I’m being so “nice”. She thinks she’s lesbian, or bi. She’s been bringing home women. She has a girlfriend now. If it was guys then yeah I think it would be easier to just be all pissed off. But the fact that it’s women, rational or not, for some reason makes it more confusing for me to deal with. Sorry for leaving this out. Thank you for all the feedback and advice. All if it is extremely helpful.

hacker_9 9y ago

I'd say this is more a problem with human nature, that social media is just exposing at a whole new level. It's basic biology to want to be the best, in order to attract the best mate etc. Social media has blown open a world where not only is there always someone better, more attractive, more fun, more social-able etc than you but also that the levels these people reach will always be unobtainable for you.

polskibus 9y ago
Of course it is, but then if it wasn't for that, social media would've never gotten so successful in the first place. What matters is the effect it has on the society, esp. on the immature minds that are taking shape. If you break it early, it may never unlock its full potential or be happy.
0xBA5ED 9y ago
This is how I feel about all the people on HN who are vastly smarter than me.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  The thing is, if you're going to compare yourself to others (which is something I'd recommend keeping to a minimum), it's easy enough to find someone who is more knowledgeable about something than you, but if you treat it as an opportunity to learn more then there's no downsides. Also, it's unlikely you'll find many people who are more knowledgeable than you on everything you know something about. Our own experience leads to different specialisations. I don't know your background, but I'm sure there are some things you have more knowledge about than me, and some things I have more knowledge about than you. If you only see someone as smarter you're only seeing part of the picture.
- k4ch0w 9y ago
  I like being around the guys here on HN. I don't mind that they are smarter than I. You always learn something new and are surrounded by the latest in Tech. I'd say just surrounding yourself with the people here will in turn make you smarter/knowledgeable.

enord 9y ago

Did this trend start with social media? We are doing lots of stuff to teenagers these days that we didnt do before. They are beholden to expectations far narrower than we were. We treat them as adults in school (by making them responsible for their own performance through grading and measuring) from a very young age, yet we don't really cut the umbelical cord (grant them autonomy) until they're in their twenties. Socially they're expected to act in their long term interest, at the expense of social and emotional self-realization (i.e. "maturing") for a long time, and the only alternative is failure (now on prominent display on social media heh...)

throwaway613834 9y ago
> We treat them as adults in school (by making them responsible for their own performance through grading and measuring) from a very young age Really? I feel like even in college students don't always feel like they are responsible for their own performance & grades (and an honest one at that). Look at all the cheating and grade inflation and grading complaints (even by parents!!) that have gone towards becoming the norm over the last decade or two in college. In the adult world it's not like your mom can call your boss and complain about the fact that you got a bad review or something (at least not successfully...). It's not like it always used to be like this in school either. Kids are honestly just not maturing into adults as they used to, whether it their own fault, or their parents', or social media's, or the government's, or anyone else's.
- std_throwaway 9y ago
  > In the adult world it's not like your mom can call your boss and complain about the fact that you got a bad review or something (at least not successfully...). Don't be so sure about that. Parents are starting to talk to university professors on behalf of their adult children.
  - jghn 9y ago
    That was the point they were making

timthelion 9y ago

I believe that social media is a symptom, not the cause, of the great loneliness that our modern aloneness has caused. We are alone much of the time, especially in American suburbia. Even when we are in the city filled with people, these people are just blank faces whom we do not know. We are seeking any form of connection that we can get. And when the only connection to others that we have is through the computer, we become addicted to it. That said, I believe that once addicted to social media, the bubble of safety that we feel from "eating social junk food". The screen bubble, can become alluring and some people fall into it. I remember at the Prague hackerspace, how we'd all be sitting around the table, and I'd be confused, why people were laughing and interacting without words. It was a while till I realized that they were chatting on IRC.

