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Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. Who people think we are is who we are because identity

Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection, not an actual thing in reality (similar to colors not existing in reality). Having access to a extra mirrors at first creates a sense of control. You know your mom and dad won't give you a "non-distorted" reflection so the reflection from strangers is worth more. Colleagues or friends saying "you're smart!" means a lot more from them. When each mirror is carefully placed, the "whole" of we we are and would like to be can be understood more deeply just like 7 blind men working together understand the elephant more deeply. However when the mirrors are mass produced and cheap and you have no control over their place in your life, then the identity becomes overwhelmed by expectation. Just like super high resolution makes your pores look larger, the mirror array makes every aspect of your life feel like shit even if from a rational analysis "extra information should never be a danger"

neura 4y ago
"Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous." Wow. I have problems with Instragram, but I've never tried to sum it up into a single statement and while this is rather specific and may not include all the problems I _feel_ are there, it really does bring home the main issue, for me. A little snark in there about democratizing, as some people will always put a positive spin on such things, which I feel is totally appropriate here. Just... The comment could have stopped right there and been as or more impactful (for me). Thanks. :)
- eganist 4y ago
  > A little snark in there about democratizing, as some people will always put a positive spin on such things Let's try this: "Instagram makes pandemic the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous."
  - neura 4y ago
    Is that any more accurate though? I agree that the headline is snark, but... content creators are a large part of the problem, though it's such a complex problem that I'm not sure how to even guess at which is more liable unless you simply take the "whoever is the last in the production line has the ability to prevent this kind of content" view, in which case it's pretty obviously ... well, I was going to say obvious the content provider, but no... it's you. The problem is likely you, and your inability to avoid this kind of content.</more-snark>
- ncpa-cpl 4y ago
  > Wow. I have problems with Instragram I remember that for a few months before my partner broke up with me, their IG feed was full of reels, posts, 'comedy', 'psychology tips', about people complaining about their partners. And also lots of Insta influencers posts giving relationship tips or encouraging people to break up for diverse reasons. While I'm aware my relationship wasn't perfect, the standards promoted by those aesthetic Insta influencers were really impossible to obtain in real life. Unless of course your life consisted only of perfectly curated Insta moments.
  - logifail 4y ago
    > While I'm aware my relationship wasn't perfect [...] My $0.02: We are taught not to aim for perfection at work[0], that should apply to relationships too. [0] https://hbr.org/tip/2020/02/dont-let-perfect-be-the-enemy-of-good https://hbr.org/tip/2020/02/dont-let-perfect-be-the-enemy-of...
    - pixl97 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem >It is also known as the marriage problem, the sultan's dowry problem, the fussy suitor problem, the googol game, and the best choice problem. The internet and the options it gives, I believes leads people to think they have far more relationship options then they actually have, and the options they think they have are not as good as they believe. A lot of people put a lot of work in selling a perfect image online, but those rarely hold up in reality for any amount of time. Of course this doesn't mean we should stay in bad relationships either. Our society doesn't really teach us how to have good relationships, especially in a capitalistic fashion (hey, just spend more money and everything will be ok), and quite a lot of us had really poor examples from our parents generation on how to treat other people.
      - neura 4y ago
        I just want to note one little difference. "The internet and the >perceived< options it gives, ..."
blackbear_ 4y ago
> Who people think we are is who we are May be true for extroverts, but as an introvert I don't give a cent about what random people think about me (which also explains why I do not use Instagram in the first place).
- jasonlotito 4y ago
  > I don't give a cent about what random people think about me But you did post about it.
  - pb7 4y ago
    Not caring what people think doesn't mean he can't communicate with others. Introvert doesn't mean asocial.
    - bluefirebrand 4y ago
      However there is a certain kind of dissonance between deciding to publicly state "I don't care what you think" that sort of implies that they do care actually. It seems to me that people who truly do not care would just not engage in the first place?
      - nobody9999 4y ago
        >It seems to me that people who truly do not care would just not engage in the first place? That seems rather reductive given the topic here. I don't own an EV auto, or any auto for that matter. By your logic, I shouldn't engage in discussions about EV vs. ICE or anything to do with transportation. Is that correct?
        prawn 4y ago
        If you said that you have no interest whatsoever in cars or electric cars, or no care for things tangentially related (impact on climate or similar).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
s1artibartfast 4y ago
>Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection (similar to colors not existing in reality). I strongly disagree, and don't think your example supports your conclusions. Colors are arbitrary and subjective constructs and dont exist in reality. Following your example, identity does not exist. It is not in the reflection either. The "problem" is that people place more importance on the subjective identity seen by the observer, and less on the equally subjective identity they see them selves. Just because each are subjective does not mean that they are equally fulfilling, productive, or healthy. Living a life you find beautiful has objective advantages over living a life someone else thinks is beautiful. Satisfying your arbitrary needs is ultimately more fulfilling than satisfying someone else's arbitrary needs. It should be no surprise that people who don't live a life they like end up dissatisfied with their life...
JAlexoid 4y ago
I'm sorry, but this sounds like a lot of pseudo-intellectual mumbo jumbo... with a lot of condescending undertones. Instagram is by far the least horrible of social media platforms. It doesn't drag you into comments wars or allows you to repost things easily.
- vlunkr 4y ago
  > doesn't drag you into comments wars It doesn't focus on comments as much as other platforms, but they are just as terrible in my experience. > allow you to repost things easily And yet a good chunk of the content is straight from TikTok right now. Or a screen capture of tumblr blog and includes a Tweet of a video from TikTok.
- 10729287 4y ago
  And for a good reason, Instagram just need you to post your emoji and scroll down to the next ad.
chrisgd 4y ago
I think that is an insanely insightful comment. It is very scary having an 11 year old and wondering when that day comes when his friends are on social media and he wants to participate. I am skeptical of a lot so don’t fall for get rich scams or ads on these platforms but do enjoy perusing for sometimes too long
- treeman79 4y ago
  My oldest got instagram and such at 16. She became depressed, moody, rude, and isolated. We would take the social media away, she became happy engaged, involved with friends and family. Go right back to being depressed again as soon as she got access to Instagram. Repeat every three or so months until she moved out. After wasting a couple years of her life she finally got off social media all together and is doing much better. Her much younger sister is 13 wants social media. It’s a hard no. She complained to her older sister. Older sister was extremely firm on saying to stay off it.
  - throwaway2037 4y ago
    Thank you to post this deeply personal story. As a parent, it must have been a very hard couple of years.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  There's hope: My 12 year old son recently got his first phone. After seeing what's happened with his older sister (very bad), he steadfastly refuses to install any games or social media on it. We'll see if he holds out... It's extremely hard as a parent. Younger adolescent girls are extremely vulnerable. But this stuff is very hard to lock down and manage. There are no good tools for managing it. The parental controls apps are leaky and crappy. Schools issue (and require!) devices, so even if you can lock your kids device, there's always alternate paths. And as a parent you are easily sidelined and ignored when you try to talk about it and bring up concerns. Worst problems have been Tumblr and Pinterest, BTW, not Instagram. Both are full of eating disorder and self-harm content. Instagram is at least somewhat moderated. (Reddit and Twitter are also really bad, though less used by teens that I have seen.)
yodsanklai 4y ago
> However when the mirrors are mass produced and cheap and you have no control over their place in your life, you have control to not use this application. It's not like you're forced to use it. You can also go there casually to see your friends pictures without thinking too much about it.
- mbesto 4y ago
  You also have control to not be a celebrity and avoid the paparazzi. This is the parent's point. While you may have free will, it's hard to argue that having cheap access to fame is not appealing to everyone.
  - yodsanklai 4y ago
    A lot of things can be bad if abused. Alcohol, eating, watching TV, video games even healthy activities like sport can be addictive or have risk of injuries. Social medias aren't different. They are entirely harmless for most people. Not that a big of a deal.
    - speakfreely 4y ago
      > They are entirely harmless for most people. I'm not sure that this is clearly established.
    - mbesto 4y ago
      > A lot of things can be bad if abused. Alcohol, eating, watching TV, video games even healthy activities like sport can be addictive or have risk of injuries. Scissors can be bad if abused too. Not sure why we're playing this game...
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
I think this is a great analysis, though I think in reality it's not limited at all to Instagram specifically but more broadly to the self-promotional and self-marketing aspect of our culture in general at this point. Social media throws kerosene on it, certainly, but it's a much broader phenomenon of which this experience of Instagram is only one symptom. Capitalism turns everything into a commodity. Including ourselves. From a very early age we are taught that it's important to sell ourselves; to survive and thrive. For most people this is just a background nag, mostly ignored, or poorly executed. For some it becomes a primary drive. The internet only accelerates it. Mediums like Twitter are just as involved; showcasing one's quips for the world. It doesn't have to be a photo or video like Instagram or TikTok. And as others may be pointing out, Instagram isn't even the worst of it. Anyways as a parent of teens, it's very distressing.
snarf21 4y ago
It isn't Instagram, it is like counts. But the like counts are what drives the addictive behavior and makes the product "free" to use. This is just Goodhart's Law at a personal level. We stop being authentic to chase likes. We inherently turn the measure into a target. We have hundreds of "friends" of FB and we interact with a dozen or less regularly.
