Is Facebook killing freedom and liberty?

[Brian Peacock]

Derp!

[Brian Peacock]

Facebook makes you sad, apparently.

Teenagers are growing more anxious and depressed

THE final bell rings at a high school in downtown Los Angeles, and nearly every pupil spilling onto the pavement either clutches a smartphone or studies a screen, head bowed. A group of boys strolls down the street laughing at a YouTube video, while a girl waiting for her lift home catches up with the Kardashian sisters on Instagram. Since 2007, when Apple released the first iPhone, such scenes have become the norm in America. The Pew Research Centre found that three-quarters of teens have access to a smartphone. According to one Facebook executive, millennials look at their phones on average more than 150 times a day.

Over the past decade, the number of American children and teenagers admitted to children’s hospitals for reporting suicidal thoughts has more than doubled. Some have not received help in time; after declining for years, the suicide rate for 15-to-19-year-olds shot up between 2007 and 2015, increasing by 31% for boys and more than doubling for girls. Psychologists are striving to understand whether this increase merely coincides with the rise of social media, or whether something causative is happening.

There may be plenty of analogue reasons for it. “A number of things are pretty unique to young people today. They were born around when the Columbine shooting happened, they were kids for 9/11, they were kids during one of the worst recessions in modern history,” says Nicole Green, the executive director of Counselling and Psychological Services at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has seen demand for her office’s services from college undergraduates surge.

A big new study suggests a different explanation for teenage melancholy—the many hours young people spend staring at their phone screens. That might be having serious effects, especially on young girls, according to the study’s author, Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and author of “iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy”.

By scrutinising national surveys, with data collected from over 500,000 American teenagers, Ms Twenge found that adolescents who spent more time on new media—using Snapchat, Facebook, or Instagram on a smartphone, for instance—were more likely to agree with remarks such as: “The future often seems hopeless,” or “I feel that I can’t do anything right.” Those who used screens less, spending time playing sport, doing homework, or socialising with friends in person, were less likely to report mental troubles.

As Ms Twenge herself concedes, the study does not prove causality. It is possible that another force is behind the increased diagnosis of depression among adolescents, and that sad teenagers are more likely than their happy peers to seek refuge in their phones. But a growing body of scientific evidence supports the idea that social media can inspire malaise. One study published in 2016 asked a randomly selected group of adults to quit Facebook for a week; a control group continued browsing the site as usual. Those who gave up Facebook reported feeling less depressed at the end of the week than those who continued using it. Another experiment published in 2013 found that the more participants used Facebook, the gloomier they felt about their lives. Additionally, it showed that feeling blue did not lead people to increase their Facebook use....

https://www.economist.com/news/united-s ... nxious-and

[JimC]

American teenagers need to solve more quadratic equations...

[Scot Dutchy]

Surprised? They could build an algorithm into it that makes people commit suicide. With all the guns around it would be easy.

[mistermack]

I blame the parents. And the drug companies. And the gun lobby. And Facebook. And Apple. And Macdonalds.
And Walmart.

I've never eaten at Mackdonalds. And I've never killed myself. Nearly, a few times, but not on purpose.

Kids are on too many drugs, they're unstable enough as it is. Legal and otherwise, they can be just as bad.
And all the soap operas for kids encourage envy and dissatisfaction.
If I can't be like Kim Kardashian, I don't want to live. Summat like that.

Anyway, the world's over populated. It's nature taking it's course.

[Scot Dutchy]

If any kid these days is more active than being glued to his device (any will do) it is considered to be ADHD and given drugs to quiet it down.

Also bullying on social media has already driven many kids to suicide.

[laklak]

If, for the sake of argument, we accept that the use of social media can be an addiction, perhaps along the lines of compulsions to eating, sex, gambling, or shopping etc, what might be a good treatment for it?

Man the fuck up and stop acting like a little pussy. That actually cures a lot of things.

"Ooo, I CAN'T., it's too HARD..." Yeah you fucking can you fucking maggot, and you fucking will, or I'll make you wish you dribbled down your mama's leg.

Gunny Hartman.jpg (6.22 KiB) Viewed 3531 times

[Rum]

I used to go into schools two or three times a week before I retired as part of my job. I have to say I noticed over the later few years fewer and fewer kids running around screaming, chasing each other and playing active games in the way earlier generations did. As often as not what you saw were kids in groups talking, often with phone in hand (until most schools banned them) and gossiping and playing friend politics from the looks of it. It was dispiriting and a bit of a worry.

[Scot Dutchy]

I agree. It is the way it is accepted without question that gets me. When you see a family of four in a fairly pricey restaurant staring at their devices instead of interacting it is very worrying. What happened to jammers? My sauna for instance in the changing rooms has selective jamming. You can make and receive telephone calls but the internet is jammed. In the rest of the sauna which is not small everything is jammed. People seem relaxed about it.

[NineBerry]

Where would you keep a phone in a sauna? Aren't Dutch people naked in a sauna?

[Scot Dutchy]

Where would you keep a phone in a sauna? Aren't Dutch people naked in a sauna?

Of course we are and mixed sexes. It is in rest rooms and restaurants where they would be a nuisance. This sauna has only been open a couple of years but is great. It is on the 12th and 13th floor of a very large building next to Leiden rail station.



Just one of the many sauna's. This one is the panorama sauna. Runs at 85C.

[Brian Peacock]

Too hot for me.

[Rum]

I have visions of wrinkled old scrotums nestling steamily on those benches.. a bit unsettling.

[mistermack]

I have visions of wrinkled old scrotums nestling steamily on those benches.. a bit unsettling.

Have you told your doctor?

[Brian Peacock]