Social Media Are Driving Americans Insane (bloomberg.com)

Deena Shanker, writing for Bloomberg: If you pull out your phone to check Twitter while waiting for the light to change, or read e-mails while brushing your teeth, you might be what the American Psychological Association calls a "constant checker." And chances are, it's hurting your mental health. Last week, the APA released a study finding that Americans were experiencing the first statistically significant stress increase in the survey's 10-year history. In January, 57 percent of respondents of all political stripes said the U.S. political climate was a very or somewhat significant source of stress, up from 52 percent who said the same thing in August. On Thursday, the APA released the second part of its 1 findings, "Stress In America: Coping With Change," examining the role technology and social media play in American stress levels. [...] The highest stress levels, it should be noted, are reserved for those who constantly check their work e-mail on days off. Their average stress level is 6.0. So those of you who think it's somehow pleasant to work from home on a Saturday afternoon, you're actually fooling yourself.

Comments

Do we need more evidence...

[jddj]

...than the current Psychotic-in-Chief?

Re:Do we need more evidence...

[DickBreath]

Do you have the cause and effect reversed?

Does the insanity cause the tweets? Or do the tweets cause the insanity?

Does the moon cause the tides? Or do the tides cause the moon?

Do immigrants cause poor living conditions? Or do poor living conditions cause immigrants?

I don't know. Let's ask Mr. Owl.

Re:Do we need more evidence...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the Pussy-Grabber-in Chief.

Bill Clinton left office in 2001.

There's a helluva lot more nasty allegations of rape and actual sexual assault and sexual harassment about Bill Clinton that makes Trump's mere words pale in comparison.

But Slick Willie with the bent wee-wee is OK because he's a Democrat, right?

Too much noise

[XxtraLarGe]

I definitely got a little burned out on Social Media since the election. I think I've used Twitter a half dozen times since then, and am only checking Facebook once or twice a day, usually to send birthday greetings. Some days I don't get on at all. It definitely lets you do more important/productive things, and you stay out of arguments with your left/right friends who are posting fallacious memes.

Re:Too much noise

[Anonymous Coward]

Pro Tips about how to give no f**ks:

Delete all social media apps, use the web ui, yeah it sucks, and thats the point, you'll use it when have to, and not much more. I check facebork every few days when I think about it, sometimes I post a photo or 3 of some things no one else cares about much, at least its original unlike the junk everyone else re-shares on there.

Twitter, unfollow everything thats useless. My Twit feed only follows the local transit agency so I can bitch at them when my train is late or delayed, I like to remind them that our taxes pay for them, as does the fare I paid, I'm both their employer and their customer at the same time, somehow that allows them to be bad at what they do. The rest of Twitter is useless garbage from people about things that don't matter.

All my iDevices go into DND mode at 5pm, and come out at 8am. When I get home my phone gets plugged into the charge in the keyrack, I dont look at it again until about 30 minutes before I leave for work the next day.

If its important enough, my boss has my land line number to call (yes I still have one, I'm sorry if you don't) if needed. In 3 years I've had one call in the evening from my boss. I goto bed at 9pm, the land line phone is too quiet for me to hear from the bedroom, leave a message if its important, I'll get back to you when I'm done being asleep. If its really important then you'll f**king well drive to my house and bang on the front door.

So far I have missed nothing important ever. I suppose I'm just old enough to remember a time before mobile internet connected phone devices, you know back when a house had one wired phone in it and that was it. Funny thing is, no one missed much then either, and you wont now.

Lastly watch TV for pleasure, not the stupid news. Sometimes I make an exception, but otherwise its just an hour 1/2 of Big Bang Theory and/or Seinfeld before I goto bed at night to unwind and laugh at something.

Excuse moi, monsieur...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhmmm... seriously ? Since there has been obviously *zero* change in the political landscape between August last year and January this year, the only possible conclusion for the reportedly increased stress from the political landscape is social media. Rrrright... We don't need fake news when plain idiocy will do just fine.

Life before int4rw3bz

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a time when we spent most of our free time outdoors, playing games or hiking/biking, swimming etc. And we lived in the city. I pity the under 45s, if they had to exist for two seconds without a computer or phone, they'd melt. Sorry to say but it sucks to be you.

