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It is truly remarkable to which great lengths people go to justify their unhealthy relationship with social media. It is nearly the same as telling an alcoholic

It is truly remarkable to which great lengths people go to justify their unhealthy relationship with social media. It is nearly the same as telling an alcoholic they have an alcohol problem and then hearing excuse after excuse and re-framing and mental gymnastics to jump around the elephant in the room. I'm glad write-ups like this one are a thing. Maybe our parents were indeed right when they told us we are glued to our devices and should go touch grass.

creshal 4y ago
> Maybe our parents were indeed right when they told us we are glued to our devices and should go touch grass. And yet, their generation seems to be the most addicted these days, and the most unhinged when it comes to following conspiracy theories.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  This is a good point. I suspect that one reason is that "digital natives" have been raised with the tech, so have sort of a "natural resistance," yet the oldtimers were hooked almost immediately. For myself, I have been using electronic communications, almost since they were invented (BBSes and UUNet, anyone?), so I have "more resistance" than most of my peers. Yet, I still have to stay off of Facebook. This is pretty much my only social media venue. The main reason I stay, is because people play [relatively] nice, hereabouts.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- jt2190 4y ago
  I suspect that those who grow up as social media “natives” will have some social norms that protect them somewhat, whereas many of those who came of age pre-social media will not have learned the social norms that can protect them. We can see lots of useful examples of a protective social norms with alcohol. For example, it’s quite common for people to not drink any alcohol before a certain hour of the day. It’s not illegal to drink alcohol earlier, but it’s “just not done”. We can easily see the benefits of not drinking at the start of the workday. I’m not going to guess what kind of social media norms people are developing in general. For me I only follow boring, topic-focused people on Twitter, and I only use the “Following” feed. Nobody is making me do this.
  - polygotdomain 4y ago
    >I suspect that those who grow up as social media “natives” will have some social norms that protect them somewhat, whereas many of those who came of age pre-social media will not have learned the social norms that can protect them. Agreed. A lot of older generations fall for a lot of satire and comment on things as if they're 1 on 1 with you instead of realizing that it's a public forum. However, a lot of younger generations are incredibly aware that everything they do and say could potentially be public or go viral. That brings a whole host of other problems and challenges with it. The ultimate problem is every incentive goes against a "healthy" social media. Companies don't want a "healthy" social media as they're focused on engagement, screen time, content, and advertisers. Most of the primitive portions of our brains don't want "healthy" social media either, as it craves the rush of more likes and followers. I don't think that the logical, self-aware portions of our psyche are going to change the direction of how things are going.
  - jwestbury 4y ago
    > We can see lots of useful examples of a protective social norms with alcohol. For example, it’s quite common for people to not drink any alcohol before a certain hour of the day. It’s not illegal to drink alcohol earlier, but it’s “just not done”. I find this point quite interesting. I didn't drink alcohol until I was nearly 30. I skipped by most of the formative alcohol consumption experiences most people have. And, incidentally, I don't seem to follow the same norms about what time of day it's okay to drink: I'll happily have a beer well before noon.
  - polishdude20 4y ago
    The non-native social media people have grown up fully on in-person relationships where trust is very important. They apply the same trust to people on social media that they do to their friends and family. The social media natives treat social media as different things.
- 1827162 4y ago
  Likely because that generation was raised to believe everything they were told, starting from an early age with school, religion, then with television and newspapers, etc. The younger generation were raised with media that spread obvious untruths such as conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, etc. and they learned to think more critically about what they are reading.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - dexterdog 4y ago
