Heavy Social Media Users 'Trapped In Endless Cycle of Depression' (independent.co.uk) 110
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: The more time young adults spend on social media, the more likely they are to become depressed, a study has found. Of the 19 to 32-year-olds who took part in the research, those who checked social media most frequently throughout the week were 2.7 times more likely to develop depression than those who checked least often. The 1,787 US participants used social media for an average 61 minutes every day, visiting accounts 30 times per week. Of them a quarter were found to have high indicators of depression. "One strong possibility is that people who are already having depressive symptoms start to use social media more, perhaps because they do not feel the energy to drive to engage in as many direct social relationships," said Dr. Brian Primack, director of Pitt's Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health. "People who engage in a lot of social media use may feel they are not living up to the idealized portraits of life that other people tend to present in their profiles. [...] This would be concerning, because it would imply that there is a potential vicious circle: people who become depressed may turn to social media for support, but their excessive engagement with it might only serve to exacerbate their depression."
Speak for yourself! (Part 1 of 12) (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, but my Karma is Excellent!
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It's okay, you almost certainly won't get trapped on a single site for very long. No-one could last out more than three or four years I would guess. That would just be... depressing.
Maybe they are mixing up the cause and the effect (Score:5, Interesting)
It could just as well be that depressed people feel lonely and try to connect to others at least this way.
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It seems safer. Going into real physical company has its risks, but social media are more under control. If the depressed person is fearful of a rejection, he or she can delay reading it until he or she feels up to it.
Being on social media has got to be better than no human contact, but actual human contact would be better. At least you can let someone know you care through social media, and that's got to be worth something.
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Based on what evidence? If anything, what this article suggests is that people who are on social media could be worse off because of it. If social media means people are more likely to cope with a lack of satisfaction in their life by passively viewing social media profiles and less likely to make changes to deal with the underlying issue then there is no reason to believe that social media is better t
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Social media allows you to communicate with friends, and that's almost certainly going to be good. As far as passively viewing social media profiles goes, there's lots of things on the web you can passively view, or stupid games you can play endlessly. TFS doesn't actually have good evidence that social media causes depression, only that depression and heavy social media use are linked.
I'm basing this on personal experience and the experience of friends.
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It's as if the fifth sentence in the post should say: "One strong possibility is that people who are already having depressive symptoms start to use social media more..."
My curiousity (Score:2)
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It has been found that heavy users of social media have become deficient in both vitamins I and Q. Total avoidance of social media has helped some return to normal levels.
the summary literally mentions exactly that (Score:2, Informative)
cmon guys at least try a LITTLE bit. from the SUMMARY -
"One strong possibility is that people who are already having depressive symptoms start to use social media more, perhaps because they do not feel the energy to drive to engage in as many direct social relationships," said Dr. Brian Primack
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Not really, no. It is not even nearly similar to what I have written. Dr Primack thinks that the reason is that direct social relationship is less energy consuming.
I have written that depressed people can feel lonely and therefore try to find someone to talk on social networks - there are obviously many more people on social networks who are willing to chat (otherwise they wouldn't be on social networks in first place).
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To be honest, no, not the old classic. I was rather speaking from my very own personal experience.
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Social media is the cause, it's been studied before. It hooks users on a system of little rewards. Every random thing in their life can be judged and rewarded with a "like". They become obsessed with getting positive feedback and start over-valuing other people's opinions. Worse still they start to think negatively when they don't get the positive feedback, even if it's just because they posted at 11PM and no one was around to hit that button.
Re: Maybe they are mixing up the cause and the eff (Score:3, Informative)
Scat-Book (Score:2)
Oh look,
*This* shit again...
chicken (Score:4, Insightful)
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How about "you're a fucking illiterate buffoon"? Is that an option?
The fucking summary says, and I quote:
Re: chicken (Score:1)
But ... another possibility is: egg
Ignorance (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, FB is a feedlot. What happens at a feedlot? The sick get weeded out and the rest get slaughtered.
Be warned...
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I didn't realize it was so easy to treat depression. You should write a book.
The problem is that everyone who would benefit from it is too ignorant to read it.
Re:Ignorance (Score:5, Informative)
Aerobic exercise is good for depression.