Re:Life before int4rw3bz

[TWX]

Before the interwebs was console gaming. My mother has talked about seeing the shift in the neighborhood as the various kids got nintendos or segas and how suddenly groups of kids stopped playing outdoors.

Re:Life before int4rw3bz

[ColdWetDog]

Ogg: Ogglet! Go outside! Play! Get eaten by that tiger!
Ogglet: No dad, can't I just paint on the wall a little longer? It's raining.

What is new is old.

Re:Life before int4rw3bz

[William Baric]

Before Nintendo and Sega, there was Atari, Mattel and, later, Coleco. Yet, it never stopped us from playing outside. What your mother doesn't tell you is that kids stopping going outside was mostly because women became the head of the household during the 80s (instead of men), and so making sure kids were safe became the utmost priority. On the one hand, mothers said they wanted their kids to play outside, but, on the other hand it had to be in a controlled way and kids had to be watched all the time. So kids ended up preferring to stay in their rooms. Don't blame consoles or the Internet, blame mothers.

Re:Life before int4rw3bz

[demonlapin]

When I was nine, my parents gave me a house key. They told me where the spare was hidden, too. Then they told me to take my bicycle to and from school (about 1 mile, 1.6 km). If I woke up late, or it was raining, my mom would put me in the car and drop me off. If it was still raining when school let out, she would pick me up, but otherwise I would just walk home. I'm 42, so very much an 80's kid. We did all kinds of dangerous stuff. The only expectation my parents had was "be home by dinner". And that extended into my teenage years - although my curfews were ridiculously early, I could literally tell them nothing about what I was going to do, and nothing about where I was going to go, and it was cool. It sucked, because there was no flexibility, but at the same time, I could do whatever I wanted. No expectation that there would be parents present. No expectation that we would be available. Come home by X, what you do until then is your business.

Re:Life before int4rw3bz

[Evtim]

I got that beaten. 7 yrs old when got the key and went to school alone. Dinner at home rule stopped at the age of 13. I would call only if stayed overnight at a party. We [bunch of boys] could go hiking the mountains and our parents would not hear from us for 3 weeks! More astonishing, around age of 15 the girls joined us! Can you imagine a parent of today sending her daughter at age of 15 with a bunch of boys to a remote location that has transport in and out once per 3 days, no communication whatsoever [even post], 50 km from the nearest city that has hospital? And you know what? Nobody got molested in any way, nobody got pregnant. In fact from 36 people class in high school 5 families emerged [still going strong; kids and all]. At the same time if somebody of today could eavesdrop on us we would be labeled the most PC incorrect people. Nobody back then took imaginary offense [or micro, even nano-offense] from people speaking their mind.

Fuck the fucking communists, but they did give us carefree, crime-free [totalitarian societies have very little petty crime, mostly it is big, state crimes that happen] advertisement-free, religion-free, no gadgets, play outside childhood. For that, together with the education [critical thinking was a must, it was actually thought even though at the end it back-fired against the communist party], I am grateful.

Not insane

[TWX]

It is not driving me insane!

now give me a minute to see what fark, deadspin, facebook, twitter, reddit, tumblr, livejournal, wordpress, and blogger have to say about it.

Re:Not insane

[TWX]

no but my narcissism was self-lovingly confirmed by repetition of safe space reaffirmation bias.

Dropping Out of Social Media

[Tempest_2084]

I think the big problem is that everyone seems to want to use social media to shout their political and social beliefs constantly and non-stop. Before the rise of social media I had a pretty good idea of where my friends were in the political/social spectrum, but we never really discussed it. Now it seems that everyone must not only tell you where they stand on issues, but they have to tell you why you're wrong for not taking the same stance. Day after day with the smug condescending memes, fake news pieces from whacked out websites, pointless hoaxes that Snopes debunked years ago ad nausem. After a while it just gets on your nerves and you either join them, drop out, or go insane. I've pretty much filtered or unfollowed just about everyone on Facebook because I'm tired of it (whether I agreed with them or not). If it wasn't for some of the computer groups I follow I'd probably never log into FB anymore.