    That is an awfully broad brush you are painting with there. It's also painfully obvious which of the two groups you are in.
    - 1827162 4y ago
      Yes, quite possibly overgeneralization there. Thinking on it....
  - taeric 4y ago
    I'm probably over indexing on it, but the nocebo effect did not begin and end with a generation. People are remarkably influenced by what they are told. Even if they know it is unlikely or not true.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    > The younger generation were raised with media that spread obvious untruths such as conspiracy theories, pseudoscience Except that talk radio is way older than that, and it was the same kind of content.
    - 1827162 4y ago
      Yes, I'm likely wrong there.... As a side note, one important change in the modern times is the ability to cross check information from a wide range of sources easily.
- taneq 4y ago
  Well of course they are, they poor dears grew up in a world without it and while there are exceptions, most of them lack any natural immunity. Just look at people over 50 (present company excepted, of course) trying to use the web without an ad blocker.
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  Not according to this: Social media, gen z wins: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1314973/global-daily-time-spent-on-social-media-networks-generation/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1314973/global-daily-tim... Phones in general, millennials win: https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/which-generation-is-most-dependent-on-smartphones-hint/360098#:~:text=Daily%20phone%20screen%20time%2C%20unsurprisingly,phones%3B%20boomers%20spend%2039%20days https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/which-generation-....
hasmolo 4y ago
this glued to devices meme is tired. look at a picture of folks on public transport from before phones. note that _everyone_ is reading a newspaper or magazine. i know it seems crazy, but humans reading information is a constant in public, and the only reason you didn't see more of it in the past is that you were part of the group consuming media, while also assigning intellectual value to the fact that a periodical is 'printed on paper' as if destroying a tree to make paper legitimizes the content in some way that a digital download of the same content can't. get a better argument
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  Newspapers and magazines didn't microtarget their audience or have endless streams of content. This is like saying "look at all the people riding horses in old pictures, cars can't be that bad". That's not even getting into the level of corporate surveillance social media and online advertising have brought us.
  - idontknowifican 4y ago
    what on earth are you talking about? newspapers have existed to control the narrative since inception. look at how they’ve been used, and listen to the lead editors talk about using their influence. it’s a slightly less targeted ad, sure, but my dad only reads conservative papers, and they don’t seem to be written with a common perspective
    - max51 4y ago
      The difference is that a new article carefully chosen to fit your preferences doesn't magically appear on your lap every time you finish reading (or rejecting if you don't like it) the previous one. You also can't swift quickly through hundreds of headlines to pick what interest you the most when you are dealing with physical medias. You are stuck with whatever you brought with you.
    - freejazz 4y ago
      > newspapers have existed to control the narrative since inception That's not even remotely close to what they said and is clearly just your own personal grievance with newspapers
data_eng_dude 4y ago
At least with alcohol it's more socially acceptable to say to friends "I've seen how much you've been drinking lately and I'm concerned about you" - you can't really say the same for tiktok or instagram use.
- zamnos 4y ago
  Sure you can. Well maybe you can't, but the kids these days even have a phrase for it - go touch grass.
  - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
    Yeah, there's a whole lexicon around this sort of thing. "Go touch grass" is a fantastic one for it's punchiness, but "terminally online" is fun one, too. Add in a healthy dose of sarcasm, and labels like "influencer" and "gamer" and the like get used as pejoratives often, too.