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Yup. Now, try to get someone with serious depression onto an aerobic exercise program. There's several things that are good for depression that being depressed makes much more difficult.
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I'm going to suggest that pain and deprivations aren't great motivators to get over depression. Hurting depressed people is going to lower their already bad self-esteem, and is likely to result in a further collapse.
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Sure. That might make them go ahead with the thoughts of suicide they've been having. Problem solved.
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Depends on the depression, I guess. The therapy working best for mine is sertraline + bupropion in varied amounts.
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You're picking the wrong "friends"
Weed out the prudes or at least create an alternate account without prudes. Facebook 'requires' real-names, but that doesn't mean you have to supply one. Just contact the friends you want to include in the new account that it's you. Just pick a name that won't trip Farcebook's "bogus name" filters.
I find that the sexually stuck-up people are usually stuck-up about a vast majority of things. They're boring people, in all likelihood.
It's like when you're dissatisfied wi
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You can have a quiet simple happy life and not be boring/prudish.
I think the point is that there are people who insist that /you/ be boring too, or that there's something wrong with what you like.
These kinds of people are called busybodies, and they are a scourge on humanity.
--
BMO
Sure. (Score:1)
When you base your entire self-esteem upon the likes/dislikes of near-random strangers you may or may not know, sure, you're bound to have issues.
Lack of hobbies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lack of hobbies (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm willing to bet you've never been depressed and are just making random guesses. You're got it backwards. I've been so depressed I've attempted suicide twice (yeah, I failed at life and failed at death). When you're deeply depressed, nothing feels good. There is no such thing as happiness, at least none that lasts more than a single moment. Everything, everything takes far more effort to do and everything is pointless. Hobbies take too much work, too much effort, and you get no enjoyment out of them. Worse, you may remembering enjoying it but continuing those action no longer brings that enjoyment or excitement. If you used to have hobbies you won't continue them because they're all pointless extra work with no benefits.
Turning to social media makes you feel like you're doing something without having to spend any energy actually doing something. You can pretend you're being social (and why has society deemed that's the thing to be? Other cultures prefer quiet self-reflection rather than gossiping about nothing), catching up with people, making connections, etc... as you get further behind in whatever it was you actually need to be doing. Now you've got even more stuff that you've failed to do so you get more and more depressed. Maybe you're hoping one of your 'friends' will notice and help you out, but you don't have the willpower to ask directly and most people will say something insulting like "why don't you smile more" or "go have fun"*. When you're incapable of feeling any enjoyment you can't "go have fun" no matter what you try to do.
So yes, depressed people don't have hobbies. But they're not depressed because they don't have hobbies, they don't have hobbies because they're depressed. The world is better off without you, so where and why are you going to find and spend the energy to build something when you're just going to fuck it up anyway? At least on social media you could potentially help someone else. I wasted my time reading Facebook and trying to help people on r/depression and the suicide watch reddit forms instead of helping myself.
*Technically you do need to do those things, but simply stating them is fucking insulting as hell and most people don't tell you the how. Why aren't I smiling? Because I have nothing to smile about you asshole. I don't have some perfect happy little life like you do. Why should I have to put on a show for you just so you can pretend the world is a wonderful place full of happy people? Instead of telling someone to enjoy something, take them out to a park or a zoo, someplace outside during a sunny day. Don't ask them to go, plan the entire trip yourself then tell them you want them along and they're going and don't take any insults personally. Take them along for the ride and don't force them to make any decisions ("I've never eaten at XYZ, how about we eat there"? instead of "Where do you want to eat?"). If you just told someone to 'man up' you better have done the same.
Thanks for speaking up (Score:4)
Thanks for speaking up and telling us what depression is really like.
There are times when I tell myself "I feel so depressed!" but it is nothing like what you experience. There are many things I feel unhappy about, many things I am anxious about, but when my primary-care doctor asks me if I am depressed, I say, well no, there are projects at work as well as things at home that I enjoy doing and look forward to very much, so I don't think that I am depressed.
Thanks again for telling us what depression is really like and offering ideas of how we can help friends or family in that condition.
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Hobbies aren't necessarily better, particularly if they don't involve human interaction.