Re: Dropping Out of Social Media

[Tempest_2084]

It's the damn weirdest thing though. My friends never used to be like this, but something about Facebook twisted them. I'm starting to think FB is some sort of curse that was unleashed on humanity by an ancient evil or something.

Re:Dropping Out of Social Media

[Sumus Semper Una]

I feel like it's not just about politics. I hardly ever log in to Facebook (the only social media application I even have an account on), and even outside of elections or times of political conflict I've felt like a majority of the people who use the service a lot are really just shouting at an uncaring world and hoping for a response. Sometimes it's sharing cute or funny videos/pictures. Sometimes it's sharing intentionally inflammatory comments. They don't act like traditional trolls. They just seem to want someone to give them *some* sort of response that they can respond back to.

Political strife seems to exacerbate whatever the cause of the phenomenon is and (not surprisingly) apparently results in more inflammatory comments than at other times. But the bigger question (at least for me, because I don't personally participate in or understand it) is what is it about social media that prompts people to shout their beliefs and interests to people who did not ask and mostly do not care?

Hard wired

[GeekWithAKnife]

Humans spot risk, oddities in recognisable patterns and are far more likely to remember negative events because they are hard wired to do so.

As hunter-gatherers (you know, in the time before writing and the invention of religion) we'd either learn to spot danger and do what we can to avoid it or have decreased chances of survival...fast forward 100(?) thousands years or so and the information revolution gave us access to numerous sources of negativity and percieved risk. Once upon a time to find a heretic you had to travel! -now you can speak with a blasphemer in under 10 seconds just go to a forum or heck, skype them!

Some people are unable to detach, disassociate or become desensitised. Often the stress is not even about real threats just amplified mass fear of awful weather, cheating in their favourite sport, injustice of what they consider their basic rights etc.

Basically like all humans, people suffer from the human condition. Humans are irrational. They are more concerned with controlling borders than traffic accidents despite traffic being the proven killer. They are more worried about terrorists than the flu and yet one kils hundreds of times more. Humans are scared their children might develop diametrically opposed beliefs if they associate with certain other kids but turn a blind eye to the negative imapcts of their own beliefs because they seldom scrutinize it...the list goes on.

Americans are not crazy but they are being driven crazy by a political system that preys on fear. News network that compete to report the latest disaster. Corporations that research their insecurities about their body and sell them shit they do not need.

Actually this happens everywhere...somehow this more pronounced in the US for reasons I'll let others suggest.

Re:social media is modern society

[DontBeAMoran]

Isn't the comments section of Slashdot a form of social media?

I cut off FB a month ago. It's been a good month.

[enjar]

I had my wife log me out of Facebook and change the password. She knows it if I ever want to get back in. It's been a month and it's been generally great. I ended up with time for stuff I "never had time for" -- Crosswords, books, movies, 8+ hours of sleep, time with the kids, home projects, etc. I'm more focused at work and sleep better. This makes me less grumpy, impresses my boss and also makes me eat better and get in regular workouts. The elimination of FB has made it easier to have a virtuous cycle that feeds on itself rather than an endless stream of crappy memes and political crap that doesn't really help my life in any appreciable way. If I ever choose to return to FB I'm going to cull the friends list tremendously, I expect it to drop precipitously to maybe 15-20 people, generally family and friends I legitimately want to keep up with.

Re:Social media?

[nine-times]

For whatever extent you want to talk about the news itself being the cause of stress (which is fair to do), I think we have to look also look at the setup of the platforms, human nature, and the culture around social media, as likely contributing factors.

