[HN Gopher] Facebook's documents about Instagram and teens, publ...
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Facebook's documents about Instagram and teens, published
Author : SmkyMt
Score : 217 points
Date : 2021-10-01 10:29 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| fungiblecog wrote:
| As a person looking in from the outside, I observe that there are
| many worse things going on in American society than Facebook that
| could cause rising despair and suicide. I'm not saying it's
| blameless but the overall picture there is not of a healthy
| society.
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| I see a lot defending the researchers involved, talking about how
| great they are and how none of Facebook's misdeeds are their
| fault.
|
| At some point though, when data is consistently not shared, and
| any findings not favorable to the company are buried, what these
| people do is not "research". It's propaganda. They serve to give
| Facebook the appearance of valuing neutral judgement on the
| impact of their platform, and to provide credible sounding
| findings that can be spun to the benefit of the company.
|
| None of this should surprise, of course. They are a for profit
| company after all. But at some point these "researchers" are
| complicit in the scheme.
| belorn wrote:
| Which comment are you referring to?
|
| The only comment here on HN that seems to be directly
| dismissive is the one that claims about the study being made
| with a total size of 25 people, of which a final 7 people were
| selected for the in-depth interview.
|
| Everything about this study seems to be terrible. How the study
| was made, the reaction by Facebook of the result, the
| researcher who conducted the study. It seems that rather than
| go with a establish company that do professional surveys they
| went with a small scale internal study that did not show
| favorable results and so they hide it and here we are.
| vosper wrote:
| They said "I see a lot defending the researchers involved",
| they didn't say they'd seen it in this HN comment thread :)
| Manuel_D wrote:
| I feel like many of the same criticisms can be said of the
| coverage of this research. Like pointing out that the study
| showed a portion of teens said Instagram made them feel worse,
| but conspicuous omitting that twice as many reported that
| Instagram made them feel better.
|
| I can understand the desire for discrete research when they
| (correctly) suspect that media coverage will have negative
| slant.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| Reminds me of doctors that studied cigarettes and suggested
| smoking with asbestos filters.
| bawolff wrote:
| That describes how a lot of research gets done. Its not just
| fb, oil companies are notorious for that sort of thing as well.
| RNCTX wrote:
| An apt comparison, considering Steven Donziger is in court
| again this week, after having basically endured a corporate-
| funded prosecution that has drawn on for almost three years,
| for the crime of winning a civil pollution suit against
| Chevron.
|
| The children of every fed-level elected and appointed
| official in his jurisdiction and/or related to the case
| (house of reps member, both senators, judge, prosecutor) work
| for the law firm representing Chevron. No one forced any of
| these judges, politicians, and prosecutors to be complicit in
| a malicious/fraudulent prosecution. They chose complicity.
| asdff wrote:
| It happens in all forms of government everywhere, large
| city or small. Especially in southern california I find
| local city halls to be rife with corruption. The FBI has
| been probing Los Angeles city hall and has already arrested
| two former councilmen, Huizar was arrested while in office,
| for racketeering. In Huizars case hollywood couldn't have
| written a cheesier plot, it was literally cash in brown
| paper bags and hookers in vegas from developers. quid pro
| quo. That good old fashioned cronyism stuff has never left,
| because literally so many people are doing this stuff.
| Sanitation department. Water and Power. Building and
| Safety. LASD. Rife with open, overt corruption, and I
| honestly believe the press is scared to go after these
| agencies harder than they have with their union lawyers.
| atdrummond wrote:
| Where can I read more about this?
| RNCTX wrote:
| https://thehill.com/policy/energy-
| environment/574921-former-...
|
| https://theintercept.com/2021/09/29/steven-donziger-
| sentenci...
