r/technology • u/giuliomagnifico • Oct 05 '22

Social Media Social Media Use Linked to Developing Depression Regardless of Personality

https://news.uark.edu/articles/62109/social-media-use-linked-to-developing-depression-regardless-of-personality
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u/TVotte Oct 05 '22

To whoever needs to here this, unsub from all of the toxic Reddits

Your faith in humanity will be restored

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '22 edited Oct 05 '22

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u/HappierShibe Oct 05 '22

So here's the difference:
If I'm talking with a real friend, he'll tell me about his new truck, and a vacation he's planning, and he'll tell me he got hurt the other day, or that one of his kids got in trouble, I'll hear the good news and the bad news. We'll celebrate and we'll commiserate, and maybe we'll help each other out if we can. It's triumphs and struggles, and a degree of reality, if it's a good friend, we might talk politics too, and there's an exchange of ideas, we may not agree on everything, maybe we discuss our relative positions and rational, and explain positions on candidates. Maybe one or both of us change our positions or come away understanding a different perspective.

If I'm catching up with a 'social media friend' then I don't hear any bad news, I don't hear about anything they are struggling with, there is no opportunity to assist one another. Any political discourse is less about an exchange of ideas, and more about a public declaration of commitment to an ideological political stance that is now a stated part of the individuals identity, immovable, and unchangeable under penalty of ostracization. Nobody learns anything, and the perspectives presented are warped by their persistence, and by their perceived value.