8 ms·

The times we live in, utterly bizarre. Pre-internet, one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird. It would still

by fleddr 4y ago

The times we live in, utterly bizarre. Pre-internet, one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird. It would still happen but in moderation, for which I'll use the stereotype "village idiot". A village idiot is isolated for having off-base ideas and behavior, hence bad ideas don't take root. Now it's as if all the village idiots of the world had a meeting and started to run society, at least culturally. The bad ideas and behaviors are not kept in check, they're rewarded, leading to the normalization of things deeply questionable. Imagine being a youngster right now. You do as your peers do, you live online. Where insanity is your mainstream cultural input. Where mental illness, a very serious issue, is seemingly rewarded for oppression points. Where you might question your gender, where before this very idea didn't even occur to you. Where you're confused between body types, from anorexic to celebrating obesity. The normalization of the hating of the other sex. Or the other political half. Or an entire race. Or an entire class. Or anybody that doesn't agree with you. The normalization of doxxing, snitching, gossiping and cancel culture as "conversation" tools. The sheer volume of it. The pointless status games. Comparing social media to smoking is a comparison that needs re-evaluating. It's frankly shocking how this untold harm goes unchecked. Then again, intervening can lead to creepy authoritarian legislation. As seen in China, but let's at least credit them for recognizing the harm.