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| Why haven't humans designed a better ethics system for
| attorneys?
| RNCTX wrote:
| People like Jerry Nadler, Chuck Schumer, and Kirsten
| Gillibrand cashing Chevron checks probably would probably
| argue that it is better... for them.
| jcranberry wrote:
| Here is a fairly deep dive into the case by a lawyer on
| youtube.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7d2KoXmPXk
| swebs wrote:
| Someone already posted the archive of the WSJ article. But also
| the actual leaked documents don't seem to be paywalled.
|
| https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/teen-girls-body...
|
| https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/teen-mental-hea...
|
| https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/appearance-base...
|
| https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/social-comparis...
|
| https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/mental-health-f...
|
| https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/teens-young-adu...
| mch82 wrote:
| This collection of links to the actual decks is quite helpful.
| Thank you.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| That's literally the entire purpose of the OP. Great that
| they're not paywalled though.
| stadium wrote:
| What is the relationship between individualistic cultures vs
| collectivist cultures, and social media?
|
| US is on the extreme end of the spectrum for individualism. Is
| social media toxic for that culture, and more benign for
| collectivist cultures?
| echoradio wrote:
| Great question! Which countries would be ideal for study, do
| you think?
| stadium wrote:
| From a Google search, https://clearlycultural.com/geert-
| hofstede-cultural-dimensio...
| nomdep wrote:
| TL;DR: Teens act and react in stupid ways and should not use
| social media. In fact, most of us shouldn't either.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| Not to discount your point, but to add on that "Platforms that
| greedily optimize content distribution should be regulated to
| prevent an unhealthy incentive structure kicking in"
| sp332 wrote:
| Sure, and that means Facebook's plans to get more young teens
| to use Instagram are worrying and maybe should be regulated.
| guilhas wrote:
| They are a private company...
| sophacles wrote:
| ... and?
| guilhas wrote:
| It is just the running theme on HN
|
| A company does something wrong, bad company
|
| Does something wrong to a group I dislike, it's just a
| private company
| megamix wrote:
| Facebook as a technology is inherently damaging, it's not just
| the users who make up the platforms. How many senate hearings do
| they need...lol
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/03/trends-suicide
|
| > The suicide rate increased 33 percent from 1999 through 2017,
| from 10.5 to 14 suicides per 100,000 people (NCHS Data Brief No.
| 330, November 2018). Rates have increased more sharply since
| 2006. Suicide ranks as the fourth leading cause of death for
| people ages 35 to 54, and the second for 10- to 34-year-olds. It
| remains the 10th leading cause of death overall.
|
| >But it's a different story in other parts of the world. Over
| roughly the same period, other countries have seen rates fall,
| including Japan, China, Russia and most of Western Europe. What
| is going wrong on our shores--and what lessons can we import from
| elsewhere?
|
| I've always seen social media as a very artificial environment,
| it depends on the online environment. But I never associated it
| with more benefits especially among teenagers.
| dogorman wrote:
| Interesting that a "33 percent increase" is the same thing as
| 0.105% to 0.14%. Those latter two figures are both a lot lower
| than I would have guessed.
| spunker540 wrote:
| If social media is to blame for the rise in suicide, why has it
| only affected American teens when it is a global trend?
| theyx wrote:
| I am not saying this is the cause, because I'm not American,
| but maybe Americans use it in a more "harmful" way. Where I
| live people mostly use Facebook to buy used stuff on the
| Marketplace and to post memes in their hometown groups.
| juanani wrote:
| Interesting, I assume it is cultural values. There is something
| toxic about a culture that centers around greed. This is hard
| for teenagers to deal with. Thankfully, our propaganda is far
| reaching and maybe just seeing how poised one culture is to
| assign negative labels of other non-greedy cultures, it is
| likely a unifying mechanism. See, life finds a way around the
| rot. Rot on, it should make proper humanity stronger.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| Would be curious to see how the great recession played into
| those numbers.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Over roughly the same period, other countries have seen rates
| fall, including Japan, China, Russia and most of Western
| Europe. What is going wrong on our shores-and what lessons can
| we import from elsewhere?
|
| Keep in mind a 17 years old in 1999 was born in 1982. These
| were interesting years in Russia, Japan and China to say the
| least (total collapse of the Soviet Union, for a start, with
| all the insecurities that ensued) and a pretty nasty economic
| crisis in Japan [0].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decades
| cm2012 wrote:
| Facebook is global, the fact the suicide rate only grew in the
| US and not worldwide is a point in its favor. Not to mention
| the increase in suicide rate is higher for older generations
| who use social media less, according to the data.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Facebook is global, the fact the suicide rate only grew in
| the US and not worldwide is a point in its favor.
|
| Not necessarily. To oversimplify things to make a point,
| suicide may have two ingredients: Facebook and something
| else. The US has an increased rate because has both (Facebook
| and the other ingredient), while the other places don't
| because they only have one ingredient (Facebook) and are
| missing the other. It's not a point in Facebook's favor if it
| is one of many ingredients in a recipe for suicide, and
| Facebook may be the easiest ingredient to eliminate.
|
| And that's totally plausable. The US has many unique cultural
| factors (e.g. highest rating of individualism of any
| country).
