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Heavy Social Media Users Trapped In Endless Cycle of Depression (independent.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the it's-a-trap dept.

An anonymous reader quotes an article on 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 U.S. 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. Dr Brian Primack, the director of Pitt's Centre for Research on Media, Technology and Health, led the study, said, "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 or drive to engage in as many direct social relationships." Update: 03/26 17:06 GMT by M : Oops -- as many of you correctly pointed out, we originally covered this story on Friday. Apologies for the error. Thanks!

48 comments

  1. /. Found to be trapped in an endless cycle by sims+2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ./ Found to be trapped in an endless cycle of depression.
    This story again later tomorrow.

    https://news.slashdot.org/stor...

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    1. Re:/. Found to be trapped in an endless cycle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yah, this is pitiful.

    2. Re:/. Found to be trapped in an endless cycle by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      But this one is different! You didn't see the (Dr. Evil) quotation marks in today's headline?

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    3. Re:/. Found to be trapped in an endless cycle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's depressing.

    4. Re: /. Found to be trapped in an endless cycle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hit refresh twice because this article was the second on the list the last time I loaded the site

    5. Re:/. Found to be trapped in an endless cycle by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      Slashdot is a bit different then other social media.
      While they may be a few big names out there, the most of us, even ones with max karma, are really just a few words in the static. Most of us really know this on Slashdot.
      No matter how insightful your post is, or qualified you are, it may get a lot of attention for about an hour, then shoved away as an old new article. However the attention is directed at your comment, not as much as yourself.
      I am not expecting results from future posts stating that Jellomizer guy, his views are not consistent, or look he trolled an article last month, obviously his statement now is false.

      Social media sites like Facebook, it is far more personal, if you are a big poster with a large following you are seen as yourself and are judged on the whole about your personality. Such as that Guy who keeps on posting Left/Right leaning political posts at the point of nausea. Or the person who is always saying how everything in his life is bad. On social media, you are judged as a person, while on Slashdot, your content is judged on its own.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    6. Re:/. Found to be trapped in an endless cycle by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      You're right that it is more rare to see follow up here, but I have seen people who have gone through poster histories and called them out on things. There is certainly the capability to do so.

      I do think that it is less of an issue because we're not really "friends" or linked somehow. We're random people who happen to post on the same board. If you call me a jackass, that doesn't affect my daily life.

      If you called someone a "jackass" on FB, you probably know that person outside of FB and they may be a friend, co-worker, relative or acquaintance who is in your social circle, and even if they aren't, someone in your social circle probably saw you do it.

      That's also where the comparisons and contrasts can bring on depression. They see these people they know having "great lives" or travelling to tropical locations, or having cute pictures with significant others or something, and feel they are missing out. This forces people who don't have those things to confront those things. I think it is good sometimes to see that there are things that people do, but I think it could be really depressing to see all of that for people who lack the skills or resources to get out there and do all the same things.

      There is also sometimes the deceptive nature of a life presented by FB or Instagram, because it is always going to show our lives the way we want it to be shown, so it is not entirely clear to others that we aren't that way all the time, instead of in a posed moment.

      Never been a big fan of social networks for that reason. I'm sort of interested in what people are doing, but it tends to come off like posturing sometimes. Look at how smart or clever my kid is, or look at how hot I look in this perfectly posed swimsuit photo, or here's my witty quote that I just reposted from the last 300 people who already posted it (God save me from all the people posting that same fucking Steve Jobs quote about smart people about once a day on LinkedIn).

    7. Re:/. Found to be trapped in an endless cycle by execthis · · Score: 2

      Facebook and Twitter are stupid. Some people try it and figure it out quickly. For whatever reason others do not. Perhaps because corporations have embraced them so much and now actively promote them - but that should be a clear sign of what they really are.

      Its kind of like the same thing when you shop for cosmetics. I guarantee you that most of the staff do not really understand 99% of the actual chemical properties of the products they sell. It is a world of almost pure marketing hype. Ok, maybe its fun every now and again to go into that world and try a product or two. But it is not a world to live in. It is not grounded in reality.

