5 ms·

It's hard to get good data on this stuff but the perception you get when doing a little digging is that we have somehow managed to produce a lot of mental healt

by zaphar 4y ago

It's hard to get good data on this stuff but the perception you get when doing a little digging is that we have somehow managed to produce a lot of mental health issues over the last decade. My pet, conspiracy?, theory is that the always online culture is perhaps to blame. We have a lot of anger, and depression out there and very little except for medication seems to be helping. There have always been anger and depression in society of course but the rate of increase in extreme outcomes from those is definitely rising. Mass shooting, teen suicide, online or real world mobs are all up everywhere. Something seems anecdotally to have shifted. The pandemic was an external stressor of course but it exacerbated something that seemed to already be building. I have resources and method to address this stuff for myself but I don't have any ideas to address it societally.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Nobody can form their own argument or opinion that is longer than a tweet.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  Even if/when you can get longer than that, the majority of the intended audience probably doesn't have the patience for it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - asdff 4y ago
    People don't want a comprehensive report, they want a headline. Then they become the most dangerous voter and consumer there is: the master of headlines, blind to all context and significance, swayed entirely by the people writing headlines.
steveBK123 4y ago
I think people under, say, 35? remember a time not being online.. and think of the world as "real world" and "online". Whereas those under-35? takes things online a bit more at face value, rather than what it tends to be - the loudest voices and most extreme ideas being amplified.
- cerol 4y ago
  We sort of filter out bad memories and every time we reminisce about the past, it's always in a nostalgic and lighter note. I see a lot of people around 35+ remembering how things were better before social media. Things were better because they were kids, or adolescents. It's youth they're nostalgic about. My father, who is in his 70s, always talks about how his peers always talk about how the 60s were amazing, and how they associate its being great with the things that existed then or didn't exist then. But he always concludes with this: it's not that that we miss. We miss being young. Social media surely stirred things up, and I personally am for just getting rid of the whole thing anyway. But we have to take the whole "things were better before social media" with a grain of salt.
  - steveBK123 4y ago
    Agreed there's always a rose-tinted "life was better in my teens/20s" view by each generation. I think theres just another layer added on by social media in the always-online age.
    - smithmind 4y ago
      I think there was just much less "keeping up with the Jones" mentality then. Sure, people could see houses and cars, but they didn't have a real time feed of everyone's "happy" moments on social media. No one felt bad that they weren't doing x y or z that their "friends" were doing because they never saw it. They had the people they were close with and not some massive cadre of people they've met throughout their entire lifespan that are in their social media feeds. Also, social media rarely portrays someone's real life. It's their highlight reel and the younger generations don't necessarily know that there's a difference I'd think.
      - steveBK123 4y ago
        Yup someone had commented about social media FOMO that 1) you only see the good stuff and 2) class divisions are more apparent when your friend's friend who had a trust fund or struck it big posts stuff you wouldn't have been exposed to directly & locally pre-social media.
alexashka 4y ago
> I have resources and method to address this stuff for myself but I don't have any ideas to address it societally. I'll give one 'hot take': women have gone to work, now both women and men are miserable. It used to be that a man would go to work, sure work oftentimes isn't great, but you'd come home to a wife and kids who don't know that world, whom you've protected from the 101 harsh realities of life. There'd be a balance. Man works hard, comes home, gets the reward, everyday. Woman works hard at home, gets to not be exposed to 101 harsh realities of life, feels fulfilled, seeing her children grow up. Not anymore. We're going extinct folks - because who the fuck wants to do anything after a few years in corporate America, knowing you're stuck for the next 40 years, without a heaven (religion is done), a peaceful home, a better future for your kids, a community to be a part of? We've paperclip maximized our humanity in favor of more stuff, so much so that we now optimize stuff to be worse, so that it breaks, so that we buy it again, so that we get to make and sell more paperclips, increasing GDP. Oh my god, you people are fucking nuts!
- bobkazamakis 4y ago
  >I'll give one 'hot take': women have gone to work, now both women and men are miserable. Famously, before women could vote and work, they never experienced emotion. Very hot and enlightened take from someone who clearly knows a lot about women.
  - goldenchrome 4y ago
    Eh my wife largely agrees with the take and she worked in tech. I have female friends in tech who are trying to exit the workplace too.
    - nineplay 4y ago
      Your wife would prefer to live in blissful ignorance? That's extraordinary.
      - goldenchrome 4y ago
dumpsterlid 4y ago
I would probably point to the fact that younger (and unlucky older people) are getting crushed under the boot of the ultrarich of the world and the falling power of the working class has reached a critical point where the rich are just pulling off their masks and basically openly murdering/destroying peoples lives with zero consequences? Also climate change... turns out it doesnt make people happy. The "terminally online" criticism of society maybe has some water, but it is a minor blip in comparison to the above explanation. Like... barely anybody my age is having children and the ones who do have this look on them when I have a real conversation with them where they are vulnerable that they love their kids more than anything but that having kids is destroying what little quality of life they could scrape by with before. Having kids has always been hard I imagine but the look on people's faces... it says a lot about how cruel society is that it grinds people down so much that having kids hurts them like that (even when they have good jobs and stable relationships and "should" be able to handle it). Society is broken because we have been worshipping the rich and most people's quality of life is tanking at least in the US.
- zaphar 4y ago
  Like... barely anybody my age is having children and the ones who do have this look on them when I have a real conversation with them where they are vulnerable that they love their kids more than anything but that having kids is destroying what little quality of life they could scrape by with before. Having kids has always been hard I imagine but the look on people's faces... it says a lot about how cruel society is that it grinds people down so much that having kids hurts them like that (even when they have good jobs and stable relationships and "should" be able to handle it). See this is part of my disconnect right here. I have 5 kids. For much of their childhood I was working day labor at minimum wage. I scraped by and sometimes had to live with relatives because I couldn't afford to put a roof over their heads. It was definitely hard and stressful but I had the necessary mental tools to avoid going postal or killing myself. I guess part of what I lament is that we have somehow reduced the number of people with those mental tools. I'm not saying it's great that there are people who have to go through the same things I went through. Nor am I saying that I'm amazing for having survived and made a solid career for myself. But I am saying that given the realities we have it's a really sad that more people aren't as equipped as I was and that seems like something worth fixing as well as all the other stuff.