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| That is assuming that facebook usage is globally homogenous.
|
| Social climates, sex and age play a huge factor. Young
| insecure girls that are bombarded with how they should look,
| and what their friends are doing without them will not be
| affected as the boomer who only goes onto facebook
| marketplace to sell, talk with family, or the kind that posts
| trump memes. Heres some interesting data.
| https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-
| marketing/social-...
| vadfa wrote:
| I don't think usage of instagram is much different here in
| western europe and the results regarding teen suicide are
| not the same seemingly. So I'm not sure of what to think.
|
| Open to being proven wrong about instagram usage in the us
| vs europe. I haven't really looked into it. But it seems
| all teens and preteens here are hooked on it.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| It is multidimensional, it does not mean that social
| media is going to have the same effect even among the
| same country with the same usage. Widespread anti-
| semitism for instance in the US did not cause the
| holocaust as it did in Germany. The culture in parts
| different parts of western Europe is different than it is
| from southern US and northern US.
|
| You will find no shortage of people quitting social media
| and reporting benefits around the world, the algorithms
| on instagram will also vary with what is shown. Without
| enough data I cannot quantify it but other factor such as
| wealth are also associated with suicides, low income and
| high income communities have lower suicide rates. https:/
| /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...
| closeparen wrote:
| The rising teen suicide proves everyone's favorite social
| critique. Declining church attendance. Declining corporeal
| punishment. The academic rat race. Climate change.
|
| Whatever I don't like about the world is why the kids are
| killing themselves. Having had friends struggle with this when
| I was a teenager, I find it incredibly disrespectful and in
| poor taste to leverage their suffering in this lazy and offhand
| way as an argument for your political opinions.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Remember the moral panics around Dungeons and Dragons? [0] Or
| the "Hyper Realistic violence of Doom"? [1]
|
| Social Media is the next in line. In 20 years people will
| laugh at the articles and news report about it.
|
| Something I wonder too is if suicides aren't just better
| reported today because there's less social stigma around
| mental health than in previous decades (for an extreme
| example, just look at the 1950's...).
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26328105
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mEP4cflrd4
| mbesto wrote:
| Your overall point is valid, but this last comment is
| unnecessary.
|
| > I find it incredibly disrespectful and in poor taste to
| leverage their suffering in this lazy and offhand way as an
| argument for your political opinions.
|
| I find it odd that's one of the conclusions you drew from the
| parent's comment. You're making a baseless claim that the OP
| has a political agenda (I didn't get this sense at all) when
| they were clearly demonstrating that there is potential
| causation and providing insight/opinion to it. You make it
| sound like we can't even have discussions about suicide
| because "we're leveraging suffering". I don't think you meant
| to direct that at the parent but rather politicians,
| otherwise your comment is far more distasteful and not posted
| in good faith.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| What is my lazy, poor taste or political opinion? You are
| attacking my post with no evidence or counter points, a
| emotional response that isn't based on anything other than
| hearsay, the first section is a strawman, and the second is
| how your sample bias should dismiss any other experiences. Is
| it not hypocritical to dismiss the effect of social media on
| suicide, such as by cyber bullying?
|
| My experience with social media has been negative, and I have
| lost friend due to suicide and depression, which is why I am
| pointing it out. Are you suggesting that it has no effect on
| mental heath or is proven to be beneficial? I would love to
| be proven wrong if you have information on it.
| https://www.newswise.com/articles/10-year-study-shows-
| elevat...
|
| >Through annual surveys from 2009 to 2019, researchers
| tracked the media use patterns and mental health of 500 teens
| as part of the Flourishing Families Project. They found that
| while social media use had little effect on boys' suicidality
| risk, for girls there was a tipping point. Girls who used
| social media for at least two to three hours per day at the
| beginning of the study--when they were about 13 years old--
| and then greatly increased their use over time were at a
| higher clinical risk for suicide as emerging adults.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_suicide
| closeparen wrote:
| Social media is one of dozens of social changes in the last
| N years. You can line any one of them up next to any bad
| outcome. This is not generally being done from a place of
| epistemic humility or interest in establishing causation.
| It's just "thing I already don't like lines up with bad
| outcome, see how right I am not to like it!"
|
| If that's not what you're doing, I don't mean it as an
| attack on you. I just think we're systematically abusing
| miserable kids as confirmation of our priors (about all
| kinds of things, social media is just one). We owe them
| curiosity about how to actually help.
| cmoscoso wrote:
| What other social changes have taken place in the last
| years?