raverbashing 9y ago
"Social junk food" is a good description Though I think the hacker space example is not bad, the technology helped people come together, and brought them closer (at least initially)
olivermarks 9y ago
http://nautil.us/blog/-why-facebook-is-the-junk-food-of-socializing http://nautil.us/blog/-why-facebook-is-the-junk-food-of-soci...
hux_ 9y ago
The cause is 30-40 years of a mindless consumption culture. It has given us growth but at a price. The good news is we it seems to be hitting it limits. And that's when things change. For the better.
- timthelion 9y ago
  While I hate consumerism, I wonder why you say that it has caused our loneliness. Wouldn't it be possible to buy large numbers of board games, and other social goods while not becoming isolated? It actually seems to me that consumption is for the most part social. I mean, if I spend all day at home on reddit, what do I need to buy besides cereal and soylent powder? But if I'm going out all the time, I'll buy clothing to keep up with the local fashions, I'll buy wine to bring as a gift, ect. Even the constant home improvement, that basement cinema and the pool room, are initially understood as social purchases. "We need this patio so we can have parties." "I'm gona invite all my friends over and we'll play X-Box."

tc7 9y ago

So what is it about "Social Media" that's causing this? Article has a passing mention of coveting exotic holidays. (I haven't read the mentioned book.) So is it (just) comparison? "Everyone else's life is amazing / I'm the only one who's faking it." What about unhealthy levels of screen usage in general? Do kids who play video games instead of going outside/socializing face-to-face feel the same way (to some extent)? Maybe media (news/commentary) intake through these services contributes? We all have our echo chambers of ever-spiraling outrage at the Evil of the Other Side -- does this add to feeling powerless, or that the future is hopeless? Certainly aren't being exposed to reasoned debate... Broader, do our modern technologies now allow more complete, socially acceptable escape from 'real life'? And the further we get from non-virtual interactions with _anything_ the more ill we become?

roman_savchuk 9y ago

“People only post what they want you to see, so it can seem like their life is better than yours.” Not mention how often these displays of a better person/better life are exaggerations or straightforward lies.

have_faith 9y ago

The internet has become a world wide soap opera that we are all characters in. ISP's sell a subscription service to minutely episodes of the whole spectrum of human emotion. I also get as much negative and positive feedback as I desire and can take a hit whenever I open my phone.

amriksohata 9y ago

Don't forget the effect modern day food with all the added estrogen in diary, antibiotics given to animals, pesticides, added sugar and palm oils all now in their gut, mix in less sleep and social media and no wonder their moods are screwed. You are what you eat.

alva 9y ago

I think a large part of it is due to excessive exposure to life of the rich and successful. Seeing these images through Instagram feels more like a personal interaction than through a magazine, not to mention the frequency. I have felt this myself having for a period followed the 'it' group in my city. These people were in the best clubs, restaurants, yachts, holiday destinations almost all the time surrounding by beautiful and what appears to be interesting people. Hard not to feel deprived when your monkey mind perceives that as somewhat normal. Despite a very, very small number of people who have this lifestyle, there are enough for this type of life to appear pervasive. In the past our exposure to this subset of people was extremely limited. Fashion and gossip magazines would do profiles giving a small glimpse into the world. Generally the incredible lives some people have was hidden. I think it is probably best not to be frequently reminded of a lifestyle that is likely out of your reach. If one thinks not obtaining this lifestyle is a failure (work on this thought if you do!), don't reopen the wound several times a day.

menacingly 9y ago

To me, this overall cheapening of life is a problem bigger than social media. Before recorded music, getting to hear a performance was an event in itself. I can only imagine it was savored. Now, the constant, high-speed bombardment of new music has made our tastes fickle and cheapened the experience. It's not "bad", but it has changed that part of being a person. We've done it to everything. Food, film, clothing, books, and social interaction. These things we criticize are just specific symptoms of the overall trend, but I can't imagine a scenario where it doesn't happen. It's an unavoidable outcome of our increasing the pace and availability of things. Again, not even sure it's bad, it just feels weird. I don't know how you scale a civilization any other way. As you get older, it's common to think of yourself as having been born "too late" for something, and I try to be mindful of that tendency. However, it's one thing to lament not being able to be a cowboy, it's another to wistfully look back on life having any manageable pace.

dawhizkid 9y ago

I find instagram to be, by far, the most damaging to my mental health of all the social networks. The explore feed must be optimized to relentlessly show "all the people I wish I could be but will never be."