Because really, however bad the news was, 20 years ago you'd be waiting for the nightly news to find out about it. Several decades before that, you'd be waiting for the following day's newspaper. Now, we're getting constant updates, and those updates may be causing a device in your pocket to vibrate and make noise every time something new comes out. We know that checking all of those notifications is addictive, and not checking causes stress. However, constantly feeling the need to check also causes stress. (human nature)

Also, we have grown to expect that everyone is constantly online, always checking all of their platforms. Speaking for myself, I get messages via various social networks, and if I don't respond immediately, people freak out and take personal offense. Even when I try to remove those apps from my phone or turn off notifications, I get angry messages from people because I'm ignoring them. (culture)

I think it's also worth pointing out that most of these platforms are not really designed for occasional use. I've thought it would be nice if you could set a time-based digest of a social networking site. For example, instead of looking at Twitter, give me a weekly digest of the tweets that (based on some criteria) I'm going to be most likely to want to read and respond to. Only update Twitter at 9am on Sunday mornings with the 25 most important tweets of the week. But Twitter doesn't work that way. It's basically built on the idea that you're always looking, always paying attention, because if you stop paying attention for a day or two, you're just going to miss things and they'll get buried under a flood of other tweets. (the platforms)

Basically, I don't think we can do much about the human-nature aspect. Realistically, I don't foresee the platforms changing because they're providing the instant-feedback that people want. In my thinking, they key would be to change the culture and expectations around social media, which would change what we want from the platform, which would change the platform.

But then, intentionally changing culture is not so easy either.

As if I needed a reason

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

As if I needed a reason not to have any (anti-)social media accounts.

Thanks, but I like my craziness and and insanity to be of my own making, all mine as it were.

Re:I cut off FB a month ago. It's been a good mont

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Wow, it's an interesting exercise to replace "FB" with "Heroin" in your post. It still makes sense. Maybe it's time to haul up Zuckerbock in front of a Congressional Committee, Big Tobacco style, and have him claim that FB is not addictive. Or maybe a class action suit for promoting a product that damages the health of the general public.

Unfortunately, just like with Heroin, making it illegal would not stop folks from abusing it until it causes their deaths.

Well, at least the death of their sanity. And, as with Heroin addicts, FB addicts are most of the time somebody else's problem.

Re:Social media?

[tlhIngan]

Because really, however bad the news was, 20 years ago you'd be waiting for the nightly news to find out about it. Several decades before that, you'd be waiting for the following day's newspaper. Now, we're getting constant updates, and those updates may be causing a device in your pocket to vibrate and make noise every time something new comes out. We know that checking all of those notifications is addictive, and not checking causes stress. However, constantly feeling the need to check also causes stress. (human nature)

It's the reason we have the term "FOMO", or Fear of Missing Out. By not being attached to our phones 24/7 we fear we're going to miss big news about something (... almost always trivial in the big scheme of things).

If you hate that term, get used to it - it's a root of the term for the phobia, and as a medical diagnosis.

Americans are insane?

[buss_error]

Er, how is that news? Look at what happened November 8th, 2016 for insanity index. Forecast; High.

Chance of dunderheads: 100%
Protectionism, Xenophobia, and nut job anti-consumerism regulations to be expected for the next two years.
Sticking busybody noses into random vaginas guaranteed.
Skyhigh medical bills and health insurance: Paid for by lobbyists that stand to gain.
Hilarity, hypocrisy and hysteria: delivered.
Global shunning: On the way.

apparently also a decrease in using proper grammar

[citylivin]

"Social media IS driving americans insane"

FFS!

Re:Social media?

[Grishnakh]

Of course it isn't, but the people who were "driven crazy" were surely motivated by that kind of thing, not substantive policy issues.

Quick way to quit Facebook

[werepants]

I was getting annoyed about Facebook and finding that I was spending time on it and not really finding it worthwhile, but the monkey-brain habit was already ingrained so I kept going back. I honestly stopped the habit completely with just a couple steps:

1. Uninstall the Facebook app
2. If I ever end up opening Facebook in the browser, log out completely when I'm done, and don't save the password or username

Turns out that when I have to go through several steps (open browser, navigate to Facebook, type in username, type in password) it's disruptive enough to the mindless "Check Facebook" routine I had developed that it killed it entirely. I went from checking it 5-6 times a day to checking it once or twice a month, and life is much better.

Not just americans ...

[Qbertino]

I've got two spoof accounts on Facebook, one for work - we're an agency selling Social Media Marketing among other things,so it's more or less expected of me - and one I established roughly 7 years ago when i started social dancing and constantly meeting people who asked me if I was on Facebook. I looked at Twitter a few months after it came out, thought "wtf?" after 3 minutes and have used it since maybe 4 times or so. No inroads at all with instagram, whatscrap and other data hogs.

