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Social Networks Science

Social Media 'Increases Loneliness', Says Study (bbc.co.uk) 142

Posted by msmash from the how-we-live dept.
An anonymous reader shares a BBC report: Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest are causing more people to feel alone, according to US psychologists. A report suggests that more than two hours of social media use a day doubled the chances of a person experiencing social isolation. It claims exposure to idealised representations of other people's lives may cause feelings of envy. The study also looked at those using Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr. "We do not yet know which came first - the social media use or the perceived social isolation," co-author Elizabeth Miller, professor of paediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, said. "It's possible that young adults who initially felt socially isolated turned to social media. Or it could be that their increased use of social media somehow led to feeling isolated from the real world." Theories in the report suggest the more time a person spends online, the less time they have for real-world interactions.
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Social Media 'Increases Loneliness', Says Study More

Social Media 'Increases Loneliness', Says Study

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  • I'd Bet It's Just Modern Social Media (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Back before Facebook bought out MySpace it was actually a great place to meet people with similar interests. It's the move toward user data as the product (and locking down search/browsing functionality to those already in a network) plus the attempt to monopolize a thing (Uber for driving, Facebook for sharing, OKCupid for dating, etc) that is killing the ability to actually socialize because social media platforms are only useful tools to that end when they increase actual connections rather than serve t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TWX ( 665546 )

      When did Facebook buy-out MySpace?

      For the rest, everyone wants to set up their walled-garden and to find a way to make money from people entering through the gate. That's been the way it is long before Facebook was a thing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      Back before Facebook bought out MySpace...

      [citation needed]

      ...plus the attempt to monopolize a thing (Uber for driving, Facebook for sharing, OKCupid for dating, etc) that is killing the ability to actually socialize...

      OKCupid was never an attempt to monopolize any industry. It was a free alternative to paid dating sites. That ended pretty much when Match.com bought them [techcrunch.com].

  • Theories in the report suggest the more time a person spends online, the less time they have for real-world interactions.

    If time spent on social media was worth as much as time spent in the real world, you could argue that it balances out. Unfortunately, time spent on social media is mostly time wasted on social media. The quality of interactions just isn't there. So in the final analysis, social media degrades the quality of the user's life.

    Of course, that void then creates a hunger for contact, which the user tries to fill with still more social media use, because it's easy to do, rather than get off your butt and walk the dog, pick up the phone and call someone, or knock on your neighbor's door and ask them if they want to come over for coffee or tea.

    • quality of interactions

      This is it in a nutshell. You can "Like" and "Share" and "Reblog" and ... all you want, it doesn't create meaninful relationships upon which we build cherished memories.

      Something even Facebook seems to know, by suggesting you "re-post" from "year ago" some significant (or meaningless) life event.

      I don't live on social media, but I probably spend way too much time there.

    • Not just "wasted" (Score:5, Insightful)

      by s.petry ( 762400 ) on Monday March 06, 2017 @12:50PM (#53986137)

      A huge issue with social media is that you are locked into your own beliefs, creating a cult like atmosphere. This is not just time being wasted, it's time being used to self destructive ends. A person can not grow intellectually living in an echo chamber surrounded by controlled thoughts. Companies know this, and cash in on it. This is "The Allegory of the Cave" in action.

      • Re:Not just "wasted" (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Monday March 06, 2017 @03:37PM (#53987257) Homepage

        Well that may be true for intellectual development but for social development most of us get along best with people like us with common interests so that we can share experiences. It's not like we have to be carbon copies but friends are the people you want to hang out with.

    • Re:It's less than a zero-sum game. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Monday March 06, 2017 @01:40PM (#53986447)

      Theories in the report suggest the more time a person spends online, the less time they have for real-world interactions.

      If time spent on social media was worth as much as time spent in the real world, you could argue that it balances out. Unfortunately, time spent on social media is mostly time wasted on social media. The quality of interactions just isn't there. So in the final analysis, social media degrades the quality of the user's life.

      Of course, that void then creates a hunger for contact, which the user tries to fill with still more social media use , because it's easy to do, rather than get off your butt and walk the dog, pick up the phone and call someone, or knock on your neighbor's door and ask them if they want to come over for coffee or tea.

      While accurate, you somehow avoided the most obvious descriptor in this entire narrative.

      Addiction.

      Yeah, I know. The truth hurts.

      • You know, this just gave me some insight into a change in my psychology over the course of my life.

