
Facebook addiction linked to staking your self-worth on social acceptance - brahmwg
https://www.psypost.org/2018/08/facebook-addiction-linked-to-staking-your-self-worth-on-social-acceptance-51987
======
themagician
Social media wasn’t always like this. I think back to the ways I used Twitter,
Facebook and Instagram in the early days and they were completely different
than they way they are used today. They were personal, real time, and no one
cared about “likes”.

I think a lot of the problems with social media today could be solved just by
removing “the numbers.” If suddenly all the like, follower, following, and
comment counts disappeared I suspect people would use these things
fundamentally differently. I see people browsing through IG tapping to like
for 20 minutes at a time and think to myself, “why are you even doing that?”
It’s a compulsion that does nothing.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Also sharing.

Taking the time to save a link/picture, go to another site, and typing in a
description and comments on material? Great. Seeing a cat picture and
instantaneously clicking "share"?

Screw that. That kind of behavior is in the website's interest, not mine. It
creates an endless stream of slightly-interesting material from people I know,
just enough to keep me watching but not enough to feel like anything got done.

Spending time doing something compulsively that later you realize was a waste
of time, then doing it again? That's addiction. I don't know what kind of
addiction it is. It's certainly less addictive than opiods. But it's no doubt
addictive -- and it is currently affecting billions of people worldwide.

It's an amazing amount of societal damage that nobody will ever be able to
quantify. We'll never know the books that weren't read, the inventions that
weren't made, or the people that weren't helped because somebody was watching
social media.

(And before somebody talks about how great it is to have the planet connected,
it is! Being able to communicate and research is nowhere near the same thing
as having your head stuck in your phone eight hours a day)

~~~
njarboe
Most people in the US spend an amazing amount of time watching TV. The average
for adults is about 5 hours a day[1]. Not sure if I really believe these
numbers, as many people have the TV on when doing something else (I hope), but
most people don't choose to do something "productive" with their free time.

Is social media better that TV? I would say social media has more value and is
more likely to cause damage, but avoiding both is probably a good idea. I try
not to eat much ice cream either.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_consumption)

~~~
jstarfish
I don't think it makes sense to draw a line. The same psychological
manipulations we see going on with social media were tried and tested first
with television decades ago.

Every minor thing is "breaking news!" and needless drama stirred up to keep
you watching, in between the half a dozen tickers and counters on the screen
with pointless metrics to look important and soak up your attention.

------
hardwaresofton
The way this is titled makes the relation seem directional, and in the wrong
direction...

Basing self worth on social acceptance definitely predates Facebook, and
Facebook addiction is a pretty obvious consequence of the positive feedback
loop that you'd get form using Facebook to feed that part of yourself.

Not defending Facebook or any other social network here, I personally think
Facebook is likely toxic -- but I think it's pretty hard for a social network
to exist without having this flaw.

~~~
dekhn
in any scientific article, if you reverse the causation in the title and it
makes more sense, the author probably made an error.

As a wise professor sitting in the audience said to the lecturer: "Normally we
put the dependent variable on the Y axis".

------
bdz
Social media is the new smoking. Cancer destroys you physically but these
sites destroy your mental health. Not just Facebook but Instagram too for
example, it's even worse. And don't forget Twitter.

~~~
logicchains
That's just absurd. Maybe people with underlying psychological issues are
somehow damaged by Facebook, but in my experience the majority of users (at
the very least the people I know who use it) just see it as a convenient way
to keep up with what friends are up to and share interesting jokes/memes, it's
certainly not destroying their mental health.

If someone suffers when they see other people doing well, because their self-
worth is based on comparing themselves to others, that's a character flaw.
It's going to keep making their lives miserable until they learn to address
it, without or without Facebook around. People blaming Facebook seems like a
classic case of addressing the symptoms not the disease; some people are so
unwilling to make any effort to grow and better themselves that they'll do
whatever they can to find an external source of blame for the effects of their
unhealthy thinking patterns. It's so much easier to think "Facebook is evil"
than to think "It's not healthy for me to judge myself in comparisons to
others, I should work to learn to be happy at their success".

~~~
ekianjo
> but in my experience the majority of users (at the very least the people I
> know who use it) just see it as a convenient way to keep up with what
> friends are up to and share interesting jokes/memes, it's certainly not
> destroying their mental health.

It's a distraction. And a lot of people are addicted by it, so much they feel
they need to "share" what they are doing or what they are thinking at least
once a day. This focus on the Self and the ubiquity of social networks makes
for a phenomenon that did not exist before.

As for whether it is positive or negative, well it's a net loss of time (and
mental attention since social networks tend to disrupt you the whole time with
notifications) that could be spent somewhere else, and it's difficult to argue
with that. Are there emotional benefits? Sure. Are such benefits more
rewarding than the ones you would get from real-life networking and real-life
activities? That should be the proper benchmark to use to make a judgment.

For people who have lived before social networks existed, such evaluation
could take the form of a simple question "has Facebook made your life any
better?".