      Slashdot is very different. It is a forum. I guess it can be a bit addictive at times but then there are times when you're reading through some thread late at night and find a hilarious post that makes you laugh. I think online forums can bring communities closer in ways. "Social media" - what a BS name actually - is more like destroying communities.

    8. Re:/. Found to be trapped in an endless cycle by just+another+AC · · Score: 1

      But the article is about the external validation of self.

      There is a correlation (not causation) between depressed people and social media. There are several theories as to why, including:
      Those already depressed cannot deal with real social interaction, but still want attention.
      Social media allows a certain escapism/fantasy where people can live as the version of themselves they wish to be.
      Generally social media casts a wider net than real life, so people are more likely to have some feedback directed at them.

      I would argue that some of these angles are present in other communities like this. Yes the focus might be on your post, but a conversation with others started by your point of view is still attention focused on you. Having others agree with your viewpoint gives an ego boost. Traditionally people will also seek online communities with views similar to their own.

  2. In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Heavy slashdot readers caught in endless cycle of dupes.

  3. Slashdot trapped in endless cycle of dupes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do the "editors" even read this site or the articles they post?

    1. Re:Slashdot trapped in endless cycle of dupes by lucm · · Score: 1

      Slashdot, like Twitter, is a write-only media.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    2. Re:Slashdot trapped in endless cycle of dupes by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Surely you meant, "Slashdot, like Twitter, is a write-only medium".

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  4. Title is backwards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As per the quote:

    "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 or drive to engage in as many direct social relationships."

    I think it is much more likely that depression causes the social media use, not that the social media use causes depression. Otherwise you might as well blame TV, books, and magazines, which all also portray unrealistic people and lives.

    1. Re:Title is backwards by ProzacPatient · · Score: 1

      On top of that chronic, clinical, depression is typically a biological problem so I doubt browsing too much Facebook will change how your cylinders are firing so to speak. Not that a person can't bury themselves in despair but I guess what I'm trying to say that in a sense there is a difference between feeling depressed and being depressed.

      Obligatory citation: I have an actual diagnoses of clinical depression.

    2. Re:Title is backwards by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I'm not confident that we know what depression is. We test it by asking people about their symptoms, which shows how little we know. There are no lab tests. I'm not sure there is just one disease underlying the syndrome. We know there are biological factors, but there's more involved. We don't use talk therapy for ear infections or bronchitis, but it is useful to treat depression, preferably combined with antidepressants. There are studies that suggest that antidepressants often do nothing, which suggests to me that the same biochemical causes aren't present for all depression.

      I do agree with the distinction between feeling depressed and being depressed: with long practice, it's become possible for me to feel reasonably good while acting depressed.

      Without any objective substantiation, I'd suspect that the depression tends to come first, and then the overuse of social media, with the depression not necessarily being diagnosed at first.

      Also diagnosed, under treatment for the last twenty years, and doing better.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    3. Re:Title is backwards by ProzacPatient · · Score: 1

      There are studies that suggest that antidepressants often do nothing, which suggests to me that the same biochemical causes aren't present for all depression.

      Interestingly I've also seen some studies that suggest Serotonin may not be the only neurotransmitter responsible, if at all, for depression. Some research suggests that the root cause may be, fully or partially in some people, to be Norepinephrine and Dopamine deficiency. In some cases it may be all three neurotransmitters or even ones we don't know about yet.

    4. Re:Title is backwards by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Yup. Back in the mid-90s, I was rather hoping we'd learn more about depression over the course of my lifetime. I'm rather disappointed over the progress made in the past twenty years.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    5. Re:Title is backwards by ProzacPatient · · Score: 1

      Yup. Back in the mid-90s, I was rather hoping we'd learn more about depression over the course of my lifetime. I'm rather disappointed over the progress made in the past twenty years.

      Well to be fair there are a newer class of drugs called NDRI's (Wellbutrin; buproprion, is one) that target Norepinephrine and Dopamine receptors and Effexor; venlafaxine, supposedly is targets all three but regardless of how these medications work we still unfortunately, as you pointed out, know so little about the actual cause of biological depression so really all we're doing is symptomatic treatment.