        When I was really young, like elementary school, I was socially awkward and people didn't like me much, so right off the bat I never had any friends. I easily found other things to make life worth living though, and fill myself with self-esteem, so the fact that other people didn't want to hang out with me said something bad about them, to me. I was obviously awesome, and they disagreed, which made them losers

    • Spending more time doing anything leaves you with less time for doing other things... this is not a theory and TFA is vague.

      • Spending more time doing anything leaves you with less time for doing other things... this is not a theory and TFA is vague.

        Tell that to all the people listening to music while coding, or getting exercise while walking the dog - on the way to or from the grocery store - with a friend - while making plans for the weekend.

        Or even reading while sitting on the toilet. Or replying on slashdot while eating supper.

        I would posit that spending more time outdoors walking the dog also gives me far more opportunity for simultaneous real-world interaction with other people and healthy exercise than any amount of hanging out on social medi

        • social media appear to be a more all inclusive activity like sleeping... although you cloud sleep with someone I wouldn't call that an interaction unless there wasn't any actual sleep going on.

    • What you're describing, then, is that social media is to actual contact as junk food is to actual food.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday March 06, 2017 @12:38PM (#53986025)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I'd mod you up, but that would run counter to your point.

    • If you remove the popularity aspect of things from social media it would be a great place.

      Social media without likes, upvotes, indications your post has even been read? So...4chan?

  • The sheep are so scared to stop rudely shoving their thumbs on their treacherous so-called "smart" so-called "telephones," they have lost all ability to interact with the real world anyway. Your papers please. Move along, nothing to see.

    Is this what we wanted personal computers to become?

  • Meh (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Meh. without social media I'd have essentially no human interaction outside of work.

    Net plus. Interestingly, many of those social contacts date back to Usenet days...

  • ...

    Theories in the report suggest the more time a person spends online, the less time they have for real-world interactions.

    By this logic, the more time a person spends mowing the lawn, the less time they have for real-world interactions.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      worse, the more time people spend online the more social the immediate reward center of their brain feels, but the more disconnected they actually become. Its exactly like getting hooked on pain killers, your body starts to hurt even though theres no injury, just to get you to feed the chemical addiction and prepetuate itself. One thinks they are being social for having 450 facebook friends and a wall full of chatter, so they dont seek socialization anywhere else, and in the long run they end up completel

  • Social media is a way to increase connectedness, especially among friends, and share experiences.
    But it's an augmentation of, not a substitution for, actual social experiences.
    If you're looking online and all you're seeing are gatherings of friends you're not at, families you never started, and vacation spots you couldn't go to, then sure, it will certainly increase your own feelings of want. If you have a rich social life, or one that you're comfortable with, then "social media" is unlikely to have that mu

  • This is so very true. (Score:5, Funny)

    by uCallHimDrJ0NES ( 2546640 ) on Monday March 06, 2017 @12:50PM (#53986131)

    This is true. Facebookers are lonely. That's why I spend my quality time with my real friends: the Slashdot forum community. The warmth, understanding, and charitable attitudes I find on Slashdot help me make it through the day, and always lead me to an accurate assessment of the tech news.

  • Depends on how you interact (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bigbutt ( 65939 ) on Monday March 06, 2017 @12:50PM (#53986141) Homepage Journal

    Most of my issues with interacting with humans is I'm pretty quiet and introverted. Many times I can't come up with a response quickly enough when speaking. By the time I've thought of something to contribute, the conversation has moved on. And I have a problem with interrupting others when they're speaking that seems absent from others. I'm in a meeting, for example, and my contributions are minimal in part because the talking is non-stop and you can't get a word in edge-wise.

    With BBS's back in the 80's, Usenet and EMail in the 80's and 90's, EMail lists and Discussion groups in the '00's, and Forums and Facebook now, I can read and respond at my leisure. I don't even like talking on the phone.

    Even this post. I've rewritten bits of it several times, added words, changed structure, and even considered whether or not it would provide any valuable insights before posting it.

    [John]

    • Could it be that "social media" causes extraverts to become more lonely, due to the communication being slower and more deliberate (and oftentimes terminated by "awkward silence" which never ends (dead threads)) compared to what they're used to in interactive f2f chat?

    • I had the same problem, until one day I realized that it matters very little what you say.