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| Thank you for the clarification. It is a multi
| dimensional problem, and I have found very negative
| effects from social media for myself and people around
| me.
|
| I do not think that social media is overall good for
| mental health, it has been shown to be harmful in
| statistics especially for women and also there is no
| shortage of n=1 articles on benefits of quitting it. I
| think it is a serious issue when the teenage suicide
| rates are higher in the US (pre corona) when it is a
| wealthy country. If you can clarify, what is the problem
| you have with my post? I am posting it not only from
| personal experience but also with data to substantiate my
| claims.
| tomlin wrote:
| A lot of data counters what you're trying to put out
| here. I wish it weren't true, but if you would like, I
| can point you to studies where you can see how teen
| suicide in girls and the launch of Instagram, then
| Snapchat, then TikTok - as well, final thoughts and
| letters by a large amount of these young girls vary from
| saying that social media WAS the reason for their
| suicide, to saying that actions made by others (via
| social media) were a factor in others. I do sincerely
| think social media is a force for harm for everyone - as
| it raises division among people at rates that are hard to
| build responses to. Psychologists also largely agree that
| the effects of social media are causing a new kind of
| concern outside of what we've so far dealt with.
|
| I do sort of think you might have an agenda here, for at
| this point you are suggesting that the thoughts and
| feelings of the girls who committed suicide should hold
| almost no weight. Maybe you're not saying that outright,
| but if you haven't looked into the lives of these girls
| before suggesting their plight is "just another
| generational grievance", well, yeah, we are fucked.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| I think the point is, there are plenty of signals that
| increase suicide rate. Without full and proper analysis
| (e.g., control group, etc.) tying social media to suicide
| rate is correlation.
|
| And as presented, that comes off as opinion.
|
| Note: I'm not taking sides. I'm only wanting to answer your
| question :) please don't shoot the messenger.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| I can see that viewpoint. Data is imperfect but it isn't
| a random correlation like cell phones associated with
| fungal infection. There is no shortage of self reported
| data, but cyber bullying attacks directly cause suicide
| attempts for instance.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6791504/
| kapp_in_life wrote:
| And plenty of people's experiences with social media have
| been positive.
|
| Think of the LGBT teen in a small town in the midwest who
| can find a social group to discuss their. Hobby groups,
| pick up sports groups, etc.
|
| Teens who were already finding 2-3 hours "and then greatly
| increased their use" a day for doomscrolling between school
| and homework probably would feel the same if they spent it
| watching TV.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| Can you prove these statements with any data? There are
| of course benefits to online networking, but the US
| population of LGBT is 5.6% (of all ages) with most
| concentrated in urban areas so you are pointing out a
| small age bracket of a specific type of social engagement
| in a small population as a counter with the assumption it
| is beneficial, and the hobbies you describe are not
| social media engagement, they are online meetings that go
| offline, which is not the usual trajectory of users
| online. These sound like extreme outliers unless you'd
| like to prove me wrong.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| I moderate four LGBTQIA+ communities and support spaces
| on Facebook, totaling over 395k members. I cover both my
| local scene and international communities.
|
| Without the online spaces, most members wouldn't have
| friends. The bulk of the work is managing the news feeds
| and the main task is to approve posts individually. So we
| see them all.
|
| Many would otherwise be totally isolated. Teens in rural
| America are among the most affected by this isolation.
| Many users create threads describing their lack of
| support in their physical lives or thanking the online
| spaces for existing, stating that prior to their presence
| on the group, they had no support network.
|
| While the population of LGBTQIA+ people is concentrated
| in urban areas, they are primarily adults who have the
| freedom to move around. Teens are stuck in their
| hometowns and can only move around after they reach
| adulthood and connect or build support networks online.
| As you said, the US population is around 5.6% but even
| states like Alabama still have 3.0%. This demographic is
| especially relevant in this topic as its suicide rates
| are higher that the country's average, with trans people
| (without support) having rates that go as high as 40 to
| 50%. Online spaces provide enough support to reduce that
| number significantly.