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Internet is a hobby too. :P
This is why I deleted Facebook (Score:1)
One day it dawned on me that I was checking facebook once an hour for no real reason, and I couldn't remember the last time it had made me happy. Delete. Haven't missed it.
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/. has a share on Facebook button but I haven't seen any ads for Facebook itself otherwise. Although their ads might be being crowded out by the targeted ads for light bulbs...
Causal link, but not in assumed direction. (Score:1)
I propose that what is in fact being observed here is that young adults who are suffering from depression are more likely to turn to social media as an escape or in an attempt to self-medicate.
oh you mean like it says RIGHT IN THE SUMMARY? (Score:2)
cmon guys you aren't even trying here! from the fucking summary:
"One strong possibility is that people who are already having depressive symptoms start to use social media more, perhaps because they do not feel the energy to drive to engage in as many direct social relationships," said Dr. Brian Primack
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Science advances! (Score:2)
I think it's great that people are out studying these things quantitatively.
Of course, no-one is surprised, because the "Endless Cycle of Depression" was pointed out as soon as social media started, but it's always better to have quantitative data.
See? Told you so! (Score:3, Insightful)
Be sure to read my sigline before commenting, you'll save you and me both time and energy better spent doing something else.
Re:See? Told you so! (Score:5, Insightful)
It also doesn't help that everyone seems to post an idealized Brady Bunch version of their family on Facebook. The pictures of the kids are always clean and happy, and the adults are always promotions and shiny new cars. When the reader's lives can't live up to these unrealistic expectations, it just makes their depression worse.
Re:See? Told you so! (Score:5, Insightful)
It also doesn't help that everyone seems to post an idealized Brady Bunch version of their family on Facebook.
Exactly. Everyone is showing their highlight reels publicly but privately living their real life from the bits on the cutting room floor.
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So-called 'social media' is no substitute for actual interaction, preferably face-to-face, and is just enabling socially avoidant people from getting over their awkwardness and anxiety of social situations. Also, your ten-thousand 'friends' on Facebook? They are not your friends. Do yourself a favor and get some real, living, breathing, live-in-person friends that you actually connect with on a personal level.
Because all it takes to get over social anxiety is to go out and make friends? That shows just how clueless you are as to the causes and therapy for these issues.
Be sure to read my sigline before commenting, you'll save you and me both time and energy better spent doing something else.
And you would be better off without that "fuck you" attitude if you expect anyone to take you seriously.
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Be
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Because all it takes to get over social anxiety is to go out and make friends?
No, that's the goal, not the strategy.
And no-one is claiming that it's easy.
Re:See? Told you so! (Score:5, Insightful)
So-called 'social media' is no substitute for actual interaction, preferably face-to-face, and is just enabling socially avoidant people from getting over their awkwardness and anxiety of social situations.
^^^^THIS.
"Social" media seems to be creating a generation of emotionally inept and insecure people who simply do not know how to interact with others except on the most shallow of levels. Most millennials seem to hate talking on the phone and the reason they often give is that it's "too immediate and too personal". They want to avoid human-to-human interaction and send a tweet instead. Anything to create some emotional distance. No wonder their relationships are all fucked up and mostly short-lived and shallow.
It should really be called "anti-social" media or maybe "contra-social" media, because it's anything but social as far as I can tell.
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Or maybe it's because they were told that if they went outside then they would get kidnapped or something else bad would happen to them. Hell, kids can't even walk to school today because parents are worried that some sexual predator will get them. Or course now it's some Muslim or terrorist threat added in too. God forbid if they are allowed out to play on their own or head to the playground by themselves. No wonder they stick to the computer or game system as that's all they are allowed.
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I'm all against the 'anti-bullying' in theory (I was very much subjected to it as a kid myself), but on the other hand bullies (both kid and adult!) are a fact of life, and not learning how to deal with them as a kid means you're less likely to know how to deal with them as
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Calling it "anti-social" is unhelpful. Social media *is* social, just social at a shallow and dysfunctional level. Calling it anti-social is simply incorrect and it gives people an excuse to stop listening.
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Calling it "anti-social" is unhelpful.
It may be unhelpful, but it sure seems accurate.