      Nerds, intellectuals have this notion that all social interactions must be perfectly structured, insightful, witty, impactful. It might be true if you are at a physics conference, or a Mensa meeting, but not with the rest, 90% of the population. For most, being social is all about being relaxed, being silly, and having fun.

      So next time, just say whatever the first thought that comes to your mind. The fact that you a

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

        What I have to get over is when I do speak and folks talk over me, I get pretty annoyed and then clam up. I got pretty mad at one meeting and almost walked out because I was trying to get my idea across and kept getting stepped on.

        [John]

        • A couple of options. 1. Ignore the person interrupting and keep talking, loudly but calmly. Sometimes I say "let me finish" and they always shut up. You may feel you are being rude when talking over someone but again it doesn't matter. 2. Drop it and get your idea across some other way. Being social is much more about people than ideas.

          "90% of communication is nonverbal (tonality, gesture etc.)."

          "People don't remember what you said, but they won't forget how you make them feel."

    • Here's the thing, though: Being avoidant isn't going to encourage you to get better at social interactions. You have to get out of your comfort zone in order for that to happen. In that context, so-called 'social media' and the internet in general are just enabling your introverted tendencies.

      • just enabling your introverted tendencies.

        You say that like being an introvert is a bad thing. It is not. Social anxiety is not the same as introversion and isn't a good thing. That's something you DON'T want to enable. Being introverted, however, is perfectly fine.

        • Being introverted, however, is perfectly fine.

          I disagree. Being someone who, when growing up, was introverted, I have perspective. I got over it, and I benefitted thereby. Seriously, are you advocating a life where you get walked on, overlooked, and disregarded, simply because you can't bring yourself to speak up, or step forward, or take a risk? it isn't always easy, and there are times when I backslide and just can't deal with a situation (and feel like I'm a kid again) but those are few and far between and serve to remind me how far I've come -- an

          • Being someone who, when growing up, was introverted, I have perspective. I got over it, and I benefitted thereby. Seriously, are you advocating a life where you get walked on, overlooked, and disregarded, simply because you can't bring yourself to speak up, or step forward, or take a risk?

            You're describing various kinds of anxiety, not introversion. You can be assertive yet still be drained by crowds of people and have a preference for solitude over social gatherings.

            • Okay.. but you haven't yet explained how that's a wonderful way to go through life, and why someone should just endure living like that?

              • Okay.. but you haven't yet explained how that's a wonderful way to go through life, and why someone should just endure living like that?

                Are you being obtuse?

                I don't really see what's to "endure" about preferring solitude to crowds. The most annoying thing for introverts to endure is having extroverts complain that said introverts don't like their massed company for long periods.

                It's not good to endure the things you had to endure, but that's, for the third time, god nothing ot do with being introverted and

                • I already wrote a reply to this but somehow it disappeared.

                  I'm not talking about someone 'preferring' solitude to crowds -- FFS, *I* prefer solitude to crowds -- but I don't have panic attacks because I'm around people, and I don't avoid social gatherings because I just can't handle it, either. You've failed to answer my primary question, so I'll have to ask it again: How is it a GOOD THING that someone has to go through life dealing with such crippling social anxiety that they can't handle being around

                  • I'm not talking about someone 'preferring' solitude to crowds -- FFS

                    You keep specifying "introversion". You are introverted and had bad social anxiety. You seem to be conflating the two simply because you don't know anyone who is introverted but doesn't have social anxiety.

                    You've failed to answer my primary question,

                    No, I answered it several times, you just refuse to accept the answer. The answer is that you are yet again confusing social anxiety with introversion. You are literally saying:

                    "introversion

                    • Being cursed with introversion

                      Introversion isn't a curse.

                      AND/OR social anxiety issues

                      Social anxiety is.

                      WOULD ANYONE CHOOSE TO LIVE THAT WAY?

                      With which? You're conflating two entirely different things. It's akin to saying "why would anyone choose to live with blonde hair AND/OR no legs?". The correct answer to the question is "WTF those are not the same".

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

        I actually have gotten better. I attend Monday night CCG at the local game store and have a regular Role Playing game group. But it doesn't take long before I'm overwhelmed by the number of people and need to bail out and take a break.