~~~
matz1
Like any other thing in live, facebook can made your life better for some
people, can make your life worse for some other. It what you make of it.

~~~
ekianjo
I was not suggesting a positive or negative answer. Merely a question to
consider at the individual level.

------
1sttimeposter
What about TV addiction, video game addiction, addiction to foods laden with
high fructose corn syrup, or an other number of “addictions”? Point here is
anything can have a good effect or negative effect. Everyone on HN has an
addiction to talking negatively about things people have built or are
building. Very rarely is anyone speaking about the good that results from what
people are working on. People have and will always gravitate towards staking
self worth on social-acceptance regardless of the communication channel.
Whether it is their family, friends, classmates, colleagues and interaction
happens over IM, email, in school cafeterias, locker rooms, people are looking
for social acceptance and depending on how that goes there is a good or bad
experience with it. Nothing new here nor does Facebook have anything to do
with it. Facebook exposes you to more people and it doesn’t inherently do
anything to you either negatively or positively. For every negative article
there are hundreds of examples of good that comes from it. (My 2 cents)

~~~
matz1
Probably due to HN demographics like myself, mostly introvert people who
understandably despise social media.

------
iamben
Pop science, but this probably helps explain why Facebook/Snapchat/etc are so
popular with the teen demographic. I'm kinda glad we didn't have any of that
when I was that age. Remembering back to how insecure I felt personally, I
can't really begin to imagine the pressure of being on a 'social' platform at
that age.

~~~
technobabble
Anecdotal note (I'm in my early twenties)

What personally amazes me is how many people treat their social profiles with
the same rigor and attention as a large PR conglomerate. Everything photo took
dozens of takes, every post rewritten to maximize the number of keywords.
Personal Branding has taken the 'social' out of social media a la Black Mirror
(nosedive).

~~~
atmosx
I came here to point out nosedive. I searched just in case and voila!

Black Mirror is amazing ofc. But specifically this episode, Nosedive, should
be studied and analysed in public schools.

------
zerealshadowban
Since modern philosophy has been teaching that reality is a social construct,
why wouldn't it follow that each individual self is too? Further, we have been
taught that values are socially determined (market prices, fashion, popular
arts, ...) and that for the individual the highest moral compass resides in
the well-being of others (e.g. utilitarianism, charity drives, altruism,
welfare programs, ...).

Given this, wouldn't it be abnormal to eschew social networks and the daily,
hourly, validation they provide? of course people used to seek social
acceptance in person, but physical social intercourse has been shrinking, so
the online world is now where we can most easily obtain it. And soon, virtual
worlds will provide in even greater abundance.

~~~
cubano
Social highly-if-not-totally weights appearance over almost all other forms of
human interactions.

In my experience, photos get about 10x the likes of text-based posts. We can
argue the exact amount, but we all must notice that pictures get far most
attention then everything else, correct?

Given this, isn't that quite obviously the wrong type of validation people
should be seeking?

The superficiality of how one looks should certainly not be weighted 10x over
all other aspects of one's personality, and brings to mind the worst aspects
of high-school-based in/out-group mechanics.

At it's best, it's simply welfare for the rich. People who look good already
get the lion's share of "likes" and attention in the real world.

It hardly seems like a good thing it should be so online as well.

------
austincheney
How horrible. If I had a dime for every time somebody on the internet took a
civil disagreement of opinion to an emotional level I would be a trillionaire.
If this is how I qualified my self-worth I would be in a very bad place. This
is also the reason I deleted my Reddit account.

God forbid you offer technical advise or attempt to explain a complex subject
and the answer somehow becomes extremely political. The biggest example I
remember is the folks at r/programming really REALLY want WASM to replace
JavaScript. I, being a long time JavaScript programmer, explained how WASM
isn't replacing JavaScript for technical reasons and the stated goals around
that technology. Immediate emotional failure on an epic scale. I could have
said something about harming children and would have been less reviled. This
isn't even a political subject. I imagine an actual political subreddit being
quite comical.

People get emotional online for all kinds of reasons. PRO TIP: there are many
people online that cannot follow a conversation, possibly their own
conversation, or who have trouble with basic reading comprehension. ANOTHER
PRO TIP: echo chambers and conformity are very real qualities that easily feel
threatened for nonthreatening reasons.

