Social media wasn’t always like this. I think back to the ways I used Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in the early days and they were completely different than they way they are used today. They were personal, real time, and no one cared about “likes”.<p>I think a lot of the problems with social media today could be solved just by removing “the numbers.” If suddenly all the like, follower, following, and comment counts disappeared I suspect people would use these things fundamentally differently. I see people browsing through IG tapping to like for 20 minutes at a time and think to myself, “why are you even doing that?” It’s a compulsion that does nothing.
The way this is titled makes the relation seem directional, and in the wrong direction...<p>Basing self worth on social acceptance definitely predates Facebook, and Facebook addiction is a pretty obvious consequence of the positive feedback loop that you'd get form using Facebook to feed that part of yourself.<p>Not defending Facebook or any other social network here, I personally think Facebook is likely toxic -- but I think it's pretty hard for a social network to exist without having this flaw.
Social media is the new smoking. Cancer destroys you physically but these sites destroy your mental health. Not just Facebook but Instagram too for example, it's even worse. And don't forget Twitter.
What about TV addiction, video game addiction, addiction to foods laden with high fructose corn syrup, or an other number of “addictions”? Point here is anything can have a good effect or negative effect. Everyone on HN has an addiction to talking negatively about things people have built or are building. Very rarely is anyone speaking about the good that results from what people are working on. People have and will always gravitate towards staking self worth on social-acceptance regardless of the communication channel. Whether it is their family, friends, classmates, colleagues and interaction happens over IM, email, in school cafeterias, locker rooms, people are looking for social acceptance and depending on how that goes there is a good or bad experience with it. Nothing new here nor does Facebook have anything to do with it. Facebook exposes you to more people and it doesn’t inherently do anything to you either negatively or positively. For every negative article there are hundreds of examples of good that comes from it. (My 2 cents)
Pop science, but this probably helps explain why Facebook/Snapchat/etc are so popular with the teen demographic. I'm kinda glad we didn't have any of that when I was that age. Remembering back to how insecure I felt personally, I can't really begin to imagine the pressure of being on a 'social' platform at that age.
Since modern philosophy has been teaching that reality is a social construct, why wouldn't it follow that each individual self is too? Further, we have been taught that values are socially determined (market prices, fashion, popular arts, ...) and that for the individual the highest moral compass resides in the well-being of others (e.g. utilitarianism, charity drives, altruism, welfare programs, ...).<p>Given this, wouldn't it be abnormal to eschew social networks and the daily, hourly, validation they provide? of course people used to seek social acceptance in person, but physical social intercourse has been shrinking, so the online world is now where we can most easily obtain it. And soon, virtual worlds will provide in even greater abundance.
How horrible. If I had a dime for every time somebody on the internet took a civil disagreement of opinion to an emotional level I would be a trillionaire. If this is how I qualified my self-worth I would be in a very bad place. This is also the reason I deleted my Reddit account.<p>God forbid you offer technical advise or attempt to explain a complex subject and the answer somehow becomes extremely political. The biggest example I remember is the folks at r/programming really REALLY want WASM to replace JavaScript. I, being a long time JavaScript programmer, explained how WASM isn't replacing JavaScript for technical reasons and the stated goals around that technology. Immediate emotional failure on an epic scale. I could have said something about harming children and would have been less reviled. This isn't even a political subject. I imagine an actual political subreddit being quite comical.<p>People get emotional online for all kinds of reasons. PRO TIP: there are many people online that cannot follow a conversation, possibly their own conversation, or who have trouble with basic reading comprehension. ANOTHER PRO TIP: echo chambers and conformity are very real qualities that easily feel threatened for nonthreatening reasons.
Wow, this topic is so relevant to me.<p>I felt that I've became obsessed with "likes" recently on Reddit. Well, they call it karma. But, same thing.<p>Karma points are kinda hard to get. Mainly because there are 3 things that has to happen -<p>1. Write your comment early enough
2. Write something witty enough
3. The thread needs to become somewhat popular<p>Sports threads, mainly Game threads, are a gold mine for karma. I found, recently that I wrote things there partly because I loved the team and atmosphere (Braves fan), but also because I love refreshing and seeing all 'dem karma points.<p>I've became so obsessed that I realized I had a problem. Each time I go onto Reddit (the new version), my eyes immediately darts to the top right of the screen to see if I went up or down. It became distracting that I looked for ways to turn it off.<p>Reddit's user settings, from what I saw, doesn't have anything that will hide those points. Luckily, I could revert back to the old Reddit layout.<p>Funny thing is, I'm barely on the Game threads now that I cannot see those points.