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  It's not just like counts. That's just a metric/formalism for the narcissistic self-marketing thing that these platforms are really about. You could remove them or obscure them but some other form of observing engagement would take the same place. It's about being seen and popular. The same crap adolescents have dealt with for decades, but now... automated.
- prawn 4y ago
  I don't think likes are currently their major issue. Instagram at least created its own problem: 1. start with regular people posting regular stuff - it was great fun 2. the professional users are the most active and polished 3. regular people stop posting because their content isn't polished enough and they resent comparisons of their life to others' 4. regulars follow less (to preserve their sanity) and post less 5. to maintain growth, the platform pushes more and more suggestions (people you don't want to follow, ads you don't want to see, reel encouragement you don't want to do) Final stage is a platform that has deterred you from participating and constantly assaults you with things that you don't want to see. I used to really enjoy using Twitter and Instagram. I haven't touched Twitter in a couple of months and I usually resent using Instagram (but it's key in my industry).
  - pixl97 4y ago
    https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other... >Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media Covers this effect pretty well.
droptablemain 4y ago
The first sentence is infinitely quotable.
pnathan 4y ago
> Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. Astute. I have concluded there are social mental illnesses, and celebrity is absolutely a generator of one of those.
andrekandre 4y ago
> Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. because they've basically turned themselves into a commodity?
sdwr 4y ago
Beautiful!
barrysteve 4y ago
Very true. There was a young woman highlighted by a popular youtuber for her odd behaviour in a gym recently. She was filming herself exercizing for views and dollars. The rough moment was when everyday gym guys walked past her. She felt pressured enough by their presence to accuse them of being creeps and mocked them on her video feed while complaining at the guys in person. The guys were doing normal gym chores ignoring her. A young adult has gotten so far into the mental space of her social media job that she is hypersensitive to any attention, or the implication of attention, in real life. Splitting a person's psyche into cyberspace and real life when your livelihood is on the line, is a real skill. Training healthy habits into full time workers could possibly help.
- throwaway049 4y ago
  Or she's just acting that way for more views and dollars. You're posting on hn about a YouTuber who filmed an Instagrammer... We're all doomed!
yrdmb 4y ago
> Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. It also democratizes the clout, power and protection that the hollywood famous have. Without social media harvey weinstein would not be in jail. A "relative nobody" wouldn't have been able to "out shout" and expose a media mogul like weinstein. As with everything, there are positive and negative aspects.
- uoaei 4y ago
  As with everything, it is folly to assume the positives and the negatives are in relative balance.
JRandomHacker42 4y ago
> They say it's the 'me' generation. It's not. The arrogance is taught, or it was cultivated. It's self-conscious. That's what it is. It's conscious of self. Social media - it's just the market's answer to a generation that demanded to perform, so the market said, here - perform. Perform everything to each other, all the time, for no reason. It's prison - it's horrific. It's performer and audience melded together. What do we want more than to lie in our bed at the end of the day and just watch our life as a satisfied audience member. I know very little about anything. But what I do know is that if you can live your life without an audience, you should do it. Bo Burnham, from Make Happy
onion2k 4y ago
Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection.. That assumes a level of honesty that is missing from social media. On Instagram people explicitly pretend to be someone they are not. The reflection they show is beauty and affluence but the reality is Photoshop and prestige car rental.
- trashtester 4y ago
  Insta is like a computer role playing game, where the player usually plays a character that closely resembles themselves, but often as a more idealized version. When my daughter started playing Hogwarth's legacy, she instantly created a charcter that looked as much as possible like her. Instagram is not that different.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    It would be fascinating to take a sample of people, compare their avatars to their real life appearance, and then have them spend an hour talking to a shrink about why they are so similar/different. Anecdotally, I know many people in both the very similar and very different camps, and a few who are very similar except for some small thing.
watwut 4y ago
> mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. There is no such illness. Like, literally none of them. (And in child stars case, massive amount of their issues can be explained by pervasive abusive situations and exploitation they found themselves in. Which is something that happens to poor unknown kids too.)
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
The biggest problem with instagram (well and most other photo-based social network) is not the fame and glory of a few individuals, but a selective showing of the best highlights of other people. Imagine sitting at a shitty job, going to the bathroom, and browsing instagram... hey look, here's Alice eating at a fancy restaurant.. here's Bob on a beach... here's Cecilia at a party... here's Doug moutain climbing... and you're stuck at a shitty job. Instagram doesn't show eg. Bob working for months to save up for a trip to a shitty seaside location, hotel with bedbugs, overpriced cocktails and a sewage flowing into the sea just out of the visible part in the photo... but you don't see any of the bad stuff, just other people having fun, and you having to deal with all the bad stuff. Add all the filters, and all other people are pretty, have nice skin, look skinny.. and you look like shit after 7 hours on the job and one more to go.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Everyone knows that though. I mean, a generation or two ago, it would be a literal vacation slide show you might be "treated to" when visiting a friend. Obviously they never showed slides of Bob at the GM assembly plant.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    But that was once in a month occurence, not 6 times (or more) per day. And it was one coworker, not tens or hundreds of your friends and "friends"