exodust 9y ago
Are you saying that if you were unaware those people existed, your mental health would benefit? I don't understand. "Ignorance is bliss" surely can't be an antidote to depression.
- dawhizkid 9y ago
  The point is that it's so easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to the artificial lives of professional "influencers" on Instagram who are selling you a lifestyle for their own gain. It isn't so much "ignorance is bliss" so much as realizing the life they sell isn't really real. Even among "non-influencers" everyone is optimizing posts to show the happiest parts of their lives, which is a tiny slice of our reality. When you're feeling depressed or anxious, being bombarded with a feed of artificially happy people only makes you more depressed or anxious.
icodemuch 9y ago
Instagram was never my favorite, but I could at least get behind the old news feed sorting by "most recent". I recently deleted the app bc of the new sorting algorithm, which I'm not a fan of. At least Facebook gives the option to switch the news feed sorting back to "most recent".

brndnmtthws 9y ago

If you take a train or a bus, or are in any other public space, you may notice that a bunch of people (young and old) spend their time staring into their phones. And most of the time, if you glance at their phone, you'll see they're on Instagram. They're staring into this machine fantasizing about some image of how great life is, meanwhile their real life is passing them by. And they wonder why they're not getting all the likes. As the current president would say, SAD.

greeneggs 9y ago
Or, perhaps they are being inspired. Planning their own art or adventure. If you're sitting on a train, why not? (Is reading a book equally objectionable, or is going to a museum?) It's rather offensive to judge people about whom you know nothing. (As is quoting President Trump as if he is an authority on anything.)
- brndnmtthws 9y ago
  Are you a FB employee or something? Sounds like you're making an ad sales pitch.
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    But their point still stands-it’s entirely possible to use Instagram in a “positive” way.
    - brndnmtthws 9y ago
      I think that's an idealized view. My opinion is that it does more harm than good. On a large scale, at least. Individually, sure, there are some people who can handle it, but it's mostly a net-negative for the world.
      - aalleavitch 9y ago
        I'd like to see the data, personally. I'm sure there have been plenty of studies of how social media affects society, but do we have much of a consensus?

osrec 9y ago

Comparatives are too easy to draw these days because of social media. Everyone has an image of the most popular/successful person in their face all the time. It's hard not to compare yourself! And when you fall short in comparison, it makes you feel unhappy. Then it makes you feel like you need some moonshot idea to elevate your standards - that puts pressure on you and invariably drives anxiety. I see growing levels of anxiety in the interns I hire - and ironically, I see them resorting to social media to find solace of some kind!

exodust 9y ago
I still don't see how comparing to success causes unhappiness. This theory is too convenient and is spreading like a disease. When you see someone who is popular and successful, the normal and healthy response is admiration and inspiration. If you fail to have your own wins of some kind, then this could be the source of unhappiness, but that is because you didn't have a win, not because others did.
- stri8ed 9y ago
  The problem is, you are seeing people in completely different environments, some of which are infeasible for you to attain. Its worth noting, the issues related to income inequality are due to relative inequality, not absolute.
- osrec 9y ago
  It causes unhappiness because it highlights that you are relatively worse off. And I wasn't talking about comparisons between yourself and some random celebrity, but moreso a comparison between yourself and a person you might have been at college with. If that person is doing exceptionally well, and you're doing just okay, there is a strong chance it will stir up jealously and negativity rather than admiration. This is also the topic of multiple sitcoms, which generally tend to zoom in on relatable facets of human nature ;)

johnsprial 9y ago

"You’ve reached your article limit" economist.com. :-/

riledhel 9y ago

Is a TL;DR version for the people on the other side of the paywall?

known 9y ago
http://archive.is/jsxCD http://archive.is/jsxCD

borplk 9y ago

One way to think about some of this stuff is that "the society has changed too much too quickly for our biology to catch up".

vowelless 9y ago

There is more social isolation, less meaningful relationships, less sex, debt, overwork, medication and a DDoS on your attention via YouTube, Netflix, CNN, foxnews. It's not just social media and not just teens.

danschumann 9y ago

I think it takes a tiny bit of courage to look around the room, to have thoughts in public, and to have an image of "I'm not constantly busy". There are millions of George Costanzas, who are constantly acting busy in and high demand, not because they don't want more work, but.. well I don't know why. Maybe they actually ARE busy with social media, but I always look at them like they're pretenders. Being free is better than acting busy.