theknocker 4y ago
8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
I wonder if this is affecting all of humanity en masse or if this is just another form of infection, mental in this case, that thins the herd and ignores people who can resist its effects and continue living normal lives. Most of us within a healthy community with plenty of opportunity for gaining status, loving family and diverse friends who are willing to call us out on bullshit, purpose in life, and in good physical health are unlikely to get sucked into extreme TERFism, white supremacy, TikTok tics and god knows what else. Those with weaker "immune systems" succumb to the mental viruses and cause themselves possibly irreparable harm by either joining a radical cult of their choosing or falling into some medical pathology rabbit hole.
dQw4w9WgXcQ 4y ago
Not only that, but if you tell the village idiot they're being an idiot you become a villageidiotiophobe. People are afraid to set boundaries for fear of getting cancel cultured or harassed by a woke tolerance mob. All disagreement is now "toxic behavior" on social media channels. Arguing over perspectives is now sometimes branded with the extreme label of gaslighting. Day by day our Overton window continues to shift, and yet we were all told the slippery slope was supposedly a fallacy.
- RajT88 4y ago
  What demographics do you consider the "Village Idiots" here?
  - Spinnaker_ 4y ago
    Is "people who view the world and their identity only through demographics" a demographic? Because it's almost always them.
    - worthless-trash 4y ago
      Found the village idiot. Great now i'm a villageidiotaphobe. Please take the above as a meta joke. I shouldn't have have to say it, but this is the world we live in.
- matsemann 4y ago
  Ironically I feel your beliefs about this stem from whatever bubble you yourself are in. No normal person goes around afraid of being "attacked by a woke mob". This is some stories you've been told, and blindly believe, from the other side.
  - willeum 4y ago
    This is not the case. Companies for one do enforce woke culture. I believe GP wasn't talking about being physically attacked by a mob, rather their reputation and livelihood
sergiomattei 4y ago
> Imagine being a youngster right now. Okay. > You do as your peers do, you live online. Where insanity is your mainstream cultural input. Reductionist, but I follow. What is insanity, and who defines it? Prior to the modern day, homosexuality was insanity or illness. > Where mental illness, a very serious issue, is seemingly rewarded for oppression points. Outside of some very extreme circles, nobody is actually doing this seriously. Where are you even seeing this? > Where you might question your gender, where before this very idea didn't even occur to you. No, they just kept quiet about it. That’s the difference, and it seems many are not ready to face the complex nature of psyche. > Where you're confused between body types, from anorexic to celebrating obesity. Most people are reasonable enough to understand celebrating obesity and “health at every size” is a fringe, unscientific and extremist idea. > The normalization of the hating of the other sex. Once again, extreme communities. Not sure if you refer to incels, would love some clarification. > Or the other political half. Or an entire race. Or an entire class. Or anybody that doesn't agree with you. Hate and extremism was invented by the internet? > The normalization of doxxing, snitching, gossiping and cancel culture as "conversation" tools. The sheer volume of it. The pointless status games. I see nothing new here. It’s more accesible, yes, but public shame and gossip (!!!) has happened for millennia. People can organize better and agendas can be pushed easily via the internet. But these voices are fringe and minority. Outside, in the real world — most people are reasonable and understanding. Oh, and monocultures aren’t great.
- o_v_o 4y ago
  Agreed, OP's post was reductive and sensationalist, to the point that it contributes to the problems it critiques. Our nature as people hasn't changed much, the internet just prevents much of the curation of voices that occurred before it existed. It's not reasonably possible to rid ourselves of the internet, and in fact I think it's a net Good. The issue going forward is to consider and teach responsible internet use for not just young people, but everyone. Most of the shitty, intentionally hurtful things I see on the internet don't come from young folks, but from adults trying to inflict harm. People like that have always existed, and are the real problem in these cases.
- nverno 4y ago
  > Outside, in the real world — most people are reasonable and understanding I think OP is expressing concern that maybe young people aren't living there as much as you'd hope. Most of these issues, and the extent to which they are issues, are in the eye of the beholder. > Oh, and monocultures aren’t great. Does being terminally online contribute more or less to this? I'm still not sure, but leaning towards more. People always parroted others, but now with social reach being so concentrated, it seems like everyone parrots from a smaller pool. The consequence/reward for expression are much more well defined in the online world as well.
B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
It's not just "social media". For five centuries now advertising has been bending society out of shape, and making us happy about it.
reb 4y ago
The times we live in are absolutely brutal for people who struggle with diversity of belief (wherever they are on the sociopolitical spectrum). Never before has an individual had so many perspectives to contend with at once. It breaks a lot of people in different ways, although I think people who can navigate the noise without losing their sense of self are better for the experience. Still, it's impossible to deny the negative impact it has on people who can't handle the vastness of opinion, and many of them turn to the comforting simplicity of reactionary extremism to cope.