    - mc32 4y ago
      And in the days before budget airlines most people accepted it that an overseas vacation was a bit like that for national lampoon vacations: working stiffs working hard and after years at the job “earning” a vacation. Not jaunts you did while between dead end jobs.
    - JKCalhoun 4y ago
      You're right that there is difference in degree. But I don't think that changes the fact that we should already accept that what people post to Instagram are the highlights of their lives and not the drudgery.
lo_zamoyski 4y ago
> Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection, not an actual thing in reality Identity is by definition what and who you _are_ and this is _prior_ to thought -- it is a matter of being, not thinking. It is to some extent determined in time; our character is determined by our choices, and choices actualize potentials, or thwart them. The very fact that someone can have a distorted view implies a distinction between the opinion and the real. You seem to be getting at this in the paragraph that follows. That is, what people _observe_ and know about you is information that can help you learn about yourself. That information can be distorted (through incompetence or malice) and should be therefore be verified before it is accepted. So your general point has merit. Instagram, for example, feeds approval and validation seeking behavior. What does Instagram reward? Appearance and instant gratification. There is no verification, no contextualization. People not only develop a strong need for approval, but fickle, superficial approval. It's like Goodhart's law. The shallow image of identity, not the real identity, becomes what matters and what people invest all their energy into, and through their investment, reduce themselves to that image and accept it as who they are. People have always done this. Keeping up with the Jones', saving face. We all know people who are slaves to their reputations, to what others think of them, anxiously guarding their appearance from the slightest perceived threat. Social anxiety is largely this. But social media exaggerates and magnifies this flaw, one that young people are more prone to. A virtuous man is concerned about his character; how he appears is a consequence or the effect of his virtue and who he is, not a deceptive mask that requires maintenance to conceal the filth and vice lurking underneath. And by his virtue, he suffers little from slander and welcomes truthful criticism. The Image Man is destroyed by anything unflattering because, true or not, it involves a negation of the image which he identifies with his very being. > (similar to colors not existing in reality). A digression, but this claim bothers me. Colors do exist in reality. Your claim rests on an unjustified Cartesian metaphysics in which color as we mean it is redefined as a surface reflectance property and what we commonly call color is involved in scurried away into the mind or "consciousness". (Materialism can't even pull that trick as the Cartesian mind has been eliminated from the picture.)
- trashtester 4y ago
  >> (similar to colors not existing in reality). > A digression, but this claim bothers me. From a pure physical point of view, light exist of an infinite number of wavelengths. A mix of light of different wavelengths thus form an infinite-dimensional color space. Our eyes only has thress sensors to detect the difference, roughly corresponding to Red Green and Blue, so as the light hits our brain, we receive a 3-dimensional color space. The brain collapses this further into a single qualia, that is very remote in structure to the physical light. By comparison, our ability to comprehend shapes of objects is much more closely related to the objects' acutal shape. >> Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection, not an actual thing in reality > Identity is by definition what and who you _are_ and this is _prior_ to thought -- it is a matter of being, not thinking. This is not the definition most commonly used, at least not in the physical sense. What we _are_, all of us, is very complicated. Far too complicated for our brains to relate to. Instead we're telling ourselves highly simplified stories about ourselves, where we "identify with" or "identify as" one or more characters (or personas) in these stories. This is not unlike when we watch a movie or read a book, and start to feel that we are one of the lead characters there. And just like the color "brown" doesn't have a single essential identity (it corresponds to a relatively large are of the RGB space, and an even larger area of the full physical color space), our mental model of who we are, is extremely simplified compared to our physical selves.
nonethewiser 4y ago
Spot on except I don’t think identity can be boiled down to perception. It’s also not really necessary to make your point - some people simply care a lot (too much) about the perception of others. Others don’t precisely because their sense of self isn’t so dependent on others.
lynx23 4y ago
The question I have is, why do people behave like Narcissus, then? Why do they need so much external affirmation? Why have some people become so extremely insecure? Question from a blind man. I know we are supposed to be so stupid that an elephant confuses us... So I have to ask simple questions, because otherwise I will likely not understand the answer, given how stupid we are.