by zaphar 4y ago

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

Nobody can form their own argument or opinion that is longer than a tweet.

mgkimsal 4y ago
Even if/when you can get longer than that, the majority of the intended audience probably doesn't have the patience for it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- asdff 4y ago
  People don't want a comprehensive report, they want a headline. Then they become the most dangerous voter and consumer there is: the master of headlines, blind to all context and significance, swayed entirely by the people writing headlines.

steveBK123 4y ago

I think people under, say, 35? remember a time not being online.. and think of the world as "real world" and "online". Whereas those under-35? takes things online a bit more at face value, rather than what it tends to be - the loudest voices and most extreme ideas being amplified.

cerol 4y ago
We sort of filter out bad memories and every time we reminisce about the past, it's always in a nostalgic and lighter note. I see a lot of people around 35+ remembering how things were better before social media. Things were better because they were kids, or adolescents. It's youth they're nostalgic about. My father, who is in his 70s, always talks about how his peers always talk about how the 60s were amazing, and how they associate its being great with the things that existed then or didn't exist then. But he always concludes with this: it's not that that we miss. We miss being young. Social media surely stirred things up, and I personally am for just getting rid of the whole thing anyway. But we have to take the whole "things were better before social media" with a grain of salt.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  Agreed there's always a rose-tinted "life was better in my teens/20s" view by each generation. I think theres just another layer added on by social media in the always-online age.
  - smithmind 4y ago
    I think there was just much less "keeping up with the Jones" mentality then. Sure, people could see houses and cars, but they didn't have a real time feed of everyone's "happy" moments on social media. No one felt bad that they weren't doing x y or z that their "friends" were doing because they never saw it. They had the people they were close with and not some massive cadre of people they've met throughout their entire lifespan that are in their social media feeds. Also, social media rarely portrays someone's real life. It's their highlight reel and the younger generations don't necessarily know that there's a difference I'd think.
    - steveBK123 4y ago
      Yup someone had commented about social media FOMO that 1) you only see the good stuff and 2) class divisions are more apparent when your friend's friend who had a trust fund or struck it big posts stuff you wouldn't have been exposed to directly & locally pre-social media.