- madrox 4y ago
  This was my struggle with social media as it evolved. I watched it go from a predominantly techie novelty to how everyone communicated. I'd say I became more anxious and self-doubting as a result, but in some ways that's an improvement.
- vkou 4y ago
  They aren't 'coping' with reactionary extremism, it's always had its seductive song. What has changed is just that extremist groups have very successfully adopted the communication tools available to them for recruitment and engagement.
  - reb 4y ago
    I don't think it's off-base to suggest individuals gravitate toward belief systems that address their anxieties, and that might be particularly true for reactionary extremism. Completely agree on your second point though, the amplifying power of the internet aids all messages (without intervention, anyway).
    - vkou 4y ago
      Sure, I suppose so, I'll agree that both factors are at play. It has been objectively documented that anxiety has increased over the years, and I (And every other Tom, Dick and Harry) have subjective just-so-stories and complaints that will blame particular attributes of modern society on why more people are looking for these kinds of answers today than they were before.
madrox 4y ago
Someone on HN once described this as the "toaster fucker problem" and I've thought about it this way ever since: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362
- whythre 4y ago
  Thanks for linking that, didn’t get a chance to see it the first time around. Oof.
thelock85 4y ago
> The normalization of the hating of the other sex. Or the other political half. Or an entire race. Or an entire class. If federal, state and local legislation or exclusive constitutional rights qualify as normalization, then we've been here before in the US... on several occasions. > The sheer volume of it. %100 agree. The difference between now and all the other times is that it's hard to escape it if you want to function in society-at-large. But I'd add that an obsession with growth is also key to the deleterious effects of social media.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> Imagine being a youngster right now. You do as your peers do, you live online. I know there's a panic over "screen time", which I've never really been on board with. But I think there's a lot more to be said for keeping children away from the internet. The screen isn't so much of a problem. But the internet is.
refurb 4y ago
One major problem, in my opinion, is that people think what they see online is a representative sample of the population. It’s clearly not. You don’t have to browse Reddit for long to to see plenty of self-described loners, people dealing with anxiety and other mental issues. And it makes sense that these people would find community online. But if kids are going online and being bombarded with “the world is doomed”, and “what I thought were just the challenges of growing up are actually a mental illness” or “once I did [unhealthy coping mechanism], I felt like my problems were solved”, they developed unhealthy and distorted views of how kids their age think and act. I can see it being very easy to get sucked into the worst kind of community. And if kids isolate themselves further the online world is literally 99% of their entire world view. And what an awful distorted world that is.
areoform 4y ago
I personally believe that this is a great example of a moral panic. There isn't much of a there, there. If you look closely. For example, let's look at the Tide Pod incident, how many teens in total ate tide pods? 86. A global moral panic was launched over 86 teenagers doing a very stupid thing as teenagers are wont to do. > It’s true that since the Tide Pod Challenge began, the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPC) has received 86 reports of teenagers intentionally ingesting laundry detergent. Yet at the end of last year, the AAPC reported that over 10,500 children under the age of five were exposed to laundry pods in 2017 (for example ingesting, inhaling, or absorbing the detergent). If we are going to have a mass panic about poisonings, ten thousand children are clearly in greater danger than less than a hundred teens. So why was it that only the Tide Pod Challenge that made pearl-clutching headlines across the globe? https://archive.ph/ACiFD https://archive.ph/ACiFD The actual threat is accidental ingestion or inhalation by little children and elderly adults with dementia. They form the tens of thousands of cases that end up at poison control centres. But there's no moral panic around that, because "Elderly lady with dementia who lives alone accidentally ate a tide pod and then ended up in the ER" is less of a salacious story than "Teen eats tide pod for tiktok challenge" Let's examine this 'Tourettes-like' story, > Over the past 2 years, a remarkably high number of young patients have been referred to our specialized Tourette outpatient clinic presenting with symptoms closely resembling the ones Jan Zimmermann shows in his videos What's a remarkably high number? As far as I can tell, this Op-Ed doesn't specify it. The author has only examined one patient that he classifies with this diagnosis. Ever. Also interestingly enough, in most of the articles that talk about this subject, guess whose name repeatedly pops up? The same patient named in this Op-Ed. Jan Zimmerman. You can see the search for yourself here, https://www.google.com/search?q=Jan+Zimmerman+internet+viral+tourettes https://www.google.com/search?q=Jan+Zimmerman+internet+viral... We are told that there are "hundreds" of such patients, but we're never given an actual number, citation, or source. If you try to track the source down, you find pieces like these, here's the "concrete" evidence that's offered, First the background rate, > The new surge of referrals consists of adolescent girls with sudden onset of motor and phonic tics of a