exodust 9y ago
Actually I think in this case the problem is yours. Imagine if you were actually doing something on your phone, somewhat important or necessary in some way. And you found out the person near you was assuming you were pretending, that you were acting, in other words you are fake. Not very nice of them to assume that is it?

rayiner 9y ago

Is there any real research that suggests iPhones are the cause? Couldn’t it be things that are much more mundane: we just went through an enormous recession, which caused a lot of money problems in families. We’re at an unprecedented point in the level of acrimony in politics, which is filtering down into parents’ everyday conversations. We’re on the precipice of being destroyed by global warming and pretty much all experts agree that today’s kids will have a lower standard of living than their parents. Maybe kids are anxious and depressed because they’re reading the news (on their iPhones?) and realize how fucked they are?

SolaceQuantum 9y ago

Having directed this to my teenaged younger sibling (he is intelligent and expressive) he explained in his view, teenagers have a poor prognosis for their career prospects and are aware of this. Technology allows them to be aware that life doesn’t look good for them, that they cannot look forward to retirement, to a stable long term career, that the amount of education and debt they will need to accrue is ever-increasing, that their success in this society will rely on using and stepping on others who will now have less as a result, if not in their own community then in the international stage. He attends one of the best schools in the nation and he believes most of his peers feel the same pressures both of their career prospects and their place in the greater international stage and all the things that are wrong with it that they cannot change because they cannot be in a position to change with any sense of ease (e.g. to have enough money to buy jeans not made via human exploitation requires an amount of success that feels as if it is becoming rarer,and even then how do you help people who cannot afford them to avoid exploiting other humans) All in all, I think a growing awareness of the worlds problems and their individual struggles to be in a position for themselves is a pretty good reason for teenagers to feel more anxious and depressed.

akhilcacharya 9y ago
> that life doesn’t look good for them, that they cannot look forward to retirement, to a stable long term career, that the amount of education and debt they will need to accrue is ever-increasing > attends one of the best schools in the nation um, what? I get this feeling if you don't go to one of the best schools in the nation - like me - but I'd be very surprised to see the same attitude at Harvard or Stanford. Those guys are so happy!
draw_down 9y ago
They know they've been swindled. At some level, Boomers know it too, which is why they prefer to focus on the phone stuff. Millenials can't afford to buy houses because they pay too much for iPhones, not because their jobs pay shit and housing prices have gone way up and they're drowning in student debt. Et cetera.
downandout 9y ago
>their success in this society will rely on using and stepping on others who will now have less as a result That reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. While there are indeed predatory business models where this is true - casinos etc. - most highly successful people and businesses become successful by creating value, not siphoning it from others.

jpster 9y ago

Columbine, 9/11, the financial crisis and student debt were all mentioned in this article as possible contributors to teens’ depression. What about climate change? The young will bear the brunt of of it, they know it and they can see that “no one” cares enough to do anything substantive about it. This could be a strong dynamic in this depression trend, too.

mnr 9y ago

I have always felt that seeing other people’s success and happiness is not the cause of this type of behavioral change. I think that social media causes damage in two ways. First of all, the feed/timeline/wall delivery system of information delivery must have some play in this. On instagram, I follow friends, family, coworkers, artists, creators, meme curators, technical brands, etc. They all deliver very different content, but I’m generally exposed to them in the same feed. So while I scroll through my feed, I do so much context switching that I get attention-motion sickness. I enjoy the post as I scroll though but I don’t retain anything. I could scroll through hundreds of posts in just a few minutes, and I’ll hardly remember any of what I’ve seen. It’s like an exercise in half paying attention, or an exercise of forgetting. But, we do it every single day, all the time. The information highway has gone from an open platform for sharing to a fast lane of content mixed with brands and ads shooting right through my conscious. Then, we have the nerve to call it social. Yes, there’s a lot to say about the amount of connectivity these platforms have given us. But they’ve also changed the conversation we have. Sure, when I directly interact with people on these platforms, I’m doing something kinda social. But you know what’s not social? Staring at, or talking to a wall. No matter who has wiped their shit on it. I’m no biologist, but I know humans have mirror neurons which fire when interacting with other humans/things. So, we have a mechanism(s) in the body that respond to actual face to face interaction. How does an abstraction of technology interact with those mechanisms? I can only assume that the iPhone does not account for this in their UX meetings. It is a little silly to me to assume that the staggering rates of depression and suicide come from reflection on the content these kids are seeing on social media. Social media, when used as designed, does not offer the time to reflect. (I want to say that there are obvious other dangerous aspects of social media that may lend themselves to dangerous behavior as a result of reflection, such as obsession and stalking, bullying, etc)