neura 4y ago

"Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous." Wow. I have problems with Instragram, but I've never tried to sum it up into a single statement and while this is rather specific and may not include all the problems I _feel_ are there, it really does bring home the main issue, for me. A little snark in there about democratizing, as some people will always put a positive spin on such things, which I feel is totally appropriate here. Just... The comment could have stopped right there and been as or more impactful (for me). Thanks. :)

eganist 4y ago
> A little snark in there about democratizing, as some people will always put a positive spin on such things Let's try this: "Instagram makes pandemic the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous."
- neura 4y ago
  Is that any more accurate though? I agree that the headline is snark, but... content creators are a large part of the problem, though it's such a complex problem that I'm not sure how to even guess at which is more liable unless you simply take the "whoever is the last in the production line has the ability to prevent this kind of content" view, in which case it's pretty obviously ... well, I was going to say obvious the content provider, but no... it's you. The problem is likely you, and your inability to avoid this kind of content.</more-snark>
ncpa-cpl 4y ago
> Wow. I have problems with Instragram I remember that for a few months before my partner broke up with me, their IG feed was full of reels, posts, 'comedy', 'psychology tips', about people complaining about their partners. And also lots of Insta influencers posts giving relationship tips or encouraging people to break up for diverse reasons. While I'm aware my relationship wasn't perfect, the standards promoted by those aesthetic Insta influencers were really impossible to obtain in real life. Unless of course your life consisted only of perfectly curated Insta moments.
- logifail 4y ago
  > While I'm aware my relationship wasn't perfect [...] My $0.02: We are taught not to aim for perfection at work[0], that should apply to relationships too. [0] https://hbr.org/tip/2020/02/dont-let-perfect-be-the-enemy-of-good https://hbr.org/tip/2020/02/dont-let-perfect-be-the-enemy-of...
  - pixl97 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem >It is also known as the marriage problem, the sultan's dowry problem, the fussy suitor problem, the googol game, and the best choice problem. The internet and the options it gives, I believes leads people to think they have far more relationship options then they actually have, and the options they think they have are not as good as they believe. A lot of people put a lot of work in selling a perfect image online, but those rarely hold up in reality for any amount of time. Of course this doesn't mean we should stay in bad relationships either. Our society doesn't really teach us how to have good relationships, especially in a capitalistic fashion (hey, just spend more money and everything will be ok), and quite a lot of us had really poor examples from our parents generation on how to treat other people.
    - neura 4y ago
      I just want to note one little difference. "The internet and the >perceived< options it gives, ..."

blackbear_ 4y ago

> Who people think we are is who we are May be true for extroverts, but as an introvert I don't give a cent about what random people think about me (which also explains why I do not use Instagram in the first place).

jasonlotito 4y ago
> I don't give a cent about what random people think about me But you did post about it.
- pb7 4y ago
  Not caring what people think doesn't mean he can't communicate with others. Introvert doesn't mean asocial.
  - bluefirebrand 4y ago
    However there is a certain kind of dissonance between deciding to publicly state "I don't care what you think" that sort of implies that they do care actually. It seems to me that people who truly do not care would just not engage in the first place?
    - nobody9999 4y ago
      >It seems to me that people who truly do not care would just not engage in the first place? That seems rather reductive given the topic here. I don't own an EV auto, or any auto for that matter. By your logic, I shouldn't engage in discussions about EV vs. ICE or anything to do with transportation. Is that correct?
      - prawn 4y ago
        If you said that you have no interest whatsoever in cars or electric cars, or no care for things tangentially related (impact on climate or similar).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

s1artibartfast 4y ago

>Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection (similar to colors not existing in reality). I strongly disagree, and don't think your example supports your conclusions. Colors are arbitrary and subjective constructs and dont exist in reality. Following your example, identity does not exist. It is not in the reflection either. The "problem" is that people place more importance on the subjective identity seen by the observer, and less on the equally subjective identity they see them selves. Just because each are subjective does not mean that they are equally fulfilling, productive, or healthy. Living a life you find beautiful has objective advantages over living a life someone else thinks is beautiful. Satisfying your arbitrary needs is ultimately more fulfilling than satisfying someone else's arbitrary needs. It should be no surprise that people who don't live a life they like end up dissatisfied with their life...