complex and bizarre nature. In London, UK specialist tic clinics at each of the two children’s hospitals, each centre received four to six referrals per year (out of a total of approximately 200 in 2019/2020), which were acute onset tics in teenage girls Then the "surge" > In the last 3 months (end of 2020–January 2021), both centres have been receiving three to four referrals per week of this nature which, if it continues, would amount to 150–200 cases per year and effectively double the referral rate. 4 * 12 = 48. There are two centers so 96. And this is during the onset of the pandemic, where global quarantines produced a constellation of anxiety in people of all age groups around the world. This entire moral panic has been driven by referrals, not diagnoses, not confirmations but referrals from primary care physicians during one of the most stressful events of the past few decades (for ordinary people). No evidence has been presented if any or all of these cases are related to social media use or not. The paper goes into this aspect and theorizes that this is an acute stress response, > It is hypothesised that this unusual presentation is related to lockdown, change in usual structure and routine, social media related events/bullying and pandemic-related stress in vulnerable adolescents. Stress may be unmasking a tic predisposition in some, while in others compounding existing vulnerability to anxiety, for example, underlying neurodevelopmental or emotional difficulties to the point of becoming overwhelming. https://adc.bmj.com/content/106/5/420 https://adc.bmj.com/content/106/5/420 No specific numbers are provided anywhere w.r.t. how many people were influenced by social media or not, v. how many were patients that were predisposed to such a response that then presented with it in response to a hyper-stressful event. So no, there is no epidemic of people watching tik toks and running around and changing their gender or becoming tourette-like. 96 possible, undiagnosed referrals does not a pandemic make. This is just as silly as the moral panic over D&D back in the 80s. It's just updated for modern times.
robotresearcher 4y ago
I know it doesn't feel that way right now, but there is probably no time in history where racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, religious hatred, slavery, etc. were less normalized than right now. These things are sadly all too common, there's lots of work to do, and we must not be complacent about past successes. But when I was a kid, homosexuality was illegal. Twenty years ago gay fear and stupid women were typical jokes on most sitcoms. Some of our grandmothers could not vote. Swimming pools and schools - schools! - were racially segregated within a lifetime. Contrary to your post, we have been gradually escaping from the extreme crazy bad ideas. Let's keep it up.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  You're looking at a tiny elite slice of the modern West (I mean, sitcoms? Seriously?) and taking it as representative of the whole world. There's probably a whole lot more homophobia, misogyny and religious hatred now in some highly religious countries than there was 25 years ago or so. And the Internet is even less representative.
  - kaesar14 4y ago
    By an absolute quantity or an absolute measure? I daresay at least in India, the toleration for homosexuality, women, and general non-conformity is quite higher than it used to be. Casteism and religious hatred still exists in great quantity but has it improved relative to 1950? Probably? Things are not perfect but you’re underrating how awful they used to be.
    - mjcohen 4y ago
      Are you kidding? With what Modi has done and is continuing to do, India is becoming far more repressive. It is another one of the countries I would fear to visit because of reactions to what I might say.
      - robotresearcher 4y ago
        Until just seventy five years ago India had been ruled for a century by an emperor in London and an occupying army, exploiting caste discrimination, religious sectarianism and regional rivalries to keep Indians subjugated for the profit of a racist colonial Empire. At partition, the rival religious hacked each other to bits wholesale. So, despite setbacks, maybe there has been real progress in what is now the worlds largest democracy.
tshaddox 4y ago
> one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird Except for the ones that were widely believed and accepted, of course. Or are you excluding those via a somewhat circular definition of "extreme," "unhinged," etc.?
- blix 4y ago
  'Extreme' and 'unhinged' only have meaning relative to a baseline of what is widely believed and accepted.
midoridensha 4y ago
>A village idiot is isolated for having off-base ideas and behavior, hence bad ideas don't take root. >The normalization of doxxing, snitching, gossiping and cancel culture as "conversation" tools. You seem to be contradicting yourself here. Back in the pre-internet days, the "village idiot" was "canceled". No one bothered to listen to his idiotic blatherings or attempting to debate or debunk him; everyone just ignored him because he was a waste of time. Hence, he was "canceled", or "isolated" as you put it. But now you're complaining about similarly stupid and dangerous people being "canceled" (i.e., ignored and shunned).
l3uwin 4y ago
Challenging gender roles isn't a new thing. I assure you that not being able to inherit property, or other gender-based discrimination has had people questioning gender roles for a long time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history
theGnuMe 4y ago
>Pre-internet, one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird. "Good afternoon, do you have a moment for me to talk to you about our lord Jesus Christ?"
deterministic 4y ago
The problem is that the internet enables the sociopaths, narcissists, power hungry etc. to easily spread their toxicity. And the internet rewards this behaviour by giving them attention.