Social media knows how to play the game. It knows how to keep the herds hungry, happy, and most importantly loyal to the system. It strikes where it matters most --into the heart and mind of users. Poking the ego of 'self-worth', counting likes of social acceptance, sharing ego driven personal stories or unmattered opinions to get more and more attention and standout above the rest of the flock. Everything is a contagious fabricated reality that could be a slow poison to a naive.<p>The bigger picture is it doesn't matter that much because that's the purpose of the business and it is sure succeeding. But we all have our own choice, we can use it either to advantage or disadvantage. Still, somehow it is fortunate for us present generation that we are now living in a complex system that makes things simple, it will keep on progressing and we must keep up so we can enjoy the minimum substantial benefits. I think we just need to understand the rules and we'll be OK.
Facebook is a cesspit. How did people come to see it as somewhere acceptable - a walled garden, akin to AOL circa 1997. Awful,<p>Besides, what if it's not addiction, but something worse!<p><a href="http://www.netopia.eu/not-tech-addiction-something-worse/" rel="nofollow">http://www.netopia.eu/not-tech-addiction-something-worse/</a>
The most surprising thing to me about this report is that it was self reported. I have no doubt that there are an immense, and seemingly increasing, number of people that stake their self worth on social acceptance. What is surprising to me is that people do this while being consciously aware of it!
Facebook, reddit, twitter, blind are like halfway betazoid telepathy on start trek. If you knew exactly how others judged you internally without them saying it, you would be devastated as a human. But the betazoids were fine. Maybe we just need time to develop coping mechanisms.
Someone needs to figure out a way to clone Facebook circa 2005 and just call the site something other than 'Facebook'. Back then it was an amazing resource for university students and only allowed people with .edu email addresses from more reputable schools to join. You could use Facebook to access your course schedule and see lists of everyone that was in each of your classes. Gradually they relaxed the rules and started allowing faculty to join, then junior college students, etc.
People should get rid of facebook.. not because of your privacy, but for your own state of mind. Teenagers should not be on such platforms as the social norm will change and grow.
I actually had a discussion today about someone considering whether they should say "Happy birthday" because that other person didn't do that previously.<p>Finally my response was "who gives a shit, it's Facebook, it doesn't fucking matter. Just unfriend her instead of bitching about it."<p>That didn't resonate very well and the person had a very sullen attitude. but I stand by my statement. Facebook isn't that important.
I remember using Facebook in 2008, and creating a group for my class. I advertised so that people could join it.<p>It went horribly and a couple of student started insulting me for stupid things in the Facebook class group. It scarred me psychologically and emotionally, and I stopped using Facebook altogether and removed my account.<p>Until there is true and real accountability for things you say online, using real names should not be a standard. Facebook is a real example of murky online behavior. It's a haven for bullies and other tough playing egos. It's going to poison the internet for a long time.
Considering the number of GoFundMe's I see for basic medical care, staking one's self-worth on social acceptance is not some weird psychological delusion. In this economy and country, social acceptance is the difference between life and death.
the real question is, is it intentional as a means of social control? I noticed that the messenger app intentionally delays messages at a rate that is linked to dopamine ups/down -- when another person sent me a message, and I went to another area of the website, and paused, there message would "appear" right when I lost interest, re-engaging me into facebook -- so there is some kind of thought put into creating a feedback loop to stay addicted to the platform. That, and the facebook scientists who were caught screwing with people's minds via social experiments years back and actually openly published their results, with zero ethical considerations, leads me to be concerned that this might also be some kind of sinister plot to control dehumanize subjects on their platform.
I think one’s self worth is intrinsically linked to acceptance, with or without Facebook, especially in younger people. FB (and others like it) just exploited the weakness.
What about HN's addiction to news about facebook? I thought after a year of relentless facebook spam, we were past this. Now the top two posts are about facebook. We have to kick this habit.
My understanding is that humans have evolved to stake their self worth on social acceptance. Facebook just capitalizes on this need that we all have. It's the natural extension of capitalism and why pure capitalism without regulation is evil.