JAlexoid 4y ago

I'm sorry, but this sounds like a lot of pseudo-intellectual mumbo jumbo... with a lot of condescending undertones. Instagram is by far the least horrible of social media platforms. It doesn't drag you into comments wars or allows you to repost things easily.

vlunkr 4y ago
> doesn't drag you into comments wars It doesn't focus on comments as much as other platforms, but they are just as terrible in my experience. > allow you to repost things easily And yet a good chunk of the content is straight from TikTok right now. Or a screen capture of tumblr blog and includes a Tweet of a video from TikTok.
10729287 4y ago
And for a good reason, Instagram just need you to post your emoji and scroll down to the next ad.

chrisgd 4y ago

I think that is an insanely insightful comment. It is very scary having an 11 year old and wondering when that day comes when his friends are on social media and he wants to participate. I am skeptical of a lot so don’t fall for get rich scams or ads on these platforms but do enjoy perusing for sometimes too long

treeman79 4y ago
My oldest got instagram and such at 16. She became depressed, moody, rude, and isolated. We would take the social media away, she became happy engaged, involved with friends and family. Go right back to being depressed again as soon as she got access to Instagram. Repeat every three or so months until she moved out. After wasting a couple years of her life she finally got off social media all together and is doing much better. Her much younger sister is 13 wants social media. It’s a hard no. She complained to her older sister. Older sister was extremely firm on saying to stay off it.
- throwaway2037 4y ago
  Thank you to post this deeply personal story. As a parent, it must have been a very hard couple of years.
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
There's hope: My 12 year old son recently got his first phone. After seeing what's happened with his older sister (very bad), he steadfastly refuses to install any games or social media on it. We'll see if he holds out... It's extremely hard as a parent. Younger adolescent girls are extremely vulnerable. But this stuff is very hard to lock down and manage. There are no good tools for managing it. The parental controls apps are leaky and crappy. Schools issue (and require!) devices, so even if you can lock your kids device, there's always alternate paths. And as a parent you are easily sidelined and ignored when you try to talk about it and bring up concerns. Worst problems have been Tumblr and Pinterest, BTW, not Instagram. Both are full of eating disorder and self-harm content. Instagram is at least somewhat moderated. (Reddit and Twitter are also really bad, though less used by teens that I have seen.)

yodsanklai 4y ago

> However when the mirrors are mass produced and cheap and you have no control over their place in your life, you have control to not use this application. It's not like you're forced to use it. You can also go there casually to see your friends pictures without thinking too much about it.

mbesto 4y ago
You also have control to not be a celebrity and avoid the paparazzi. This is the parent's point. While you may have free will, it's hard to argue that having cheap access to fame is not appealing to everyone.
- yodsanklai 4y ago
  A lot of things can be bad if abused. Alcohol, eating, watching TV, video games even healthy activities like sport can be addictive or have risk of injuries. Social medias aren't different. They are entirely harmless for most people. Not that a big of a deal.
  - speakfreely 4y ago
    > They are entirely harmless for most people. I'm not sure that this is clearly established.
  - mbesto 4y ago
    > A lot of things can be bad if abused. Alcohol, eating, watching TV, video games even healthy activities like sport can be addictive or have risk of injuries. Scissors can be bad if abused too. Not sure why we're playing this game...

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

I think this is a great analysis, though I think in reality it's not limited at all to Instagram specifically but more broadly to the self-promotional and self-marketing aspect of our culture in general at this point. Social media throws kerosene on it, certainly, but it's a much broader phenomenon of which this experience of Instagram is only one symptom. Capitalism turns everything into a commodity. Including ourselves. From a very early age we are taught that it's important to sell ourselves; to survive and thrive. For most people this is just a background nag, mostly ignored, or poorly executed. For some it becomes a primary drive. The internet only accelerates it. Mediums like Twitter are just as involved; showcasing one's quips for the world. It doesn't have to be a photo or video like Instagram or TikTok. And as others may be pointing out, Instagram isn't even the worst of it. Anyways as a parent of teens, it's very distressing.

snarf21 4y ago

It isn't Instagram, it is like counts. But the like counts are what drives the addictive behavior and makes the product "free" to use. This is just Goodhart's Law at a personal level. We stop being authentic to chase likes. We inherently turn the measure into a target. We have hundreds of "friends" of FB and we interact with a dozen or less regularly.