by fleddr 4y ago

theknocker 4y ago

8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago

I wonder if this is affecting all of humanity en masse or if this is just another form of infection, mental in this case, that thins the herd and ignores people who can resist its effects and continue living normal lives. Most of us within a healthy community with plenty of opportunity for gaining status, loving family and diverse friends who are willing to call us out on bullshit, purpose in life, and in good physical health are unlikely to get sucked into extreme TERFism, white supremacy, TikTok tics and god knows what else. Those with weaker "immune systems" succumb to the mental viruses and cause themselves possibly irreparable harm by either joining a radical cult of their choosing or falling into some medical pathology rabbit hole.

dQw4w9WgXcQ 4y ago

Not only that, but if you tell the village idiot they're being an idiot you become a villageidiotiophobe. People are afraid to set boundaries for fear of getting cancel cultured or harassed by a woke tolerance mob. All disagreement is now "toxic behavior" on social media channels. Arguing over perspectives is now sometimes branded with the extreme label of gaslighting. Day by day our Overton window continues to shift, and yet we were all told the slippery slope was supposedly a fallacy.

RajT88 4y ago
What demographics do you consider the "Village Idiots" here?
- Spinnaker_ 4y ago
  Is "people who view the world and their identity only through demographics" a demographic? Because it's almost always them.
  - worthless-trash 4y ago
    Found the village idiot. Great now i'm a villageidiotaphobe. Please take the above as a meta joke. I shouldn't have have to say it, but this is the world we live in.
matsemann 4y ago
Ironically I feel your beliefs about this stem from whatever bubble you yourself are in. No normal person goes around afraid of being "attacked by a woke mob". This is some stories you've been told, and blindly believe, from the other side.
- willeum 4y ago
  This is not the case. Companies for one do enforce woke culture. I believe GP wasn't talking about being physically attacked by a mob, rather their reputation and livelihood

sergiomattei 4y ago

> Imagine being a youngster right now. Okay. > You do as your peers do, you live online. Where insanity is your mainstream cultural input. Reductionist, but I follow. What is insanity, and who defines it? Prior to the modern day, homosexuality was insanity or illness. > Where mental illness, a very serious issue, is seemingly rewarded for oppression points. Outside of some very extreme circles, nobody is actually doing this seriously. Where are you even seeing this? > Where you might question your gender, where before this very idea didn't even occur to you. No, they just kept quiet about it. That’s the difference, and it seems many are not ready to face the complex nature of psyche. > Where you're confused between body types, from anorexic to celebrating obesity. Most people are reasonable enough to understand celebrating obesity and “health at every size” is a fringe, unscientific and extremist idea. > The normalization of the hating of the other sex. Once again, extreme communities. Not sure if you refer to incels, would love some clarification. > Or the other political half. Or an entire race. Or an entire class. Or anybody that doesn't agree with you. Hate and extremism was invented by the internet? > The normalization of doxxing, snitching, gossiping and cancel culture as "conversation" tools. The sheer volume of it. The pointless status games. I see nothing new here. It’s more accesible, yes, but public shame and gossip (!!!) has happened for millennia. People can organize better and agendas can be pushed easily via the internet. But these voices are fringe and minority. Outside, in the real world — most people are reasonable and understanding. Oh, and monocultures aren’t great.

o_v_o 4y ago
Agreed, OP's post was reductive and sensationalist, to the point that it contributes to the problems it critiques. Our nature as people hasn't changed much, the internet just prevents much of the curation of voices that occurred before it existed. It's not reasonably possible to rid ourselves of the internet, and in fact I think it's a net Good. The issue going forward is to consider and teach responsible internet use for not just young people, but everyone. Most of the shitty, intentionally hurtful things I see on the internet don't come from young folks, but from adults trying to inflict harm. People like that have always existed, and are the real problem in these cases.
nverno 4y ago
> Outside, in the real world — most people are reasonable and understanding I think OP is expressing concern that maybe young people aren't living there as much as you'd hope. Most of these issues, and the extent to which they are issues, are in the eye of the beholder. > Oh, and monocultures aren’t great. Does being terminally online contribute more or less to this? I'm still not sure, but leaning towards more. People always parroted others, but now with social reach being so concentrated, it seems like everyone parrots from a smaller pool. The consequence/reward for expression are much more well defined in the online world as well.

B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago

It's not just "social media". For five centuries now advertising has been bending society out of shape, and making us happy about it.

reb 4y ago

The times we live in are absolutely brutal for people who struggle with diversity of belief (wherever they are on the sociopolitical spectrum). Never before has an individual had so many perspectives to contend with at once. It breaks a lot of people in different ways, although I think people who can navigate the noise without losing their sense of self are better for the experience. Still, it's impossible to deny the negative impact it has on people who can't handle the vastness of opinion, and many of them turn to the comforting simplicity of reactionary extremism to cope.

madrox 4y ago
This was my struggle with social media as it evolved. I watched it go from a predominantly techie novelty to how everyone communicated. I'd say I became more anxious and self-doubting as a result, but in some ways that's an improvement.
vkou 4y ago
They aren't 'coping' with reactionary extremism, it's always had its seductive song. What has changed is just that extremist groups have very successfully adopted the communication tools available to them for recruitment and engagement.
- reb 4y ago
  I don't think it's off-base to suggest individuals gravitate toward belief systems that address their anxieties, and that might be particularly true for reactionary extremism. Completely agree on your second point though, the amplifying power of the internet aids all messages (without intervention, anyway).
  - vkou 4y ago
    Sure, I suppose so, I'll agree that both factors are at play. It has been objectively documented that anxiety has increased over the years, and I (And every other Tom, Dick and Harry) have subjective just-so-stories and complaints that will blame particular attributes of modern society on why more people are looking for these kinds of answers today than they were before.

