9 ms·

I'm not defending Facebook and I just had some thoughts reading the quotes and am curious what you think of them. 1. I remember that while growing up fashion m

I'm not defending Facebook and I just had some thoughts reading the quotes and am curious what you think of them. 1. I remember that while growing up fashion magazines, actors/actresses and I want to say peer pressure (but am fearful its incorrect) were a big source of body image issues. 2. Maybe it's a side effect of our society or "normal" to have security issues while growing up. We've been having good childhoods for how long - 100 years? Maybe there are some feelings that we never had the option of expressing or feeling.

tclancy 5y ago
Magazines came once a month, the people in them were clearly supposed to be uncommonly attractive and they couldn't talk back to you.
karxxm 5y ago
I think these social media platforms give teenagers the feeling, that everyone is pretty and successful. Back in the days, only famous people where in fashion magazines. They where an elite group of people one could easily distinguish from. But nowadays, there are so many "noname" persons out there, having a successful instagram feed. This could create the impression that all people out there are good looking and successful, except yourself.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  Yeah, that's exactly true. It's cargo culting. Super models are beautiful and popular, so if I pay for a photo shoot I am also beautiful and popular seems to be the logic of many "influencers".
- Breza 5y ago
  Very well said, I totally agree
vladvasiliu 5y ago
> 1. I remember that while growing up fashion magazines, actors/actresses and I want to say peer pressure (but am fearful its incorrect) were a big source of body image issues. I remember reading somewhere, can't remember where, something that addressed this point. Broadly speaking, the idea was that "people in magazines" weren't perceived as "peers", so you wouldn't compare yourself to them in the same way as you'd compare with a classmate, or some other "regular person", "just like yourself".
- treis 5y ago
  To me this sounds like post hoc reasoning to justify the conclusion you already want to make. There doesn't appear to be any real correlation between the introduction of Instagram and suicide rates for girls. Suicide rates are up, but it's for both boys and girls and the beginning of the increase predated Instagram. Instagram is an easy target like Video games, TV, Cell Phones, and Internet were before it. But like those things I don't think there's much causation going on.
  - a9h74j 5y ago
    Johnathan Haight discusses noticable differences in college students (measurable by mental health services) precisely in the years when students who all had cell phones early [in middle school?] started to enter.
WhompingWindows 5y ago
Normal means that there is a bell-curve distribution of how insecure individuals would be; you'll see both more and less self-confident individuals. However, if you barrage the populace with photoshopped, top 1% in beauty, frankly unhealthy bodies, that distribution is going to move to the "right" towards more insecurity. I'd wager anyone susceptible to insecurity would experience a much greater level, than in a poor farming town where young people see almost no sexualized supermodels or celebrities to compare themselves to. For example, take some 13 year old girl, probably a poor farmer, from Ireland in 1800. She will have seen almost no examples of the female body except her own, her peers rarely, and her familial elders. Then plop her down into today's world, and she'll definitely be barraged by all the most ridiculous images of flat stomachs, huge anatomical parts and tiny anatomical parts, immaculately photoshopped forms: she'll be made to feel less than them.
- a9h74j 5y ago
  Not just images? Drop her in LA. I fear for a remarkable young talent I won't name.
aspaviento 5y ago
The less I want is to defend Facebook but I think lately people don't want to acknowledge their own responsibilities. It's like every time there is a problem, the cause is someone/something else. I don't think Instagram is impossed to anyone. Young people can feel the pressure to use it because their friends use it but they aren't forced to do so. From the article it seems that young girls know about the toxicity in the application, why they keep using it? if their parents are aware too, why do they let their daughters use it?
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  I'm only speculating, but if "everyone's on instagram", maybe people don't want to be left out? They may know that it's bad for you, just as I expect most smokers to know smoking is bad for you. But the "badness" isn't direct, it grows, and they could think "maybe I'll be able to control it / I can quit whenever I want", whereas if you don't follow current trends (or whatever it is people follow on instagram), you're left out immediately. Of course, by the time you realize you can't quit, it's already too late.
- wussboy 5y ago
  I have a personal grudge against anyone saying "Why don't the parents take some responsibility to combat a multi-billion dollar company who puts the resources of small countries in to making their children behave in detrimental ways." But I'll not get in to that. :) Facebook and Instagram are drug dealers. Sure, they're not physically distributing a substance, but the social interactions they provide are every bit as addictive. In time, society will abolish or tightly constrain them in the same way society has banned other highly addictive substances. And this is why I don't blame the users.
  - aspaviento 5y ago
    > I have a personal grudge against anyone saying (...) There is no need to have any grudge against me (I hope). I get it. I never said being a parent is an easy job. I acknowledge how hard it is but... > Facebook and Instagram are drug dealers If you teach your kids not to consume drugs, why Instagram should be any different?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwaway2037 5y ago
Wow, this is such a thoughtful post. I really drummed my fingers thinking of something witty to reply. About #1: From my childhood experience, this is accurate. Youth fashion magazines and network TV from 7PM to 10PM played and outsized role to influence our (small) world view. However, I find it interesting that as social media has exploded, there is parellel movement to reduce digital post processing on models photographs. It is still a moving target, but the trend is less and less processing of photographs in fashion magazines and adverts. (Note: This "commitment" varies wildly by region!) About #2: This comment is so deep. I remember reading the novel "Orphan Train" a few years ago, and the author spent considerable time pulling you into the world within which these young people lived. Granted, the events occur about 100 years ago, but they help us the understand the pressures of youth from four generations ago. By the end, you felt like a movie director, peering into their fractured lives. Generally speaking, I think about a "generation" as being 25 years. If we look back 100 years, someone born in 1921, then each 25 years is a new generation. Assuming these people lived in relatively free and prosperous places... I dunno, pick Belgium or Argentina or Australia... each 25 years, children's lives would be hugely different than their parents due to major social advances, improved education, and new media outlets. In my generation, one of the biggest concerns was "peer pressure" and "too much TV or video games". Some of that still exists, but it has morphed more towards bullying (including early-age homophobia and transphobia) and too much Internet / social media. An exciting question: What comes after this generation? Too much AR / VR!?
- andreime 5y ago
  Thanks!
bserge 5y ago
It's definitely normal to blame everything and everyone but yourself for your problems. In some cases, it's justified, but the vast majority of time it's just avoiding responsibility.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  On an individual level, it makes sense to talk about personal responsibility. However, if you are looking at a large percentage of people experiencing something, it isn't helpful to just say all those people need personal responsibility. You can point to individual failings when you talk about an individual, but if 75% of people are having individual failings it is symptomatic of something structural.
  - bserge 5y ago
    Yeah, human condition.
fossuser 5y ago
We're apes that compete for status to attract mates. There's always going to be some of this kind of thing in everything. I'd accept the concentration of it in social media (TikTok is probably the worst of them) is not healthy, but the issues themselves are independent of the medium of the time imo.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