creshal 4y ago

> Maybe our parents were indeed right when they told us we are glued to our devices and should go touch grass. And yet, their generation seems to be the most addicted these days, and the most unhinged when it comes to following conspiracy theories.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
This is a good point. I suspect that one reason is that "digital natives" have been raised with the tech, so have sort of a "natural resistance," yet the oldtimers were hooked almost immediately. For myself, I have been using electronic communications, almost since they were invented (BBSes and UUNet, anyone?), so I have "more resistance" than most of my peers. Yet, I still have to stay off of Facebook. This is pretty much my only social media venue. The main reason I stay, is because people play [relatively] nice, hereabouts.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jt2190 4y ago
I suspect that those who grow up as social media “natives” will have some social norms that protect them somewhat, whereas many of those who came of age pre-social media will not have learned the social norms that can protect them. We can see lots of useful examples of a protective social norms with alcohol. For example, it’s quite common for people to not drink any alcohol before a certain hour of the day. It’s not illegal to drink alcohol earlier, but it’s “just not done”. We can easily see the benefits of not drinking at the start of the workday. I’m not going to guess what kind of social media norms people are developing in general. For me I only follow boring, topic-focused people on Twitter, and I only use the “Following” feed. Nobody is making me do this.
- polygotdomain 4y ago
  >I suspect that those who grow up as social media “natives” will have some social norms that protect them somewhat, whereas many of those who came of age pre-social media will not have learned the social norms that can protect them. Agreed. A lot of older generations fall for a lot of satire and comment on things as if they're 1 on 1 with you instead of realizing that it's a public forum. However, a lot of younger generations are incredibly aware that everything they do and say could potentially be public or go viral. That brings a whole host of other problems and challenges with it. The ultimate problem is every incentive goes against a "healthy" social media. Companies don't want a "healthy" social media as they're focused on engagement, screen time, content, and advertisers. Most of the primitive portions of our brains don't want "healthy" social media either, as it craves the rush of more likes and followers. I don't think that the logical, self-aware portions of our psyche are going to change the direction of how things are going.
- jwestbury 4y ago
  > We can see lots of useful examples of a protective social norms with alcohol. For example, it’s quite common for people to not drink any alcohol before a certain hour of the day. It’s not illegal to drink alcohol earlier, but it’s “just not done”. I find this point quite interesting. I didn't drink alcohol until I was nearly 30. I skipped by most of the formative alcohol consumption experiences most people have. And, incidentally, I don't seem to follow the same norms about what time of day it's okay to drink: I'll happily have a beer well before noon.
- polishdude20 4y ago
  The non-native social media people have grown up fully on in-person relationships where trust is very important. They apply the same trust to people on social media that they do to their friends and family. The social media natives treat social media as different things.
1827162 4y ago
Likely because that generation was raised to believe everything they were told, starting from an early age with school, religion, then with television and newspapers, etc. The younger generation were raised with media that spread obvious untruths such as conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, etc. and they learned to think more critically about what they are reading.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dexterdog 4y ago
  That is an awfully broad brush you are painting with there. It's also painfully obvious which of the two groups you are in.
  - 1827162 4y ago
    Yes, quite possibly overgeneralization there. Thinking on it....
- taeric 4y ago
  I'm probably over indexing on it, but the nocebo effect did not begin and end with a generation. People are remarkably influenced by what they are told. Even if they know it is unlikely or not true.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > The younger generation were raised with media that spread obvious untruths such as conspiracy theories, pseudoscience Except that talk radio is way older than that, and it was the same kind of content.
  - 1827162 4y ago
    Yes, I'm likely wrong there.... As a side note, one important change in the modern times is the ability to cross check information from a wide range of sources easily.
taneq 4y ago
Well of course they are, they poor dears grew up in a world without it and while there are exceptions, most of them lack any natural immunity. Just look at people over 50 (present company excepted, of course) trying to use the web without an ad blocker.
oh_sigh 4y ago
Not according to this: Social media, gen z wins: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1314973/global-daily-time-spent-on-social-media-networks-generation/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1314973/global-daily-tim... Phones in general, millennials win: https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/which-generation-is-most-dependent-on-smartphones-hint/360098#:~:text=Daily%20phone%20screen%20time%2C%20unsurprisingly,phones%3B%20boomers%20spend%2039%20days https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/which-generation-....

hasmolo 4y ago

this glued to devices meme is tired. look at a picture of folks on public transport from before phones. note that _everyone_ is reading a newspaper or magazine. i know it seems crazy, but humans reading information is a constant in public, and the only reason you didn't see more of it in the past is that you were part of the group consuming media, while also assigning intellectual value to the fact that a periodical is 'printed on paper' as if destroying a tree to make paper legitimizes the content in some way that a digital download of the same content can't. get a better argument

AlexandrB 4y ago
Newspapers and magazines didn't microtarget their audience or have endless streams of content. This is like saying "look at all the people riding horses in old pictures, cars can't be that bad". That's not even getting into the level of corporate surveillance social media and online advertising have brought us.
- idontknowifican 4y ago
  what on earth are you talking about? newspapers have existed to control the narrative since inception. look at how they’ve been used, and listen to the lead editors talk about using their influence. it’s a slightly less targeted ad, sure, but my dad only reads conservative papers, and they don’t seem to be written with a common perspective
  - max51 4y ago
    The difference is that a new article carefully chosen to fit your preferences doesn't magically appear on your lap every time you finish reading (or rejecting if you don't like it) the previous one. You also can't swift quickly through hundreds of headlines to pick what interest you the most when you are dealing with physical medias. You are stuck with whatever you brought with you.
  - freejazz 4y ago
    > newspapers have existed to control the narrative since inception That's not even remotely close to what they said and is clearly just your own personal grievance with newspapers

data_eng_dude 4y ago

At least with alcohol it's more socially acceptable to say to friends "I've seen how much you've been drinking lately and I'm concerned about you" - you can't really say the same for tiktok or instagram use.

zamnos 4y ago
Sure you can. Well maybe you can't, but the kids these days even have a phrase for it - go touch grass.
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  Yeah, there's a whole lexicon around this sort of thing. "Go touch grass" is a fantastic one for it's punchiness, but "terminally online" is fun one, too. Add in a healthy dose of sarcasm, and labels like "influencer" and "gamer" and the like get used as pejoratives often, too.