madrox 4y ago

Someone on HN once described this as the "toaster fucker problem" and I've thought about it this way ever since: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362

whythre 4y ago
Thanks for linking that, didn’t get a chance to see it the first time around. Oof.

thelock85 4y ago

> The normalization of the hating of the other sex. Or the other political half. Or an entire race. Or an entire class. If federal, state and local legislation or exclusive constitutional rights qualify as normalization, then we've been here before in the US... on several occasions. > The sheer volume of it. %100 agree. The difference between now and all the other times is that it's hard to escape it if you want to function in society-at-large. But I'd add that an obsession with growth is also key to the deleterious effects of social media.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> Imagine being a youngster right now. You do as your peers do, you live online. I know there's a panic over "screen time", which I've never really been on board with. But I think there's a lot more to be said for keeping children away from the internet. The screen isn't so much of a problem. But the internet is.

refurb 4y ago

One major problem, in my opinion, is that people think what they see online is a representative sample of the population. It’s clearly not. You don’t have to browse Reddit for long to to see plenty of self-described loners, people dealing with anxiety and other mental issues. And it makes sense that these people would find community online. But if kids are going online and being bombarded with “the world is doomed”, and “what I thought were just the challenges of growing up are actually a mental illness” or “once I did [unhealthy coping mechanism], I felt like my problems were solved”, they developed unhealthy and distorted views of how kids their age think and act. I can see it being very easy to get sucked into the worst kind of community. And if kids isolate themselves further the online world is literally 99% of their entire world view. And what an awful distorted world that is.

areoform 4y ago

I personally believe that this is a great example of a moral panic. There isn't much of a there, there. If you look closely. For example, let's look at the Tide Pod incident, how many teens in total ate tide pods? 86. A global moral panic was launched over 86 teenagers doing a very stupid thing as teenagers are wont to do. > It’s true that since the Tide Pod Challenge began, the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPC) has received 86 reports of teenagers intentionally ingesting laundry detergent. Yet at the end of last year, the AAPC reported that over 10,500 children under the age of five were exposed to laundry pods in 2017 (for example ingesting, inhaling, or absorbing the detergent). If we are going to have a mass panic about poisonings, ten thousand children are clearly in greater danger than less than a hundred teens. So why was it that only the Tide Pod Challenge that made pearl-clutching headlines across the globe? https://archive.ph/ACiFD https://archive.ph/ACiFD The actual threat is accidental ingestion or inhalation by little children and elderly adults with dementia. They form the tens of thousands of cases that end up at poison control centres. But there's no moral panic around that, because "Elderly lady with dementia who lives alone accidentally ate a tide pod and then ended up in the ER" is less of a salacious story than "Teen eats tide pod for tiktok challenge" Let's examine this 'Tourettes-like' story, > Over the past 2 years, a remarkably high number of young patients have been referred to our specialized Tourette outpatient clinic presenting with symptoms closely resembling the ones Jan Zimmermann shows in his videos What's a remarkably high number? As far as I can tell, this Op-Ed doesn't specify it. The author has only examined one patient that he classifies with this diagnosis. Ever. Also interestingly enough, in most of the articles that talk about this subject, guess whose name repeatedly pops up? The same patient named in this Op-Ed. Jan Zimmerman. You can see the search for yourself here, https://www.google.com/search?q=Jan+Zimmerman+internet+viral+tourettes https://www.google.com/search?q=Jan+Zimmerman+internet+viral... We are told that there are "hundreds" of such patients, but we're never given an actual number, citation, or source. If you try to track the source down, you find pieces like these, here's the "concrete" evidence that's offered, First the background rate, > The new surge of referrals consists of adolescent girls with sudden onset of motor and phonic tics of a complex and bizarre nature. In London, UK specialist tic clinics at each of the two children’s hospitals, each centre received four to six referrals per year (out of a total of approximately 200 in 2019/2020), which were acute onset tics in teenage girls Then the "surge" > In the last 3 months (end of 2020–January 2021), both centres have been receiving three to four referrals per week of this nature which, if it continues, would amount to 150–200 cases per year and effectively double the referral rate. 4 * 12 = 48. There are two centers so 96. And this is during the onset of the pandemic, where global quarantines produced a constellation of anxiety in people of all age groups around the world. This entire moral panic has been driven by referrals, not diagnoses, not confirmations but referrals from primary care physicians during one of the most stressful events of the past few decades (for ordinary people). No evidence has been presented if any or all of these cases are related to social media use or not. The paper goes into this aspect and theorizes that this is an acute stress response, > It is hypothesised that this unusual presentation is related to lockdown, change in usual structure and routine, social media related events/bullying and pandemic-related stress in vulnerable adolescents. Stress may be unmasking a tic predisposition in some, while in others compounding existing vulnerability to anxiety, for example, underlying neurodevelopmental or emotional difficulties to the point of becoming overwhelming. https://adc.bmj.com/content/106/5/420 https://adc.bmj.com/content/106/5/420 No specific numbers are provided anywhere w.r.t. how many people were influenced by social media or not, v. how many were patients that were predisposed to such a response that then presented with it in response to a hyper-stressful event. So no, there is no epidemic of people watching tik toks and running around and changing their gender or becoming tourette-like. 96 possible, undiagnosed referrals does not a pandemic make. This is just as silly as the moral panic over D&D back in the 80s. It's just updated for modern times.