|
| There is a meme that goes something like:
|
| "Why are you on Facebook? It's for older people. - It's
| because your friends aren't queer."
|
| The LGBTQIA+ internet is similar to what the internet was
| in the 90s. Close-knit communities where everyone knows
| each other, sub-communities, sub-cultures, and lots of
| blogs and personal sites.
|
| I would even go so far as to say that comparing the
| average social network usage to LGBTQIA+ social network
| usage is the equivalent of comparing apples and oranges.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| Thank you for your perspective. Do you think that the
| LGBTQIA+ community is best served in this method? For
| instance, art communities would have been a stand in for
| many before, and from my exposure it seems to have had
| very good effects for marginalized people who aren't
| mainstream due to interests, sexual orientation, or
| creativity and ideas that are normally dismissed. They
| seem to be the least polarized people I know of.
|
| I have a question for my friend: he is bisexual so he has
| problems where he is invalidated by both hetero and non
| hetero communities, and feels very isolated and
| depressed, and I don't know enough to help, where do you
| suggest is the best place for him to get support or any
| resources for bisexual men?
|
| My experience with tumblr was a very mixed bag for the
| non heterosexual communities such as the mixture of
| mental health as a focal point where some I knew got
| better and some got worst and self diagnosed themselves
| into deeper unhappiness.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| > Do you think that the LGBTQIA+ community is best served
| in this method?
|
| Ideally, there would be dedicated spaces because the
| existing spaces are generally very hostile. For example,
| it is common for people to create fake profiles in order
| to get past the first layer of verification (looking at
| the profile and reading the required questions). Once in,
| they take pleasure in contacting members to push them to
| suicide. Online trolling with real dangers.
|
| There is also the fact that the mission of the platform
| is generally not very compatible or at least the lack of
| attention to the LGBTQIA+ communities creates such
| negative experiences.
|
| For example, Facebook's automatic moderation detects
| ordinary slurs but not targeted homophobic or transphobic
| slurs or "dogwhistles." This often results in a troll
| using something like "you'll never be a woman" or calling
| transgender people "the 41%" or "join the 41%" (in direct
| reference to suicide rates).
|
| Understandably, users get frustrated and tell these users
| to go away using harsh words, and also report the troll
| to Facebook. What usually happens is that automatic
| moderation does not detect the troll, responding that the
| comments do not violate their terms of service. However,
| "griefers" often report legitimate users. The recent
| changes make this very easy, as something as innocent as
| writing "why is this man here?" in a space dedicated to
| lesbians will be flagged as hate speech against a gender
| identity. Thus, the troll gets away with it and the users
| are banned for 30 days by the platform. Often, a troll
| can manage to flag enough comments to have entire groups
| shut down by the automatic moderation tools.
|
| This makes these spaces unsafe for supporting vulnerable
| people. For example, one public page that I have access
| to the admin panel has such a large ban list that I'm not
| able to get the exact number without the admin page
| crashing. By playing with the APIs, I was able to get a
| count of 25k bans before it also crashed and returned
| errors.
|
| But as you said, alternative sites can be just as
| dangerous. Sites like Tumblr quickly become echo chambers
| and a race to the bottom. They've been very helpful in
| providing a space, but the lack of oversight makes them
| potentially dangerous.
|
| To answer your question about your friend, bisexuals are
| often one of the least supported and understood
| demographic groups. This brings us back to my earlier
| point about echo chambers. It is common for
| subcommunities to gather around hate, and the LGBTQIA+
| community is no exception. There are many spaces where
| otherwise queer people gather to denigrate bi identities,
| invalidating entire labels because they don't take the
| time to understand them properly. I would argue that
| there are also a number of people who do this to make
| themselves feel better. "Finally someone I punch down
| to". Even the queer articles and literature of the 70s
| were hostile to bi people.
|
| This is one of the many reasons I think there needs to be
| better LGBTQIA+ spaces. Moderation is important, but so
| is free speech. It is a fine line to walk. But one thing
| that's sure is that 90's style "free for all" internet
| can be very harmful for kids.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > or calling transgender people "the 41%" or "join the
| 41%" (in direct reference to suicide rates).
|
| That's completely messed up.