cmrdporcupine 4y ago
It's not just like counts. That's just a metric/formalism for the narcissistic self-marketing thing that these platforms are really about. You could remove them or obscure them but some other form of observing engagement would take the same place. It's about being seen and popular. The same crap adolescents have dealt with for decades, but now... automated.
prawn 4y ago
I don't think likes are currently their major issue. Instagram at least created its own problem: 1. start with regular people posting regular stuff - it was great fun 2. the professional users are the most active and polished 3. regular people stop posting because their content isn't polished enough and they resent comparisons of their life to others' 4. regulars follow less (to preserve their sanity) and post less 5. to maintain growth, the platform pushes more and more suggestions (people you don't want to follow, ads you don't want to see, reel encouragement you don't want to do) Final stage is a platform that has deterred you from participating and constantly assaults you with things that you don't want to see. I used to really enjoy using Twitter and Instagram. I haven't touched Twitter in a couple of months and I usually resent using Instagram (but it's key in my industry).
- pixl97 4y ago
  https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other... >Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media Covers this effect pretty well.

droptablemain 4y ago

The first sentence is infinitely quotable.

pnathan 4y ago

> Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. Astute. I have concluded there are social mental illnesses, and celebrity is absolutely a generator of one of those.

andrekandre 4y ago

> Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. because they've basically turned themselves into a commodity?

sdwr 4y ago

Beautiful!

barrysteve 4y ago

Very true. There was a young woman highlighted by a popular youtuber for her odd behaviour in a gym recently. She was filming herself exercizing for views and dollars. The rough moment was when everyday gym guys walked past her. She felt pressured enough by their presence to accuse them of being creeps and mocked them on her video feed while complaining at the guys in person. The guys were doing normal gym chores ignoring her. A young adult has gotten so far into the mental space of her social media job that she is hypersensitive to any attention, or the implication of attention, in real life. Splitting a person's psyche into cyberspace and real life when your livelihood is on the line, is a real skill. Training healthy habits into full time workers could possibly help.

throwaway049 4y ago
Or she's just acting that way for more views and dollars. You're posting on hn about a YouTuber who filmed an Instagrammer... We're all doomed!

yrdmb 4y ago

> Instagram democratizes the mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. It also democratizes the clout, power and protection that the hollywood famous have. Without social media harvey weinstein would not be in jail. A "relative nobody" wouldn't have been able to "out shout" and expose a media mogul like weinstein. As with everything, there are positive and negative aspects.

uoaei 4y ago
As with everything, it is folly to assume the positives and the negatives are in relative balance.

JRandomHacker42 4y ago

> They say it's the 'me' generation. It's not. The arrogance is taught, or it was cultivated. It's self-conscious. That's what it is. It's conscious of self. Social media - it's just the market's answer to a generation that demanded to perform, so the market said, here - perform. Perform everything to each other, all the time, for no reason. It's prison - it's horrific. It's performer and audience melded together. What do we want more than to lie in our bed at the end of the day and just watch our life as a satisfied audience member. I know very little about anything. But what I do know is that if you can live your life without an audience, you should do it. Bo Burnham, from Make Happy

onion2k 4y ago

Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection.. That assumes a level of honesty that is missing from social media. On Instagram people explicitly pretend to be someone they are not. The reflection they show is beauty and affluence but the reality is Photoshop and prestige car rental.

trashtester 4y ago
Insta is like a computer role playing game, where the player usually plays a character that closely resembles themselves, but often as a more idealized version. When my daughter started playing Hogwarth's legacy, she instantly created a charcter that looked as much as possible like her. Instagram is not that different.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  It would be fascinating to take a sample of people, compare their avatars to their real life appearance, and then have them spend an hour talking to a shrink about why they are so similar/different. Anecdotally, I know many people in both the very similar and very different camps, and a few who are very similar except for some small thing.

watwut 4y ago

> mental illness that used to only affect child stars and the hollywood famous. There is no such illness. Like, literally none of them. (And in child stars case, massive amount of their issues can be explained by pervasive abusive situations and exploitation they found themselves in. Which is something that happens to poor unknown kids too.)