Long story short, even though I'm your Type A 80ies computerkid who has never had less than 5 email accounts in the last 2 decades and who was on Fidonet back in the day posting every day, I see a significant difference between me and many many other people. Today *I* am the one who's more away from electronic media than the average - a thing quite unthinkable back in the 90ies. Even though I haven't changed my habits that much.

Facebook I consider particularly evil, as it is a funnel of constant superficial vanity-induced anti-social behaviour that, as far as I can tell, has a significant impact on the general social skills of people growing up with it. Facebook here being a synonym for anything "social" media these days. A fascinating look into someone from this social media native generation is Essena O'Neills account on why she quit her life as an instagram "professional". Yes, you can shake your head in disbelief about the naivity and the obviousness of what she finally realised, but don't forget: these are people who grew up with this - they never knew anyhting else - which makes her account ever more honest, poignant and impressive.

Conclusion:
I see the signs left, right and center: Social media has a significant negative impact on the general publics mental health. To put it in other words: FB is not a social network, it's basically a global mental illness.

My 2 cents.

Re:Social media?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've the exact opposite problem. I managed to 'train' my friends to never send me SMS messages except for emergencies. I could carry my old cell phone with me just for emergencies. Smart Phones are something else however. You are constantly updated with all kinds of notifications. Even when you turn out all notifications and want to use your smart phone you see all those numbers of missed notifications, messages or emails on your screen. That's the reason why I gave up on smart phones. I still have my iPhone 4S but it just lays on my desktop connected to my computer. I never take it with me. I've also given up on emails entirely, except at work. I don't check work email at home. I've never made profiles on any social network. I rarely watch television, only when there is a program I would like to see, after recording it of course.

I only read newspapers on the internet on a tablet or at my desktop at home (I pay for the digital edition) and I sometimes read Slashdot. I don't use internet everyday. In summer or weekends when the weather is nice I prefer to hike or bike or I go out with friends in my free time. Although I'm more disconnected than most, I still feel the pressure of the always connected people in my life.

Many people have similar opinions about some issues. I never understood why all of the sudden when we grow older most of my friends have the same opinions. When we were teenagers and in our twenties we had interesting discussions about small problems and world politics. Today they all have similar ideas. I've noticed when a friend tried to convince me, he pulled out his smartphone and showed websites that he learned through facebook. That's when I was struck. Have my friends become drones? The most frustrating part is that lately they have become anti-Trump drones. I didn't know Trump except that he was a wealthy non politician going for president, I just understood that he was hated by established media and politicians but loved by the voters. That can happen. But how can someone who isn't American become an anti-Trump drone and even start using American English slogans. I've even heard them talk about 1984. I told them that they looked more like the 1984 workers who knew the truth about some far away event from the screen then that inexperienced president who doesn't know how to talk like a politician and offends a lot of people with short tweets. When I told them they were drones of the cultural hegemony as described by Antonio Gramsci I expected an interesting discussion like in our younger years. Instead they became offended and angry and compared me with Hitler...

This happened a few weeks ago, and it is just one of the many anecdote that slowly turns me crazy. It seems that the always connected people stop thinking about the information they read. There is probably too much different information on a short time that makes it impossible to actually think things over. This makes them take over opinions from the national media without forming their own opinion. I don't know. I do know that more and more people are convinced about an opinion and don't accept a different opinion and sometimes even freak out when you say you don't agree.

Like that overweight girl that started convincing me about the fact that meat is very unhealthy and that we were not build to eat meat, while she was eating an orange carrot. I told her we were evolved to eat meat hence why we have large brains, but we are definitely not evolved to eat orange carrots because orange carrots are a result of the meat powered human brain who managed to selectively breed the woody texture out of carrots to make them edible and even managed to selectively breed the colour orange as a tribute to "Willem van Oranje". The ancestors of the carrots could only be harvested in the wild for a limited period before carrots/roots became like wood. She didn't know what to say. This was information she never heard about. Instead she started to call me names and walked away with an angry face when nobody