YouTube for me.

Start looking for a tutorial on how to clean biro off leather and end up watching 3 hours of cats playing pianos...

I'm glad you have had such a positive experience with it. It's a shame that everyone doesn't have those same experiences. As I stated earlier, everyone has different experiences with those sites. And everyone's brains are wired differently, so obviously, not everyone will be as addicted to those sites as some people are.


I'm not sure if anyone else is into the show Black Mirror, but in the last season, there was an excellent episode where a guy was driving and got into an accident, which killed his wife, while he was checking a notification on social media. I think that episode was was probably inspired by an actual incident, where a girl was live-streaming herself on social media while driving and ended up killing her little sister in an accident because of it. The girl who was driving couldn't stop live-streaming, even after the accident. She got out of her car, with the camera still on her, and walked over to her sister's dead body lying on the ground and live-streamed it on Facebook. She was so concerned with the attention she was getting on social media that she wasn't able to fully comprehend the fact that she had just killed her sister due to her own recklessness and addiction to getting attention on social media.

https://www.iheartradio.ca/newstalk-...ster-1.2918963

So, of course, not everyone is this addicted to social media or to getting attention. But obviously, some people are. That's why you see people posting photos of their dinner, for example, on those sites -- because that's how programmed they've become to seek attention and 'rewards' in the form of likes.

Again (and I cannot convey this enough), I am not trying to come down on anyone for using social media. I am simply saying that it's good for people to be aware of the fact that those sites are intentionally designed to be addictive (and that is just simple fact) and that those sites are having negative effects on a lot of people, psychologically.

Ha haaa. Falling down the rabbit hole of information. I know it all too well. :P I do remember reading once that we can become addicted to information, and that's why it's sometimes so difficult for people to stop scrolling, as our brains process information as a reward (dopamine hit). One of the things I do love about no longer using FB, though, is that I feel I now have soo much more control over my own time and the information that my mind is processing.

Anything can be addictive, if you let it be.

Alcohol is also addictive but most people can manage to have a tipple now and again without turning into a hopeless alkie, right?

The other thing that you haven't considered is that with social media, some people might go through a quiet patch in their lives and use it more often then when things pick up in real life, it gets more and more left behind.

I think you are seeing it as a bigger problem than it is. The news only reports those cases where people had juicy addiction stories and terrible accidents caused by it.

Nowhere runs a story about "Mum glances at Facebook for 20 mins after the kids have gone to bed".

I actually really appreciate hearing about other people's experiences with those sites and their opinions about it. Yes, even if they do differ from my own.

Perhaps I am a bit biased against it, in part because of all the studies that I've read. My best friend is a psychology professor, and I research neuroscience, and we're writing a book together. So I guess I've slowly developed a different perspective on it than most people have.

Certainly, not everyone is addicted to social media, but obviously, some people are. I think some people are more prone to addiction than others. There is a woman in my neighborhood who walks around all day, every day, with four cell phones, searching for Pokemons.

People can be addicted to a lot of things and addictions were there before social media. That some people seemto have more issues than others is nothing new either.

Yes, but social media sites that are intentionally designed to be addictive and exploit people's vulnerabilities are relatively new. 2.2 billion users, currently, with an average time of 2 1/2 hours per day spent on social media sites. A few years ago, the average time spent per day on these sites was much less. So you can see the way these sites are taking their hold on people's lives.

To say that addictions have always existed, therefore social media addiction isn't a problem is like saying cigarettes can't be considered potentially dangerous because there have always been things that can be addictive.

My entire point, with all of this, is that social media is intentionally designed to be addictive and that many people are not consciously aware of that. When you get a "like" on social media, do you consciously interpret it as your brain receiving a dopamine hit, which in turn causes your brain to seek more dopamine once that dopamine begins to wear off?

Ex-Facebook president Sean Parker: site made to exploit human 'vulnerability'

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ain-psychology

Someone who themselves is not addicted to social media -- or who doesn't recognize their addiction -- could easily dismiss it as not being a problem. I understand that. But when you have kids killing themselves due to social media, I think that's a red flag in and of itself. Imagine having a child who killed themselves due to not getting enough "likes" on social media or being bullied on those sites. Again, my point is simply that people should be aware of the fact that those sites are designed to program them and can, potentially, have very negative effects upon their psyches and their lives.

Teen suicide rates are at their highest level since 2000. And a new study released Monday says too much time on social media could be contributing to that. "The study doesn’t answer the question, but it suggests that one factor could be rising social media use."

I just started at the bottom and stopped after two links.

There is no hard proof that social media has led to more suicides, don't act as if there is.


Sure, they want to keep us on the site as long as possible. And things as likes, auto-refresh etc.. are common in a lot of sites and apps, even EF has "likes", does that mean that EF is part of a culture that is making teens kill themselves more often? Maybe it is the amount of posters committing suicides, maybe it is the shows on telly about teens doing suicides etc.. etc.. If FB plays a part in this, it is to wonder how big that part would be, and what would change if we all stopped with all sites (including EF) that behave fully or partly in the same way?