      Maybe all the recent breakthroughs in modeling neural networks in software will eventually lead to a software model that researchers can poke at rather than merely hypothesize much like those super computers that can model weather patterns or the interaction between heavenly bodies.

  5. Causation. by edibobb · · Score: 2

    "Depressed people more likely to use Facebook relentlessly."

    1. Re:Causation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think I've received friend requests from most of them.

    2. Re:Causation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Depressed people more likely to use Facebook relentlessly."

      That's ... probably not far off.

      I certainly know that when I'm feeling miserable I tend to eschew doing anything productive and bounce back and forth between different sites, looking for mindless entertainment. I'm not going to claim that my experience is directly transferable to people with depression, but I can certainly see how the Skinner Box which is modern social media could be used by someone who was depressed to try to fill the void: When actually doing something seems like more hassle than it's worth, there's always the warm comfort of the Internet, where the fleeting pleasure of a cute cat gif is only a click away.

    3. Re:Causation. by antdude · · Score: 1

      It is a good thing I don't Facebook. :P

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  6. SubjectIsSubject by p0p0 · · Score: 1

    Researchers have found a 100% chance of unexplained deja vu in users of the spell-check free tech news site Slashdot. The transfer of ownership from DICE to BizX, LLC seemed to remedy the situation but new reports of "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" have quickly skyrocketed.

    Seriously. I have never experienced so many reposts of headlines on any other "news" site.
    https://news.slashdot.org/stor...

    1. Re:SubjectIsSubject by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      This the the first dupe I've seen since the sale to BizX. Feel free to point out any that I've missed, though.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    2. Re:SubjectIsSubject by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      Using the firehose method of selecting articles can cause dupes because two different groups of people can vote up two different copies of the same article which could look different based on different headline or summary text.

      I suppose there is more that editors could do to prevent that from happening, but it isn't like they're writing the stories themselves, forgetting about them, and then writing the same story the next day.

      This is a news aggregation site. I think dupes are as funny as the next person, but their existence in this situation does not really bother me all that much. I just notice that it was the same story and move on.

    3. Re:SubjectIsSubject by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      I believe whipslash is trying to keep some old Slashdot traditions. I'm not sure how high making sure we have dupes and bad editing are on the list, though.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  7. GONE! by nult · · Score: 1

    Deleting my Facebook profile years ago was the best thing I did that year. What a waste of time/energy.

    1. Re:GONE! by flyingfsck · · Score: 2

      What is facebook?

      --
      Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    2. Re:GONE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's a reason why you never remained in contact with those you met in education. FB merely acts as a reminder tool. After a couple of years of utter crap, I deleted my account. Strangely enough, all of my real friends don't use FB either; and most are at the end of the twitter cycle too.

    3. Re:GONE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That just proves you're an idiot with poor self-control. Intelligent people use Facebook sparingly and don't waste a lot of time with it.

    4. Re:GONE! by lucm · · Score: 1

      Deleting my Facebook profile years ago was the best thing I did that year.

      What a waste of time/energy.

      Yeah it was a waste of time, you could just have stopped using it.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    5. Re:GONE! by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      So I'm guessing that you'd tell an alcoholic,

      ...you're an idiot with poor self-control. Intelligent people drink sparingly and don't waste a lot of time with it.

      Right?

      Now let me explain a little something to you: Humans, unlike you, are imperfect beings.

      A common human imperfection is to be prone to obsessive/compulsive/addictive behaviours of various sorts.

      Intelligent humans can perceive this in themselves and be honest enough with themselves to realise that it might be best for them to avoid situations or environments which exacerbate these tendencies in counterproductive ways.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    6. Re:GONE! by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Sometimes, when people need to make a clean break, they need to make a clean break.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    7. Re:GONE! by lucm · · Score: 1

      Sometimes, when people need to make a clean break, they need to make a clean break.

      Friend of mine used to be a manager at Blockbuster video. Every month or so someone would get enraged by late fees or some other thing and would get to my friend and ask to close their account. My friend would explain it can't be done, and the person would stomp out, even more enraged.