cbanek 9y ago

I'm sad to say that I think this is the intended result of social media from the corporate/business point of view. Instead of TV, with its advertisements being broad and un-targeted, people are building their own hell by searching for what they want. Then the machines learn get an idea what they want, and show it to them. Part of the nature of advertising is convincing people they need these things, otherwise they will be "out" (old, poor, unpopular, etc.). Instead of maybe one ad in an hour (or a day) triggering you, you're bombarded with reminders of what could be, if you could afford it. Of course the promises are unrealistic and easily broken, but I don't think most people have the mental tools to realize that at the time. There's all this great positive content out there too! Educational videos, science, all that. But it seems the impact of bad things outweighs the good, which just seems to be human nature - we regret things a lot more than we are thankful for what we do not regret. Even if they aren't selling anything to us. It's true that we're comparing across the world now, and there will be someone better than you. But that's almost always been true, although for a lot of the time you didn't know who was better, or they were simply some distant name written in a book, easily forgotten. For example, I think few will rival Aristotle, but nobody seems to care about that. Fear and regret are powerful motivators, but dangerous ones as well. If you can't act for some reason (lack of money, lack of opportunity/ability) it just seems to gnaw at you until you snap. I don't think it's any different than TV, except now amplified via personalization.

indubitable 9y ago

Rather than just e-devices alone, I wonder about the shift in parenting and style of education today. One of the most marked shifts in society today has been the change in direction towards treating everybody as special. Yet children know who the 'smart' kids are, they know who the athletic kids are, they know who the artistic kids are, and so on. How is a kid supposed to feel when he's constantly told he's special, yet he knows he's not particularly great at anything? A wall full of participation trophies isn't going to change that disconnect; unless the child is completely obtuse, it's going to be a reminder of all his failures to ever achieve. Now enter the internet on top of this and it's a perfect storm. The media loves stories, however fake they may often be, of wunderkind 11 year old creates nuclear reactor in basement during downtime between giving violin solos at Carnegie Hall and solving world hunger. And the image crafting of social media only further adds to all of this. Most people are not special, and that is okay. Even when I was young this sort of treating everybody as special had already started to seep into education. The anecdote of Einstein failing at math in high school was one that came up more than a couple of times. Of course he didn't. His response to that rumor, perhaps started by a misunderstanding of a grade change scale, was a laugh and comment that he never failed in math and statement that before he was fifteen he'd mastered differential and integral calculus. It's similar with efforts to posthumously diagnose him with various sorts of disabilities, or even attributing, in part, his success to his wife who failed to achieve a teaching certification -- unable to pass the mathematics component, she gave up after two attempts. Ultimately I think we should treat nobody as special. And require people prove it through their own deeds. There should be every possible opportunity for anybody to achieve such merit, but people should not be expected to be special. It's simply unrealistic and, even if it may make us (as in the parents and teachers creating this facade) feel better about ourselves, I don't think it's achieving the intended effect.

dgudkov 9y ago

It very well can be because teenagers are more vulnerable to the flood of shallow and sensationalist information pouring on them from media, amplified by social networks. Even for adults it can be hard to keep positive thinking after watching/reading news nowadays. No wonder teens struggle with it even more.

kelvin747 9y ago

This is an urban planning problem. Plain and simple

kelvin747 9y ago

This is an urban planning problem

vorotato 9y ago

Wages stagnating, costs of college increasing, and most teenagers are pretty upset about the political climate, but I'm sure it's social media. Sure the markets have improved, but that improvement hasn't really been reflected in wage growth.