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

The biggest problem with instagram (well and most other photo-based social network) is not the fame and glory of a few individuals, but a selective showing of the best highlights of other people. Imagine sitting at a shitty job, going to the bathroom, and browsing instagram... hey look, here's Alice eating at a fancy restaurant.. here's Bob on a beach... here's Cecilia at a party... here's Doug moutain climbing... and you're stuck at a shitty job. Instagram doesn't show eg. Bob working for months to save up for a trip to a shitty seaside location, hotel with bedbugs, overpriced cocktails and a sewage flowing into the sea just out of the visible part in the photo... but you don't see any of the bad stuff, just other people having fun, and you having to deal with all the bad stuff. Add all the filters, and all other people are pretty, have nice skin, look skinny.. and you look like shit after 7 hours on the job and one more to go.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
Everyone knows that though. I mean, a generation or two ago, it would be a literal vacation slide show you might be "treated to" when visiting a friend. Obviously they never showed slides of Bob at the GM assembly plant.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  But that was once in a month occurence, not 6 times (or more) per day. And it was one coworker, not tens or hundreds of your friends and "friends"
  - mc32 4y ago
    And in the days before budget airlines most people accepted it that an overseas vacation was a bit like that for national lampoon vacations: working stiffs working hard and after years at the job “earning” a vacation. Not jaunts you did while between dead end jobs.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    You're right that there is difference in degree. But I don't think that changes the fact that we should already accept that what people post to Instagram are the highlights of their lives and not the drudgery.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago

> Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection, not an actual thing in reality Identity is by definition what and who you _are_ and this is _prior_ to thought -- it is a matter of being, not thinking. It is to some extent determined in time; our character is determined by our choices, and choices actualize potentials, or thwart them. The very fact that someone can have a distorted view implies a distinction between the opinion and the real. You seem to be getting at this in the paragraph that follows. That is, what people _observe_ and know about you is information that can help you learn about yourself. That information can be distorted (through incompetence or malice) and should be therefore be verified before it is accepted. So your general point has merit. Instagram, for example, feeds approval and validation seeking behavior. What does Instagram reward? Appearance and instant gratification. There is no verification, no contextualization. People not only develop a strong need for approval, but fickle, superficial approval. It's like Goodhart's law. The shallow image of identity, not the real identity, becomes what matters and what people invest all their energy into, and through their investment, reduce themselves to that image and accept it as who they are. People have always done this. Keeping up with the Jones', saving face. We all know people who are slaves to their reputations, to what others think of them, anxiously guarding their appearance from the slightest perceived threat. Social anxiety is largely this. But social media exaggerates and magnifies this flaw, one that young people are more prone to. A virtuous man is concerned about his character; how he appears is a consequence or the effect of his virtue and who he is, not a deceptive mask that requires maintenance to conceal the filth and vice lurking underneath. And by his virtue, he suffers little from slander and welcomes truthful criticism. The Image Man is destroyed by anything unflattering because, true or not, it involves a negation of the image which he identifies with his very being. > (similar to colors not existing in reality). A digression, but this claim bothers me. Colors do exist in reality. Your claim rests on an unjustified Cartesian metaphysics in which color as we mean it is redefined as a surface reflectance property and what we commonly call color is involved in scurried away into the mind or "consciousness". (Materialism can't even pull that trick as the Cartesian mind has been eliminated from the picture.)

trashtester 4y ago
>> (similar to colors not existing in reality). > A digression, but this claim bothers me. From a pure physical point of view, light exist of an infinite number of wavelengths. A mix of light of different wavelengths thus form an infinite-dimensional color space. Our eyes only has thress sensors to detect the difference, roughly corresponding to Red Green and Blue, so as the light hits our brain, we receive a 3-dimensional color space. The brain collapses this further into a single qualia, that is very remote in structure to the physical light. By comparison, our ability to comprehend shapes of objects is much more closely related to the objects' acutal shape. >> Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection, not an actual thing in reality > Identity is by definition what and who you _are_ and this is _prior_ to thought -- it is a matter of being, not thinking. This is not the definition most commonly used, at least not in the physical sense. What we _are_, all of us, is very complicated. Far too complicated for our brains to relate to. Instead we're telling ourselves highly simplified stories about ourselves, where we "identify with" or "identify as" one or more characters (or personas) in these stories. This is not unlike when we watch a movie or read a book, and start to feel that we are one of the lead characters there. And just like the color "brown" doesn't have a single essential identity (it corresponds to a relatively large are of the RGB space, and an even larger area of the full physical color space), our mental model of who we are, is extremely simplified compared to our physical selves.

nonethewiser 4y ago

Spot on except I don’t think identity can be boiled down to perception. It’s also not really necessary to make your point - some people simply care a lot (too much) about the perception of others. Others don’t precisely because their sense of self isn’t so dependent on others.

lynx23 4y ago

The question I have is, why do people behave like Narcissus, then? Why do they need so much external affirmation? Why have some people become so extremely insecure? Question from a blind man. I know we are supposed to be so stupid that an elephant confuses us... So I have to ask simple questions, because otherwise I will likely not understand the answer, given how stupid we are.