~~~
s-shellfish
> I could have said something about harming children and would have been less
> reviled.

Yes, but that's literally because people see their technologies as being more
human than most humans. It's something that goes down to an individuals core
and is intrinsically defining of how they understand and express.

Not saying it makes sense to average Joe. Just a different breed of person.

For example, the soundness property of a language. Think about why that might
be what creates the echo chamber, rather than thinking about how the echo
chamber reacts when whatever contributes to verifying soundness is modified.
The reaction might be a side effect, rather than an outright planned action.

~~~
austincheney
When I encounter echo chambers here is what I see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity)

It is the opposite of wanting to learn, explore, or be challenged. It is all
about harmony and using people as numbers to wrap yourself in a warm comfort
blanket of emotional protection and qualification. It is the very idea that an
opinion is truth when it can be made popular or false if it can be demonized
by a congregation, particularly when every conversation is a contest with
emotional validation as the prize.

When emotional harmony becomes more important than the subject matter of
discussion I am done.

~~~
s-shellfish
I agree, but this is the root of my dilemma from which my own understanding
has grown.

If I agree with you right here and now, have we not technically formed our own
'echo chamber'?

Echo chambers from the outside look like inside out fishbowls because they
are. But every set of agreeable statements, whether shared between individuals
or distributed through time, same system - pieces are just labeled
differently.

However, I do understand the emotional feeling that occurs when conforming is
heavily pressured, from nearly every side. That's disharmonous emotionally to
the people it is disharmonous to. The ones who get silenced.

I understand both sides. Can't say I know more than that. Can't say I have an
opinion on the matter because it goes beyond the facts.

Another way to look at the problem: are math and logic an echo chamber?

~~~
austincheney
> If I agree with you right here and now, have we not technically formed our
> own 'echo chamber'?

Good point, but no.

Agreement is not necessarily an indication of conformance. You have to also
consider to what degree that agreement, or disagreement, must be exercised. I
agree and disagree with many political opinions, but I don't join groups who
share my political opinions. My personal opinions often remain personal. Even
if I did join a group of politically like-minded persons I would not go on
regular protests to merely advertise my opinion. I certainly wouldn't take it
to a higher level by going to a counter-protest or berating those I disagree
with.

Typically the more important and advertised a social agreement becomes the
less it is about the subject matter agreed upon and the more it is about
exercising forced social norms of a group. In math and logic agreement is
attained by a proof and not by some social pressure to force a predetermined
outcome.

~~~
s-shellfish
> In math and logic agreement is attained by a proof.

Of course I agree with this. Just makes me think of bad ways of understanding
math and logic. Having to carry it around inside myself as though I am it,
because nothing else besides myself, others like myself, and actual computers
can test the understanding. Proofs can be written with the utmost rigor.
There's still room for error. No proof is perfect.

I'm not sure if that's more so, an artistic interpretation of mathematics and
logic, or, just the other side to it. Even if my memory was eidetic and I knew
all there was to know about all existing mathematics and logic, I'm still not
sure I'd be certain I know what I know. What's the difference between seeing a
connection between two pieces of data, and identifying an inferential rule?
Direction, intentional direction. Backwards chaining.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_chaining](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_chaining)

> and not by some social pressure to force a predetermined outcome

This is what I always find, I dunno, bizarre. It really seems like, overriding
thinking in favor of something, some way of forcing an outcome.

~~~
austincheney
> Having to carry it around inside myself as though I am it, because nothing
> else besides myself, others like myself, and actual computers can test the
> understanding.

I think that is an overly simplistic view. Perhaps the way to think about this
is not an isolated fragment in the form of an abstraction but rather a product
you can hold your in hands. You can test your understanding of that product in
various ways and use it perform various tasks beyond which it was designed to
achieve. These processes require problem solving and creativity which are
forms of originality. Originality is a very lonely place, but its great when
it solves a problem and reveals a reward. What is the greater virtue: solving
for loneliness or solving for the problem?

This is better explained in the introduction to Nicomachean Ethics.
[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abekker+page%3D1094a)

Essentially a tool is of use for its own sake, an intermediate use, or
existing solely for the use of something else. That which is of use for its
own sake has the highest utility value while that which is only existent to
benefit something else has the lowest utility value.

It seems, though, your thoughts are more concerning potential unity around
theoretical concepts. For that I recommend reading upon Intellectual Virtue as
an achievable ethic:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicomachean_Ethics#Book_VI:_In...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicomachean_Ethics#Book_VI:_Intellectual_virtue)

~~~
s-shellfish
Stoicism is the closest I can get away from appealing to emotional harmony
blindly (choose the happy way now but potentially make a grave error by doing
so).