tclancy 5y ago

Magazines came once a month, the people in them were clearly supposed to be uncommonly attractive and they couldn't talk back to you.

karxxm 5y ago

I think these social media platforms give teenagers the feeling, that everyone is pretty and successful. Back in the days, only famous people where in fashion magazines. They where an elite group of people one could easily distinguish from. But nowadays, there are so many "noname" persons out there, having a successful instagram feed. This could create the impression that all people out there are good looking and successful, except yourself.

Grustaf 5y ago
Yeah, that's exactly true. It's cargo culting. Super models are beautiful and popular, so if I pay for a photo shoot I am also beautiful and popular seems to be the logic of many "influencers".
Breza 5y ago
Very well said, I totally agree

vladvasiliu 5y ago

> 1. I remember that while growing up fashion magazines, actors/actresses and I want to say peer pressure (but am fearful its incorrect) were a big source of body image issues. I remember reading somewhere, can't remember where, something that addressed this point. Broadly speaking, the idea was that "people in magazines" weren't perceived as "peers", so you wouldn't compare yourself to them in the same way as you'd compare with a classmate, or some other "regular person", "just like yourself".

treis 5y ago
To me this sounds like post hoc reasoning to justify the conclusion you already want to make. There doesn't appear to be any real correlation between the introduction of Instagram and suicide rates for girls. Suicide rates are up, but it's for both boys and girls and the beginning of the increase predated Instagram. Instagram is an easy target like Video games, TV, Cell Phones, and Internet were before it. But like those things I don't think there's much causation going on.
- a9h74j 5y ago
  Johnathan Haight discusses noticable differences in college students (measurable by mental health services) precisely in the years when students who all had cell phones early [in middle school?] started to enter.