robotresearcher 4y ago

I know it doesn't feel that way right now, but there is probably no time in history where racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, religious hatred, slavery, etc. were less normalized than right now. These things are sadly all too common, there's lots of work to do, and we must not be complacent about past successes. But when I was a kid, homosexuality was illegal. Twenty years ago gay fear and stupid women were typical jokes on most sitcoms. Some of our grandmothers could not vote. Swimming pools and schools - schools! - were racially segregated within a lifetime. Contrary to your post, we have been gradually escaping from the extreme crazy bad ideas. Let's keep it up.

zozbot234 4y ago
You're looking at a tiny elite slice of the modern West (I mean, sitcoms? Seriously?) and taking it as representative of the whole world. There's probably a whole lot more homophobia, misogyny and religious hatred now in some highly religious countries than there was 25 years ago or so. And the Internet is even less representative.
- kaesar14 4y ago
  By an absolute quantity or an absolute measure? I daresay at least in India, the toleration for homosexuality, women, and general non-conformity is quite higher than it used to be. Casteism and religious hatred still exists in great quantity but has it improved relative to 1950? Probably? Things are not perfect but you’re underrating how awful they used to be.
  - mjcohen 4y ago
    Are you kidding? With what Modi has done and is continuing to do, India is becoming far more repressive. It is another one of the countries I would fear to visit because of reactions to what I might say.
    - robotresearcher 4y ago
      Until just seventy five years ago India had been ruled for a century by an emperor in London and an occupying army, exploiting caste discrimination, religious sectarianism and regional rivalries to keep Indians subjugated for the profit of a racist colonial Empire. At partition, the rival religious hacked each other to bits wholesale. So, despite setbacks, maybe there has been real progress in what is now the worlds largest democracy.

tshaddox 4y ago

> one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird Except for the ones that were widely believed and accepted, of course. Or are you excluding those via a somewhat circular definition of "extreme," "unhinged," etc.?

blix 4y ago
'Extreme' and 'unhinged' only have meaning relative to a baseline of what is widely believed and accepted.

midoridensha 4y ago

>A village idiot is isolated for having off-base ideas and behavior, hence bad ideas don't take root. >The normalization of doxxing, snitching, gossiping and cancel culture as "conversation" tools. You seem to be contradicting yourself here. Back in the pre-internet days, the "village idiot" was "canceled". No one bothered to listen to his idiotic blatherings or attempting to debate or debunk him; everyone just ignored him because he was a waste of time. Hence, he was "canceled", or "isolated" as you put it. But now you're complaining about similarly stupid and dangerous people being "canceled" (i.e., ignored and shunned).

l3uwin 4y ago

Challenging gender roles isn't a new thing. I assure you that not being able to inherit property, or other gender-based discrimination has had people questioning gender roles for a long time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history

theGnuMe 4y ago

>Pre-internet, one would rarely be exposed to ideas that are extreme, unhinged, insane or downright weird. "Good afternoon, do you have a moment for me to talk to you about our lord Jesus Christ?"

deterministic 4y ago

The problem is that the internet enables the sociopaths, narcissists, power hungry etc. to easily spread their toxicity. And the internet rewards this behaviour by giving them attention.