Really? Aww...Damn you woman! That's part of my afternoon planned right there You've also prompted me to re-view two of the oldest videos that spread amongst my mates. Many northerners will remember this one from Elbow and Rathergood, and I think it's from the days when Elbow were still working the bar at The Roadhouse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1LFIzTubkw

And the Kenya song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFcR96SPF2w

Or 90yr old Greek yiayia incessantly nags her family for 3yrs to set up a Facebook page for her after being impressed by all the birthday wishes and phone calls prompted by her kids posting photos of her 87th birthday celebrations. (True story)

There are more opportunities now: better tech, better connectivity, more and more services and things online. Lots of things are addictive. I personally have a book/yarn/shoe problem but I deal. I'm addicted to my baby's giggle, that's a dopamine loop to savour.

Your nicotine argument doesn't really track, particularly as cigarettes were initially advertised as beneficial and promoted as healthy. Times and knowledge change. Like with social media use. Users and producer are more savvy, more responsible.

As for saying social media in of itself causes suicide... no. There are always many other contributing factors. Social media can be the much bedevilled straw that broke the camel but... it often boils down to plain old-fashioned hideous bullying and a strong wi-fi signal. Chop the plug off the router. Educate folk. Don't assume or demonise.

Society as a whole has changed, and people on average have become much softer, and emotions have gotten a much bigger place. When I went to school and somebody died in an accident there was a short talk in that persons class and all went on, now there are meetings, counsellors, even a group walk in town with parents and such all have become normal. We're taught to feel, and it sometimes amazes me how far this goes. I've seen people cry because somebody from their school died and they actually never had any contact with that person heck they would not even recognise them as being from the same school when coming by them in town. When I grew up I thought such mass crying like when Elvis died was something typical American, but Europe has joined already.

It all sounds similar to the discussion on alcohol where someone implied that not agreeing with his views meant you are an alcoholic.

Just live and let live, each their own

So you're saying that it must be nothing more than pure coincidence that the sudden, dramatic rise in teen suicides in the past 10 years or so has coincided with the rise of social media? They couldn't possibly be correlated?

There is indeed some pretty hard evidence that social media can lead to suicide.

Six Teen Suicides Linked to Social Media

https://www.iol.co.za/news/world/six...media-19123128

And that's only six cases mentioned in that article, and only those that had occurred in the UK.

There is also some pretty convincing evidence (studies) showing that social media can cause anxiety and depression. e.g.:

https://www.technologyreview.com/f/6...-social-media/

Again, not everyone has the same experiences with social media. But just because one person does not experience anxiety or depression from those sites certainly does not negate the fact that others do. And sadly, teenagers may be the most susceptible due to the fact that their brains are still developing (for example, one of the reasons teens are often more impulsive and are not good at making wise decisions is because that area of their brain is still developing).

It's pretty well-known in the field of psychology that social media is generating anxiety and depression in many of its users. Some have said that it's even generating neurotic, obsessive behavior (for example, causing people to check their social media accounts 5+ times daily).

I agree that it would be interesting to know what kind of effects it would have upon society if social media sites suddenly went down for a month or longer. These sites are literally designed to re-wire people's brains, so I'm sure that many people would first go through a phase of withdrawal due to the addiction / dopamine, but then as their dopamine levels began to return to normal and their brains could produce sufficient serotonin again, I think many people would realize that their lives are just fine without it (and perhaps even better). I am actually much closer with my friends now that I interact with them only via email. We have better and more meaningful conversations and I spend more time doing productive things and the things that I enjoy and interacting more in the real world.

You're interpreting me presenting facts about social media as me telling people that they shouldn't be using it. That's not the case. I have stressed numerous times that I understand that everyone has different experiences with it and that I simply think that people should be aware that it's designed to be very addictive.

I think it's pretty clear that no matter what facts or studies I present here, most people are just going to disagree with me. This is one of the reasons I had stopped using EF years ago -- because I found it impossible to have intelligent conversations here. I can go into a psychology or neuroscience forum and have intelligent conversations about this subject, but obviously that is not possible here.

Wow, thanks for telling us that.......

Ironically (and humorously), this conversation has reminded me of what a huge waste of time it is to debate in circles with strangers on the Internet... precisely one of the reasons I had deactivated from FB. :P

Why did i only get 4 Likes for THIS POST??!!!?

I HATE YOU ALL! IMA GO KILL SOME PUPPYS!!!1!1!!!

Yes of course Pancakes, the best way to convince people of your intellectual prowess is to come on a forum and then post how much you dislike using that forum. Makes perfect sense.

I am guessing your reason for removing yourself from Facebook as well as (almost) EF and hanging around psychology (ironic) and neuroscience forums involves a certain amount of social awkwardness.

For certain addictions, once you realise you're addicted, it's a little to late and to say that "you let it happen" is really simplifying things - especially for chemical addictions.