      Funny part is, usually those people came back and rented movies again after a while.

      People, pfft.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    8. Re:GONE! by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Apples and oranges.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    9. Re:GONE! by Mr.CRC · · Score: 1

      I used to ask the Blockbuster manager: "how's business?" He'd always tell me it was going all right. A months later they were gone.

    10. Re:GONE! by lucm · · Score: 1

      If they had rented porn, they would have lasted longer. But no, instead they even refused to rent NC-17 movies; either they had the R version or they wouldn't have the movie at all.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    11. Re:GONE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No you're on slashdot instead. How's that better?

  8. character assassination by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    apparently i missed the first time around so here goes.

    i don't use facebook extensively myself. i log in once in a while to see what my contacts are up to but that's about it. i would much prefer if any of the distributed social networks had become popular, but they haven't.

    one person i know who uses facebook quite a lot has gone through several depressive episodes because of it. for whatever reason, somebody will decide to stab her in the back and post a bunch of character assassination against her. she's lost over half her contact list several times and once was even set up and taken for a ride by a fake profile. there are a lot of petty people out there in a few fandoms. drama queens who want to be fan #1 and think that tearing somebody else down is the best way to get there. it really affects her, and i wish she wouldn't use facebook as much as she does. she's a very genuine kind of person.

    facebook puts people who shouldn't be near each other too close. all it takes is the wrong person becoming mutual friends.

    1. Re:character assassination by PessimysticRaven · · Score: 1

      If you think that's bad, take a gander at Tumblr sometime.

      --
      Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a screw-up.
  9. Similar experience by GeekWithAKnife · · Score: 1


    ...to reading this story on Friday but since then I've experienced something of a similar endless cycle with pornographic media.

    I figured if Facebook won't let me break free of depression maybe watching better looking men have sex with women I'll never meet be so much better for me.

    Although I digress it's worth mentioning that neither "cycle" is truly endless. Depressed users eventually recover or end and porn addicts eventually wake up very sore...

    --
    A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
  10. Editors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Editors should be forced to at least read every headline... I read almost every post on Slashdot every single day and it doesn't take much time at all.

    Alternatively, they could have a script that fetches the last two weeks worth of headlines > weekly.txt so editors can quickly skim it and see if it was already covered recently.

  11. Those people suck by lucm · · Score: 1

    Such as that Guy who keeps on posting Left/Right leaning political posts at the point of nausea.

    I quickly learned to use the "mute" feature in Facebook because of those idiots who post zero impact political comments. You know, those comments that won't convince the other side and that people who already agree with the position don't need to read, yet idiots keep posting that and no doubt high-five themselves as they re-read their masterpiece.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  12. Cry me a river by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Go and kill yourselves, you pathetic shit losers. Tie a noose around your scrawny necks, douse yourselves in gasoline, slit your wrists and jump from a building while setting yourselves on fire. I dare you. I fucking DARE you, losers. Why the fuck are you babbling, hunh? No, shitboy, typing "imma kill myself" in myspace/fecesbook/whatever ain't gonna cut it. Here. Take this gun. No, not against the temple, turdoid. Fill your mouth with water and push the barrel under your chin. Now cock the hammer. What the fuck. THIS is the hammer. Here, now it's cocked. Pull the trigger, loserboy. Pull it! End it all for real! What the fuck. What are you waiting for, an invitation from hell? Oh shit. You have pissed yourself. You're a loser. And your crapped your pants. Loser. I can't believe I wasted my time with you. I would feed you to the pigs but I don't want to poison them. Shit.

  13. Ruined my day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trapped in an endless cycle... God, that's depressing news.

  14. "Oops --" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thank you very much.
    So many submitted front page Slashdot articles in the recent past, (Harrumph... Timmy... Harrumph...), not only eventually refuse to acknowledge the Editorial mistakes, but the Editors involved seemed to have zero interest in the Comments section. (Comments make Slashdot.)
    It's as if Slashdot just existed to stroke their Editorial Egos...