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| It is, and it's rampant.
| tomlin wrote:
| I do think that communities and social media aren't
| necessarily the same. Communities have existed before
| social media. I grew up on CompuServe, which had a few
| LGBT groups as far back as 1997, and forums chat rooms
| have been around for as long as that. "Social media" in
| these terms, tends to be surrounding anonymous behavior
| and how people abuse anonymous behavior to hurt and even
| cause physical harm - which has similar effects in your
| communities. We can shun the daily posting, swipe-right,
| anonymous aspects of social media without removing
| communities - as proven by their existence prior to
| social media.
| detcader wrote:
| That "40 to 50%" trans statistic is incredibly worrying.
| Can you share where it's from so I can reference it in
| the future when these discussions come up?
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| It sounds worrying, and it is. But it's important to make
| one distinction.
|
| It's not "transgender people inherently have a 40%
| suicide rate". It's "transgender people are in situations
| where their suicide rates climb to as high as 40%".
|
| It's also important to understand the difference between
| "suicide ideation" and "suicide attempts" which are two
| different numbers that are often mixed up.
|
| - https://www.thetrevorproject.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/06/...
|
| - https://issuu.com/trevorproject/docs/talking_about_suic
| ide_a...
|
| To answer your question, here is a source I am familiar
| with as a Canadian:
|
| "Among trans Ontarians, 35.1 % [...] seriously considered
| [...] and 11.2 % attempted, suicide in the past year."
|
| "Lower [...] transphobia [...] was associated with a 66 %
| reduction in ideation [...] and an additional 76 %
| reduction in attempts among those with ideation."
|
| - https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1
| 186/s...
|
| US numbers are higher: the National Transgender
| Discrimination Survey (NTDS) found that 41% of 6,450
| transgender respondents said they had attempted suicide.
| I don't have the source other than a PDF saved on my
| local machine, but you should be able to find it easily
| enough.
|
| It's also very important to look at the sample pool of
| such studies. I remember that one number that was widely
| used in debates was actually done on the transgender
| women population of a men's prison in south america. Of
| course the people there are miserable but the numbers
| won't be representative of the larger population. It
| stopped being used as much after people pointed out that
| fact.
| [deleted]
| johncena33 wrote:
| As much as I don't like social media and Zuck in general, I think
| social media get a lot of undeserved blame. The biggest culture
| shock I had coming to North America, how materialistic,
| exhibitionistic and keeping-up-with-the-joneses the whole culture
| is. Sure, social media has made it worse. Before you can
| broadcast your fancy car to your neighbors, but cannot broadcast
| your fancy dinner to the whole world. With social media it's
| possible to broadcast not only the fancy dinner also glamorized
| miniscule details of your life.
|
| So, the social media has made things worse. But the culture of
| materialism and obsession with status was there well before
| social media has come into the picture.
| achenatx wrote:
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/suicide-mortality/...
|
| https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_pop...
|
| I didnt bother to run any kind of correlation, but eyeballing
| states by suicide rates seems to correlate best with population
| density.
|
| The states that I associate with materialism seem to be the
| lowest on the scale of suicide rates but are more rural.
|
| Alternately older white men overwhelm all other groups for
| suicide. So what is being measured is the concentration of
| older white men.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Did you consider that that what created the materialism, is the
| same as what created the reason for you to move to NA in the
| first place?
| jtbayly wrote:
| At least one of the reports shows the same or similar effect
| across many cultures in many countries.
| kingkawn wrote:
| If it's a choice between uptight distaste and free wheeling
| materialism no wonder people choose the materialism
| haswell wrote:
| > _But the culture of materialism and obsession with status was
| there well before social media has come into the picture._
|
| This is a pretty gross generalization of an entire country
| filled with diverse people, a significant number of whom do not
| match this description at all, now or before social media.
|
| On what are you basing this? This sounds like the kind of
| conclusion you might draw by using social media as a measuring
| stick.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > This is a pretty gross generalization of an entire country
| filled with diverse people, a significant number of whom do
| not match this description at all, now or before social
| media.
|
| It's a generalization that probably has legs, though. IIRC,
| surveys show US culture is uniquely extreme in some areas
| (e.g. most individualistic in the world). Exceptions don't
| disprove a broad outline.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| Consumerism, in which purchasing is "related to the display
| of status and not to functionality or usefulness" was used to
| describe the American economy at least as far back as 1955.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| The sample bias is social media itself. What is Facebook
| filled with? It changed the focus exponentially, wealthy
| countries tend to have more virtue signaling and programs
| that are luxuries, and broadcasting it.