        It's not avoiding in general. I don't follow sports and don't drink so a lot of the conversation after hours with the group is me just sitting drinking water or a diet soda. After a bit I'm just thinking I'm wasting time, "I could be at home cleaning, on the bike, at the music

    • Same here with my disabilities like speech and hearing. When I discovered online communications like BBSes and Internet, I was way more social than I had been. Although, it is still frustrating when people still refuse to them to communicate with me. :(

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by xluap ( 652530 )

      You might have aspergers's syndrome.

      http://aspennj.org/what-is-asp... [aspennj.org]

    • Social media just lets people know I am a bore in writing....

  • Yeesh (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Nice clickbait headline that says one thing when the very summary says they don't know if social media is the cause or the result of social isolation.

    Anyway, the last line is of particular stupidity. "heories in the report suggest the more time a person spends online, the less time they have for real-world interactions."

    We have a constant amount of time each day. If you're spending more time on the computer then YES you have less time for the real world. How is that just a theory rather than fact?

  • It claims exposure to idealised representations of other people's lives may cause feelings of envy

    I never thought posting photographs taken aboard my luxury yacht as it cruised around tropical islands might have an adverse affect on someone else.

  • Bad for Me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by decipher_saint ( 72686 ) on Monday March 06, 2017 @01:08PM (#53986267)

    Without getting into the nitty gritty I have had challenges with general anxiety disorder / agoraphobia for a while and the combination of telecommuting / computer-based hobbies I don't leave my house very often. And by "very often" I can probably count on my hands the number of hours I've been outside in the last 2-3 months.

    Social media gives me a distraction I can pull up at any time and people to talk to, which is great for the ol' depression (sort of, I'll get into that later) it connects me in ways I never thought were possible before. Whether or not the kind of interactions I have are more or less healthy I can't say but I do know there are a couple things that I see in others that are damaging.

    The main things I find actively damaging about having a life through social media as I see them:

    1. If somebody is being a jerk you can passive-aggressively remove them from your life, I mean this happens in IRL but sometimes you can't escape people like this (work, family) so there's a tendency to craft the people you follow / interact with socially online. I think this becomes a problem because you get into a group-think type situation where you bury yourself in only one side of anything. If I ONLY loved Star Trek I wouldn't follow a Star Wars person, that makes sense, but when I bury myself solely in Star Trek people it can warp me. I try to be careful about it and ensure I have a good variety of people / communities I take part in but there are some people who are so super-focused they only expose themselves to a narrow world and it really is surprising how it changes their thinking over time.

    2. Social media is gamified, that fact is NOT obvious to most people who use it. There are a lot of people who really stress about how many notes, likes, reblogs, +s, thumbs up, etc they are or aren't getting. They associate their personal value to these metrics. I'm aware of this and yet it still invades my thoughts, it's potent and it adds stress to the activity, this kind of stress leads to more depression, you have a social circle and you can now "measure yourself" by these gamified metrics. It's really bad and in general it makes depressed people even more depressed.

    The good side is I feel connected and sociable the bad side is it manipulates me into using it more. I think ultimately it's bad for me because it has become a total replacement for going out, it gives me tools that make it easier to not want to go out, which is not good if you're agoraphobic.

    On the flipside I have met local people online that have forced me to go out and do things I would not have done otherwise, like attending a comic convention for four days straight / going out to celebrate friends' birthdays / going out for coffee (who does that?). When things are bad though its always there for me, which I don't think is particularly healthy.

    As always YMMV

    • Re:Bad for Me (Score:4, Funny)

      by Zephyn ( 415698 ) on Monday March 06, 2017 @01:51PM (#53986533)

      but when I bury myself solely in Star Trek people it can warp me.

      Then stick to impulse power for a while.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

      Without getting into the nitty gritty I have had challenges with general anxiety disorder / agoraphobia for a while and the combination of telecommuting / computer-based hobbies I don't leave my house very often.

      Dude I had these kinds of problems then I did two things:

      1) Accepted that I could die at any moment and that there's nothing I can do about it. Worrying about it just makes you more miserable. Study Buddhism. Attachment = suffering. Dukkha.
      2) As it relates to social anxiety, everyone is faking. No one has any clue what the fuck they're doing and if they project superiority 99.9% of the time it's all because they are completely insecure but they think if they lay it on thick, no one will figure it ou

  • I think there might be another mechanism involved: social media groups have become the primary method for organising real-life interaction and compared to the old fashioned ad-hoc approaches, this has a rather unfortunately side-effect: once you're out of the loop, you're out of the loop. It's easy to join a real-life conversation but it's impossible to join in a whatsapp-group you don't even know about.