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Social media *is* social, just social at a shallow and dysfunctional level.
I hear what you're saying (mostly a terminology issue) but there's nothing truly "social" about having 500 Facebook friends, none of whom you've ever met or talked to on the phone or shared a beer with. They're not your friends in any meaningful way. They could be script-bots for all you know.
Social media is training people to be non-social and, in some cases, genuinely dysfunctional at a basic human-to-human level. Tindr is a great example, where people are
This is intentional (Score:2)
FB and other SM outlets want you at home on FB/SM. Not turning off your device and getting out of the the house. If that takes making you depressed, well...
Internet Depression (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news, people who frequently use the Internet see how stupid most other people are.
Representatives from the National Institute of Health (NIH), United States Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) all recommend avoiding interactions with stupid people.
Most importantly, avoid places both real and online, where they may congregate. Specifically mentioned as such dangerously stupid locations are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine and LinkedIn.
"While you may think that you can help guide some stupid people away from their stupidity, it will only hurt you. Many very intelligent people have tried, driving them to believe this planet is occupied by absolute morons. There are other studies being performed to determine if we have passed the point of idiocracy."
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Most importantly, avoid places both real and online, where they may congregate. Specifically mentioned as such dangerously stupid locations are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine and LinkedIn.
And Peeple. Don't forget Peeple. Especially stay away from Peeple if you want to avoid really dangerously stupid people.
Slashdot (Score:3)
Does /. count as social media?
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Does /. count as social media?
No, we're generally tech-savvy here, so it's more antisocial media
Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
All of the oversharing of the faux 'my-life-is-super-awesome" lifestyles portrayed would be enough to depress anyone, and add to that the sheer volume of brain-numbing bullshit ("press 'Like' to get this child a new kidney!") and it's no wonder that many people's mental processes become clogged with Facebook sludge.
I noticed this effect years ago when I realized that many of the Facebook addicts I knew were constantly being "one upped" by the constant stream of useless crap and downright false garbage that they tuned in to read on a minute-by-minute basis. Facebook didn't make them feel better, it made them feel worse- lonely, boring, and mundane. They couldn't brag hard enough to make themselves feel good.
I called this effect "Facebook Psychosis", and now it seems I was on to something.
If everyone you know is constantly bragging about how AWESOME and FANTASTIC their life is and they have pictures to "prove" it, who wouldn't be discouraged by the "ordinary" life that you, a mere mortal, seems to lead?
But it's not Facebook's fault per se, any more than it's the bottle of Tequila's fault when someone gets drunk and then crashes their car. It's a contributing cause, but the drunk driver is the one who fucked up.
In other news... (Score:3)
Idealized Portraits (Score:2)
People who engage in a lot of social media use may feel they are not living up to the idealized portraits of life that other people tend to present in their profiles
I noticed this both in the real world and in the social media world very early on. I noticed how the perception of the profile, the sort of larger than life appeal profiles had on people. It sort of created this hunger, this drive for people to become almost morbidly obsessed by the endless detritus of their online lives. And all those posts, updates, etc that don't reflect reality. The online profile and its affect on people is an interesting thing to behold.
#1 source of schadenfreude (Score:2)
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... all the hot chick in the class now look used up and spit out, kind of like bag ladies, while all the plain girls that couldn't get a date in high school to save their lives still look the same, like they haven't really aged in 40 years.
The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. -- Laozi
How Facebook led to World War 2 (Score:3)
History of World War 2, if it had been recorded by Facebook
that's OK (Score:2)
I'm not fat (Score:2)
Heavy Social Media Users
I'm not fat! I'm just big-boned. And I hardly ever use social media anyways.
Sonia Livingstone replies with sense (Score:1)
LSE prof Sonia Livingstone, who runs the Parenting.Digital [parenting.digital] blog as part of her research in this area, sprayed some sense on this story: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenti... [lse.ac.uk]
wg
What if: Social network users see the real world? (Score:1)
What if the issue is that social networkers see a wider variety of people, and in the process see a clearer picture of just how messed up the world truly has become?
That picture is kinda depressing, if things really are stacked against ordinary people.
Indicators of depression (Score:1)