|
| One of my favorite associations is of ice cream with Japanese
| demoralization during WW2.
| https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/08/ice-
| cream... https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-
| culture/2021... I remember a war memoir where a Japanese
| soldier was demoralized when he saw a luxury pleasure cruiser
| of ice cream that many Japanese POWs were made to serve the
| soldiers, and realized they lost the war when these existed.
| thrav wrote:
| My evidence is only anecdotal, but as someone who grew up in,
| and lived all over America, and lived abroad, I couldn't
| agree more with OP. My friends in London, and their friends,
| many of whom grew up quite wealthy, were nearly
| indistinguishable from anyone else in London. They rarely
| bought anything (except drugs), even on vacation (I traveled
| with a few a couple different times).
|
| In America, people proudly declare shopping a hobby.
| dogorman wrote:
| In the rural Pennsylvanian I grew up in, the
| multimillionaire family that owned _the_ town plant went to
| the same church as most of the rest of the town (excepting
| catholics), sent their kids to the same public school, and
| generally socialized freely with the rest of the town. One
| of their daughters was the same age as me and, although not
| a friend, was a close acquaintance for as long as I can
| remember up until the end of highschool when I moved away.
| That family was as you describe, 'nearly
| indistinguishable' from the rest of the town. Nearly
| indistinguishable, except there was no mistaking who they
| were because the plant was named after them, as was the
| highschool's football field (which they apparently paid
| for.) Also, the nearest "shopping mall" was about half an
| hour away. Shopping as a hobby was alien to me, nobody I
| knew did that until I went to college.
|
| Point is, America is a big place. If you think you
| understand America after watching a bunch of American
| movies and TV shows, you probably don't.
| haswell wrote:
| > _In America, people proudly declare shopping a hobby._
|
| In America, _some subset of people_ declare shopping a
| hobby. And in the social media era, that subset amplifies
| that preference via their online presence.
|
| To be clear, I'm not saying consumerism doesn't exist; it
| clearly does. But if we're going on anecdotes, I've
| generally experienced the opposite of what you describe.
| Not because what you describe doesn't exist, but it doesn't
| seem to play a major role in the lives of most people I
| come in contact with.
|
| The wealthy people I do know don't flaunt it, and would
| prefer to just live normal lives. They see wealth as a path
| to freedom, not stuff & things.
|
| Social and news media both skew our perspectives on the
| world.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| So you observed a difference between one set of people you
| know and another, and you're expanding that to the entire
| countries those people are from?
| thrav wrote:
| Did I make claims about entire countries, or did I
| readily admit that I was only sharing my own small taste,
| explicitly stating that it shouldn't be sufficient for
| broad conclusions?
| haswell wrote:
| To be fair, the OP said:
|
| > The biggest culture shock I had coming to North
| America, how materialistic, exhibitionistic and keeping-
| up-with-the-joneses *the whole culture is*
|
| And you replied
|
| > My evidence is only anecdotal, but as someone who grew
| up in, and lived all over America, and lived abroad, *I
| couldn't agree more with OP*
|
| You then went on to share your anecdote, seemingly to
| back up your opening statement. Maybe it wasn't your
| intent to make broad claims, but when reading your
| comment in the context of the parent comments, it's easy
| to conclude just that.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| You tell me:
|
| > In America, people proudly declare shopping a hobby.
| thrav wrote:
| Did I say, "All Americans"? Or was I making a comment
| about a common occurrence within the country?
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| While this connection is tenuous at best, according to
| Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory [1], the US is a pretty
| heavily "Indulgent" culture. In a comparison I did on the
| website between the US, Germany, Japan, and Egypt [2] the US
| (closely mirrored by the UK in fact) scores much higher on
| "Indulgence" than the other listed cultures. There's nuance
| here because the results for South Africa, for example, are
| pretty different than Egypt, but it does go to show that the
| US is a pretty indulgent culture which I can credibly see
| correlating with a consumerist mindset. That said, there
| aren't enough studies on this out there, and I think it would
| be interesting to conduct this kind of research. (And if
| there is research here I'd love to be offered papers to
| read!)
