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Facebook and Twitter 'Harm Young People's Mental Health' (theguardian.com)
Instagram and Snapchat are really bad for young people's mental health, according to research by two health organisations. Virtually all major social media platforms have a negative impact on the well-being of 14-24-year-olds, the study adds. Instagram was the worst -- followed by Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter. From a report on The Guardian: Instagram has the most negative impact on young people's mental wellbeing, a survey of almost 1,500 14- to 24-year-olds found, and the health groups accused it of deepening young people's feelings of inadequacy and anxiety. The survey, published on Friday, concluded that Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter are also harmful. Among the five only YouTube was judged to have a positive impact. The four platforms have a negative effect because they can exacerbate children's and young people's body image worries, and worsen bullying, sleep problems and feelings of anxiety, depression and loneliness, the participants said.
Living is the leading cause of death.
Film at eleven!
I smell a class-action suit! Lawyers will not be able to help themselves.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
The only true, and also oldest form of "social media" is IRC. It's all you need and you will actually have to learn things to use it for your first few times.
..b-b-but all my friends!
THEY'RE NOT REAL. GO OUTSIDE, meet REAL people, make REAL friends.
..b-b-but how will I keep in touch with people?
How did you do it before so-called 'social media'? DO IT THAT WAY AGAIN, FOOL!
..b-b-but Facebook brings people together!
LOL, no, it doesn't, it gives them a reason to STAY APART. Knock that shit off!
..b-b-but my boss requires me to have Facebook!
BULLSHIT.
..b-b-but where will I find out what's going on in the world?
YOU IDIOT! Get your news from a REAL NEWS SOURCE, NOT SOCIAL MEDIA, YOU FUCKTARD!
Seriously, isn't it time to abandon this running troll/meme/joke called 'social media'? Or are you STUPID?
Survey questionnaire design involves randomized phrasing for all questions, such that the proportion receiving any phrasing is comparable - like stratified sampling. Within research design that is a major component. Clauses are rotated in position, alternative valuations are used. Here is a good reference for those interested. Sampling remains a concern but through proper design all errors and bias are minimized.
I was on IG for about a year and a half, and it was my only form of social media. One day I just realized one day how corrosive it is. I felt like a chicken, always peck peck pecking at my phone, trying to keep up with my feed. I was mainly involved with motorcycle builder, buying/selling parts, etc. People would visciously gang up on others, and do all kinds of nasty things if they didn't like you, or you wouldn't sell parts as cheap as they wanted. I had real-life friends that would get fired up and angry over things that happened on IG. I know people who stopped being friends because of some things that happened in the comments of IG.
I just walked away from it when I woke up to this. Having been around the internet since 1990, I've seen all this stuff before. But with things like IG it has a very low entry point, meaning anyone can join the fray. It's not just for the technically inclined, and quite honestly I think it shows off the worst parts of society. It can do the opposite, but it seems as in life, the ones who make the most noise and are most aggressive ruin it for the rest.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
In school I never understood or tolerated bullying and I was bullied quite a bit. General strategy was to verbally goad the bully into throwing the first punch. I was tall for my age and obese, I usually mopped the floor with them. Fat guy strength is a thing. That generally brought a solid end to the bullying; at least for a good while and never again from the same source. I graduated a few years before MySpace. So when I went home, the whole horrible drama of high-school ended and I could just dial my friends' pagers and play Diablo 2. It was such a relief sometimes to get home. I dreaded going to school but I had a sanctuary at the end of each day. These days it's zero tolerance. Moves I made to thwart bullying would get me expelled in today's schools. It doesn't stop people from being assholes. For these kids the day to day pressure of dealing with social clicks, bullying, being judged, being different, feeling awkward, not fitting in, measuring up... it never ends. They leave the school then go to their screens and it just keeps. on. going. I guess it always did, but at least I didn't have to watch it play out in slow motion on the Internet. How can we get people to just follow Bill & Ted's advice?
One of the two groups, http://www.yhm.org.uk/ Young Health Movement, appears to be a subgroup of https://www.rsph.org.uk/ Royal Society for Public Health.
Looks like a single politically motivated activist group. It is also involved with campaigns to stop smoking, to label alcoholic beverages with calorie information, and the "Health on the High Street" campaign, whose mission is described as to "...ensure that local authorities have the powers they need to curtail business practices which may undermine the public’s health."
In other words, their aim seems to be to increase government intervention—in this case, within the realm of social interaction amongst the proles.
I would interpret this as a thinly veiled attempt to justify some kind of policy to further police language on these platforms to protect those who might be triggered or otherwise require a safe space. It is also kind of a stretch to include YouTube with "social platforms," because that is much more oriented toward pulling desirable content than it is toward open discussion.
I had this conversation with my wife last night. She watches (nowhere near as much as she used to though) several Youtube families. One in particular is a Mormon family with about 5 kids; the father started making the videos years ago and ended up starting a youtube/video production company that got bought out by Disney. So they have literally made millions because of Youtube. In any case, they always projected being the perfect, happy (not so) little family in all of their videos. But it just came out that the father has been fooling around with cam girls and is an alcoholic.
It's a perfect example of why people need to teach children not to put so much stock into social media: all you ever see are the good times, and the personas that people want you to see. It gives children the impression that if their life isn't one exciting or fun event after another then they are missing out or something is wrong with them, which fuels depression. It makes them feel like everyone else is having fun all the time, and gives them unrealistic outlooks on what life is supposed to be like. And this is only part of the problem. Add in the ability of social media to allow bullying to follow children home from school and it's no wonder kids these days have so many issues. Parents really need to be parents and make their kids cut back on the social media. It would all their lives so much easier.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Reruns of Batman and Three Stooges 'Harm Young People's Mental Health'
I heard that back in the early 1970's when I in kindergarten and the early grades. Teachers didn't like kids using their jackets as capes, jumping off high surfaces and screaming "BATMAN!" at the top of their voice, or trying to poke out each other's eyes like the Three Stooges. Fun times.