  • Increased loneliness vs the chance of missing baby wombat videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Hahahaa! Can I borrow a feeling! [Simpsons quote.]

  • I've been saying what they're saying about so-called 'social media' for years now; it gives people a reason to stay apart, not so much 'bringing people together'. Sure, if you're separated by thousands of miles, it can help you keep in touch with what's going on with people you know. But so do phone calls and, to a lesser extent, emails. Too many people use so-called 'social media' as more of a 'social substitute'. The problem is anything on a computer screen is not a substitute for real, live interaction w

  • It's letting the lonely people tell you about it. Every day, filling up my feed with bleak stock art and Comic Sans overlay text.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

      It's letting the lonely people tell you about it. Every day, filling up my feed with bleak stock art and Comic Sans overlay text.

      I always thought being in marketing would be great fun. But I'd be one of those guys like the ones that used to work at Disney sneaking all kinds of things into the artwork like the original Little Mermaid poster. :) That's the fun part...

  • Where is the link to the original study? The only valuable piece of information in the whole article is: "We do not yet know which came first - the social media use or the perceived social isolation". As to correlation between social isolation and active use of "social media", it is neither new nor particularly surprising.

  • Real Cause of Lonliness (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zifn4b ( 1040588 ) on Monday March 06, 2017 @03:47PM (#53987355)
    You basically have two options in the "advanced" society:

    1) Accept your media programming to become irrational ravenous consumers that are only drawn to fake boobies, blinky lights, reality television and anything that projects if you just buy X you will live fantasy Y
    2) Screw #1 and deal with reality with all its ups and downs, good, bad and indifferent things and just be thankful for having the opportunity to experience existence and admit you don't know a lot of shit

    If you pick #2 you will be lonely because you will separate yourself from all the delusional morons in the #1 camp. If you pick #1 and you are actually somewhat intelligent, you will want to shoot yourself. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

    • You basically have two options in the "advanced" society: 1) Accept your media programming to become irrational ravenous consumers that are only drawn to fake boobies, blinky lights, reality television and anything that projects if you just buy X you will live fantasy Y 2) Screw #1 and deal with reality with all its ups and downs, good, bad and indifferent things and just be thankful for having the opportunity to experience existence and admit you don't know a lot of shit If you pick #2 you will be lonely because you will separate yourself from all the delusional morons in the #1 camp. If you pick #1 and you are actually somewhat intelligent, you will want to shoot yourself. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

      Wow.

      So much truth here, it hurts.

      Nailed it though...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

        Wow.

        So much truth here, it hurts.

        Buckle up your seat belt Dorothy. We're not in Kansas anymore.

  • I don't use social media and I have no friends (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Pfhorrest ( 545131 ) on Monday March 06, 2017 @04:48PM (#53987673) Homepage Journal

    I don't use social media and I have no friends. But that's because I put no effort into making any friends. A decade or two ago, after a mostly-friendless youth, I decided that I wanted to have a social life in my college years, and put effort into it. Then I had an enormous number of friends and social things to do every day of every weekend.

    In time I realized I wasn't getting enough out of that to be worth the effort, so now I don't try, and besides weekends with my girlfriend (where we still don't socialize with anyone besides each other) the most socialization I get is saying "thank you" and "have a nice night" to the grocery store clerk.

    But I'm not lonely. If I wanted to have more of a social life and couldn't, then I would be lonely. But just not having a social life because I can't be bothered isn't loneliness.

    Maybe all the people on Facebook and Twitter see other people socializing and imagine that those people are happier than them and that it's because of the socialization, and that makes them want more social life than they have (whether because they're not good at making friends or just don't have the time for it), which makes them sad.

    Like the Buddhists say, desire is the root of suffering. Stop wanting to be social, stop thinking it will make you happy, stop thinking those people on your FaceSpace pages are happier than you, because they're not, they're just trying to fill the void in themselves the same as you, but it doesn't really work. Stop wanting something that wouldn't make you happy anyway and you will stop suffering for the lack of it.

    • 1) I'm curious, how do you spend your free time?
      2) I don't know, for me, being social, with people that I like, does make me happy. It makes me happy that same way that eating a candy does, or having sex, or masturbating, I feel like I have a need to be near people, preferrably to talk with them as well. It feels biological, and for me I feel that the best way to handle it is just to satisfy it rather than to try to think it's not there. I do reckon that other people can be different from me, that's why I'm

      • What's free time?