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstede's_cultural_dimens
| ions...
|
| [2]: https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-
| comparison/egypt,g...
| [deleted]
| i_haz_rabies wrote:
| The entire US economy is built around materialistic
| consumerism. To be fair, pretty much every developed economy
| is like this, but the US is kinda the poster child of waste
| and excess.
| dreen wrote:
| I think you're kinda right but its not exclusive to US. Social
| media did not happen in a vacuum, there was a whole fertile
| ground prepared for it with decades of couch-potato consumer
| behavioural conditioning, which has been a global phenomenon
| for at least 50 years or so.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| Is the name "social media" doublespeak? Comparing the online
| or digital equivalent or approximation as a simulation of
| reality has either created a false hyperreality at best but
| usually that of a poor imitation.
| swebs wrote:
| It is still reality. You're talking to real people, not
| NPCs.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Sometimes they're real, and sometimes they're idealized
| projections put forth by said people. This will happen in
| any setting but social media seems to encourage it for
| whatever reason.
|
| There are no easy solutions to this.
| GhettoComputers wrote:
| Define reality, and what real people/NPC is.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| Honestly the sampling here is so tiny this doesn't mean anything,
| other than Facebook's own research is also rubbish.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| Will these Senate hearings be theater only, like previous ones
| with large corporations and the government? Where is the action
| and what laws are improving these situations?
| echoradio wrote:
| Until society and governments considers mental health as equal
| to physical health (improving, but still working on it) I don't
| see any government acting to curb online environments in the
| same way tobacco companies were dealt with.
|
| It's easy to show a photo or X-ray of a diseased lung and see
| damaged caused by smoking. It's not as easy to convey the
| emotional damage caused by depression, until it's unfortunately
| too late.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| All Senate hearings seem like theater in the present.
|
| Personally, when i look back at archives from the past and
| either read the record or watch the recorded hearings from say,
| the 2008 financial crisis, does it show that it is a little
| more than that.
|
| It is a forum to voice these positions that are ideally meant
| for us as a society to learn from.
|
| Politics being politics, it has turned into a forum to raise
| issues and a sinkhole for precious legislative time.
| DrNed wrote:
| sigh...its like the Richard Attenborough character in Jurassic
| Park.
|
| "Creation Is An Act Of Sheer Will! Next Time It'll Be Flawless!"
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| Nobody knows how good, or bad, they have it until they see how
| someone else lives.
|
| Isn't that explanation enough?
|
| Yes, the change is because of social media, and everything else
| that's made other peoples lives' more visible.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| That's part of what inspired the Arab Spring!
|
| "Why do they have the right to political opinions over there
| but here the warlord will jail me?"
|
| "Look, the local warlord just burned down this man's shop
| because they don't like his ethnicity"
|
| "How come westerners can just go to school and we can't?"
|
| There's a reason China, Iran and Cuba are clamping hard against
| the Internet...
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| The argument is social media is not a neutral platform but
| __amplifies__ the extremes, thus reducing the "Visibility" to a
| rat race of envy, by design.
|
| If it were as simple as you suggest, the studies would not be
| pointing out the biased slant of these platforms being harmful
| as much as they have been.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Also add in a 'revenge' and 'pettiness', for lack of a better
| term, style posting. I just shudder at thinking what some of
| my peers would have posted about me and others when I was
| younger. They barely kept it together normally. But sitting
| behind the 'safety' of a screen... It would have been awful.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| It's other people's lives, plus selection bias. It doesn't make
| other live visible equally, because people post more of the
| best moments (plus photo filters to look even better).
| freewilly1040 wrote:
| Now apply a distortion that allows everyone to to make their
| life seem much better than it actually is, and it's not
| difficult to believe these platforms cause mental health
| problems.
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| 100. There were plenty of campaigns over the past decades to
| "expose the fakeness" of Hollywood actors that are portrayed
| as role models. For the same reasons we're discussing now.
|
| Where are these campaigns now? The ones designed to "expose
| the fakeness" of your BFFs insta.
|
| Policy & regulation are a dead end. I suppose Facebook et al
| know this, that's why our ATTENTION is there.
|
| The real change comes in the form of massive settlement to
| fund these PSAs and further gambling-tobacco-esque taxing to
| keep those campaigns funded.
| wombosombos wrote:
| https://archive.is/I12y3
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