WhompingWindows 5y ago

Normal means that there is a bell-curve distribution of how insecure individuals would be; you'll see both more and less self-confident individuals. However, if you barrage the populace with photoshopped, top 1% in beauty, frankly unhealthy bodies, that distribution is going to move to the "right" towards more insecurity. I'd wager anyone susceptible to insecurity would experience a much greater level, than in a poor farming town where young people see almost no sexualized supermodels or celebrities to compare themselves to. For example, take some 13 year old girl, probably a poor farmer, from Ireland in 1800. She will have seen almost no examples of the female body except her own, her peers rarely, and her familial elders. Then plop her down into today's world, and she'll definitely be barraged by all the most ridiculous images of flat stomachs, huge anatomical parts and tiny anatomical parts, immaculately photoshopped forms: she'll be made to feel less than them.

a9h74j 5y ago
Not just images? Drop her in LA. I fear for a remarkable young talent I won't name.

aspaviento 5y ago

The less I want is to defend Facebook but I think lately people don't want to acknowledge their own responsibilities. It's like every time there is a problem, the cause is someone/something else. I don't think Instagram is impossed to anyone. Young people can feel the pressure to use it because their friends use it but they aren't forced to do so. From the article it seems that young girls know about the toxicity in the application, why they keep using it? if their parents are aware too, why do they let their daughters use it?

vladvasiliu 5y ago
I'm only speculating, but if "everyone's on instagram", maybe people don't want to be left out? They may know that it's bad for you, just as I expect most smokers to know smoking is bad for you. But the "badness" isn't direct, it grows, and they could think "maybe I'll be able to control it / I can quit whenever I want", whereas if you don't follow current trends (or whatever it is people follow on instagram), you're left out immediately. Of course, by the time you realize you can't quit, it's already too late.
wussboy 5y ago
I have a personal grudge against anyone saying "Why don't the parents take some responsibility to combat a multi-billion dollar company who puts the resources of small countries in to making their children behave in detrimental ways." But I'll not get in to that. :) Facebook and Instagram are drug dealers. Sure, they're not physically distributing a substance, but the social interactions they provide are every bit as addictive. In time, society will abolish or tightly constrain them in the same way society has banned other highly addictive substances. And this is why I don't blame the users.
- aspaviento 5y ago
  > I have a personal grudge against anyone saying (...) There is no need to have any grudge against me (I hope). I get it. I never said being a parent is an easy job. I acknowledge how hard it is but... > Facebook and Instagram are drug dealers If you teach your kids not to consume drugs, why Instagram should be any different?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throwaway2037 5y ago

Wow, this is such a thoughtful post. I really drummed my fingers thinking of something witty to reply. About #1: From my childhood experience, this is accurate. Youth fashion magazines and network TV from 7PM to 10PM played and outsized role to influence our (small) world view. However, I find it interesting that as social media has exploded, there is parellel movement to reduce digital post processing on models photographs. It is still a moving target, but the trend is less and less processing of photographs in fashion magazines and adverts. (Note: This "commitment" varies wildly by region!) About #2: This comment is so deep. I remember reading the novel "Orphan Train" a few years ago, and the author spent considerable time pulling you into the world within which these young people lived. Granted, the events occur about 100 years ago, but they help us the understand the pressures of youth from four generations ago. By the end, you felt like a movie director, peering into their fractured lives. Generally speaking, I think about a "generation" as being 25 years. If we look back 100 years, someone born in 1921, then each 25 years is a new generation. Assuming these people lived in relatively free and prosperous places... I dunno, pick Belgium or Argentina or Australia... each 25 years, children's lives would be hugely different than their parents due to major social advances, improved education, and new media outlets. In my generation, one of the biggest concerns was "peer pressure" and "too much TV or video games". Some of that still exists, but it has morphed more towards bullying (including early-age homophobia and transphobia) and too much Internet / social media. An exciting question: What comes after this generation? Too much AR / VR!?

andreime 5y ago
Thanks!

bserge 5y ago

It's definitely normal to blame everything and everyone but yourself for your problems. In some cases, it's justified, but the vast majority of time it's just avoiding responsibility.

cortesoft 5y ago
On an individual level, it makes sense to talk about personal responsibility. However, if you are looking at a large percentage of people experiencing something, it isn't helpful to just say all those people need personal responsibility. You can point to individual failings when you talk about an individual, but if 75% of people are having individual failings it is symptomatic of something structural.
- bserge 5y ago
  Yeah, human condition.

fossuser 5y ago

We're apes that compete for status to attract mates. There's always going to be some of this kind of thing in everything. I'd accept the concentration of it in social media (TikTok is probably the worst of them) is not healthy, but the issues themselves are independent of the medium of the time imo.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]