        I kid, but I guess I can tell you sort of how I fill my time in general.

        Weekdays:
        Sleep 8 hours -- 8/24ths of the day so far
        Work three hours (I work from home so no commute) -- 11/24ths of the day so far
        Exercise (driving a short way to a trail I hike for an hour), shower and lunch, for two hours total -- 13/24th of the day so far
        Work another five hours -- 18/24ths of the days so far
        Short drive to feel like I've "come home from work", make and eat dinner while reading internet forums/news/etc

        • Wait, "I have no friends" and "watch TV or movies with the girlfriend, other more intimate things with the girlfriend" sorta contradict, don't they? Also, I am assuming that to meet said girlfriend you had to engage in some form of socialization (I also count dating sites as socialization for this purpose)

          • I mentioned the girlfriend in my initial post so I don't see why that's surprising now. I wrote:

            besides weekends with my girlfriend (where we still don't socialize with anyone besides each other)

            By "friends" I mean the category of people who are not familial, romantic, or professional relationships. People you just hang out with just because.

            And yeah I did have to do something back in the day to meet the girlfriend, but even that mostly consisted of making a profile on a dating site and waiting for her to message me, which she did. Even then, I wasn't really sure what I wanted a girlfriend for, I was jus

        • I can relate to you in some ways, Pfhorrest, but then I'm pretty different from you. But I can relate to what you said about suffering. I feel relatively more like you than like lucasnate. I'm inherently introverted and being around people is draining, constantly monitoring everyone around me and unable to shut it off. I also have so many things different than the normal person that it's hard to find common ground for conversation. I don't watch TV or movies and don't really play any video games or other ga

          • Re-reading that last sentence of my post, I just wanted to clarify that I'm fully responsible for my actions. I wasn't blaming my situation on my genetics, although they play a part. I didn't want anyone to think I'm just playing the victim and I didn't mean to come off as whiny. One of my earliest childhood coping mechanisms was playing the victim so sometimes I still fall into it.

            By the way, I have all these problems and I'm a Psychology major. Jesus. I'm the last person who's qualified to know how people

            • Yeah, from what I've heard psych majors (and psychologists and psychiatrists) often have major psych issues themselves, which is what drives them into it, a quest to understand themselves.

              Be forewarned though (if you haven't already been) that there's a common trap psych majors fall into, I forget it's name now, of self-diagnosing yourself with every new condition you learn about.

              I was a philosophy major myself, so some close overlap there. :-)

          • Thank you for sharing all that Tyrus. I can relate a lot, though it sounds like I haven't had things quite as hard as you have. I've also been struggling a long while with anxiety and depression, and it's felt like my life has been in a constant state of disorder for about a decade now; though it's certainly gotten a lot, lot better in the past few years, it's been a really long time since everything was just okay and there wasn't some big thing or another displacing everything else in life and a to-do list

  • Susan Sontag once wrote a book in 1977 called On Photography. While it was about that specific portion of media, it is illuminating to compare her thoughts on what photography is and isn't and juxtapose it with modern social media. In a nutshell, she compares photography as simply one more way for humanity to continue looking at the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave instead of turning around and seeing the real world. Photography, as well as social media, is a way for a person to remove themselves from th

  • If you are on social media, you are having real-world interactions. The whole idea that our presence via technology is somehow illusory and insubstantial is false. The Internet is the "real world."

    That said, to state the obvious, there are a number of non-verbal (heck, even some verbal) cues that are missing from on-line interaction. Sarcasm requires tags. We are still discovering why people can become so awful in text, why they are emboldened to be hateful (beyond just anonymity) when they never would do s

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ( 4621901 )

      This became somewhat off topic but it is replying to op concern.

      YMMV, but social media is "online" interactions. Some people may use it like its their real-world interactions, but there are others that treat it as single room (anonymous) interactions. This variation can explain why some people (with kids mentality) post awful message in text in voice.

      First we need to understand that when Humans express something, it returns a feeling of satisfaction (aka reward). However during online interactions, those Hu

  • I never got on the LiveJournal bus, and I noticed that the people I hung out with were talking about things I didn't know about, and talking about events that I wasn't invited to because it was only mentioned on LiveJournal. Now with Facebook -- which is broken for me -- I see friends less and less often because they talk to each other through Facebook, and organize get-togethers solely through Facebook. They don't even use email, nevermind telephone calls anymore. And since I can't use Facebook, I'm left

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