alexashka 4y ago

> I have resources and method to address this stuff for myself but I don't have any ideas to address it societally. I'll give one 'hot take': women have gone to work, now both women and men are miserable. It used to be that a man would go to work, sure work oftentimes isn't great, but you'd come home to a wife and kids who don't know that world, whom you've protected from the 101 harsh realities of life. There'd be a balance. Man works hard, comes home, gets the reward, everyday. Woman works hard at home, gets to not be exposed to 101 harsh realities of life, feels fulfilled, seeing her children grow up. Not anymore. We're going extinct folks - because who the fuck wants to do anything after a few years in corporate America, knowing you're stuck for the next 40 years, without a heaven (religion is done), a peaceful home, a better future for your kids, a community to be a part of? We've paperclip maximized our humanity in favor of more stuff, so much so that we now optimize stuff to be worse, so that it breaks, so that we buy it again, so that we get to make and sell more paperclips, increasing GDP. Oh my god, you people are fucking nuts!

bobkazamakis 4y ago
>I'll give one 'hot take': women have gone to work, now both women and men are miserable. Famously, before women could vote and work, they never experienced emotion. Very hot and enlightened take from someone who clearly knows a lot about women.
- goldenchrome 4y ago
  Eh my wife largely agrees with the take and she worked in tech. I have female friends in tech who are trying to exit the workplace too.
  - nineplay 4y ago
    Your wife would prefer to live in blissful ignorance? That's extraordinary.
    - goldenchrome 4y ago

dumpsterlid 4y ago

I would probably point to the fact that younger (and unlucky older people) are getting crushed under the boot of the ultrarich of the world and the falling power of the working class has reached a critical point where the rich are just pulling off their masks and basically openly murdering/destroying peoples lives with zero consequences? Also climate change... turns out it doesnt make people happy. The "terminally online" criticism of society maybe has some water, but it is a minor blip in comparison to the above explanation. Like... barely anybody my age is having children and the ones who do have this look on them when I have a real conversation with them where they are vulnerable that they love their kids more than anything but that having kids is destroying what little quality of life they could scrape by with before. Having kids has always been hard I imagine but the look on people's faces... it says a lot about how cruel society is that it grinds people down so much that having kids hurts them like that (even when they have good jobs and stable relationships and "should" be able to handle it). Society is broken because we have been worshipping the rich and most people's quality of life is tanking at least in the US.

zaphar 4y ago
Like... barely anybody my age is having children and the ones who do have this look on them when I have a real conversation with them where they are vulnerable that they love their kids more than anything but that having kids is destroying what little quality of life they could scrape by with before. Having kids has always been hard I imagine but the look on people's faces... it says a lot about how cruel society is that it grinds people down so much that having kids hurts them like that (even when they have good jobs and stable relationships and "should" be able to handle it). See this is part of my disconnect right here. I have 5 kids. For much of their childhood I was working day labor at minimum wage. I scraped by and sometimes had to live with relatives because I couldn't afford to put a roof over their heads. It was definitely hard and stressful but I had the necessary mental tools to avoid going postal or killing myself. I guess part of what I lament is that we have somehow reduced the number of people with those mental tools. I'm not saying it's great that there are people who have to go through the same things I went through. Nor am I saying that I'm amazing for having survived and made a solid career for myself. But I am saying that given the realities we have it's a really sad that more people aren't as equipped as I was and that seems like something worth fixing as well as all the other stuff.