Thinking about things that aren't presented with a face... one face or many.

Unity with concepts. Read Nichomachean ethics in college, but funnily enough
now that I look at it, the professors may have found much more literal value
in it than did the students.

Humor, the Greeks, educational systems. Life, sigh.

The directions things go in.

------
sreyaNotfilc
Wow, this topic is so relevant to me.

I felt that I've became obsessed with "likes" recently on Reddit. Well, they
call it karma. But, same thing.

Karma points are kinda hard to get. Mainly because there are 3 things that has
to happen -

1\. Write your comment early enough 2\. Write something witty enough 3\. The
thread needs to become somewhat popular

Sports threads, mainly Game threads, are a gold mine for karma. I found,
recently that I wrote things there partly because I loved the team and
atmosphere (Braves fan), but also because I love refreshing and seeing all
'dem karma points.

I've became so obsessed that I realized I had a problem. Each time I go onto
Reddit (the new version), my eyes immediately darts to the top right of the
screen to see if I went up or down. It became distracting that I looked for
ways to turn it off.

Reddit's user settings, from what I saw, doesn't have anything that will hide
those points. Luckily, I could revert back to the old Reddit layout.

Funny thing is, I'm barely on the Game threads now that I cannot see those
points.

~~~
EADGBE
Substitute "Reddit" for "Hacker News". Same difference.

~~~
sreyaNotfilc
LOL, I just noticed I did the same thing just now. Ugh, the points.

I'm working on a site as well that has up votes. Mostly to eliminate spam.

I'm going to have the points hidden by default.

------
mng42
Social media knows how to play the game. It knows how to keep the herds
hungry, happy, and most importantly loyal to the system. It strikes where it
matters most --into the heart and mind of users. Poking the ego of 'self-
worth', counting likes of social acceptance, sharing ego driven personal
stories or unmattered opinions to get more and more attention and standout
above the rest of the flock. Everything is a contagious fabricated reality
that could be a slow poison to a naive.

The bigger picture is it doesn't matter that much because that's the purpose
of the business and it is sure succeeding. But we all have our own choice, we
can use it either to advantage or disadvantage. Still, somehow it is fortunate
for us present generation that we are now living in a complex system that
makes things simple, it will keep on progressing and we must keep up so we can
enjoy the minimum substantial benefits. I think we just need to understand the
rules and we'll be OK.

------
00__00
Facebook is a cesspit. How did people come to see it as somewhere acceptable -
a walled garden, akin to AOL circa 1997. Awful,

Besides, what if it's not addiction, but something worse!

[http://www.netopia.eu/not-tech-addiction-something-
worse/](http://www.netopia.eu/not-tech-addiction-something-worse/)

------
TangoTrotFox
The most surprising thing to me about this report is that it was self
reported. I have no doubt that there are an immense, and seemingly increasing,
number of people that stake their self worth on social acceptance. What is
surprising to me is that people do this while being consciously aware of it!

~~~
eterm
To clarify for anyone reading this comment, self-reported means data obtained
by questionnaires rather than observation by trained assessors. The key take-
away is this paragraph:

""" In other words, people who agreed with statements such as “My self-esteem
depends on the opinions others hold of me” tended to also agree with
statements such as “I spend a lot of time thinking about Facebook”, “I am
using Facebook in order to forget my personal problems”, and “I use Facebook
so much that it has had a negative impact on my job or studies.” """

So they were self-reporting is their feelings toward facebook and their
feelings about their self-esteem, they weren't self-reporting the connection.
They may not be aware of the connection between the two.

~~~
johnchristopher
I'd like to see this replicated with a few tweaks for the « I am using $x »
where $x could be porn, bets, games, books.. any means of escapism.

------
naveen99
Facebook, reddit, twitter, blind are like halfway betazoid telepathy on start
trek. If you knew exactly how others judged you internally without them saying
it, you would be devastated as a human. But the betazoids were fine. Maybe we
just need time to develop coping mechanisms.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _But the betazoids were fine_

They’re also fictional. Privacy, _i.e._ the ability to hold thoughts and
preferences to oneself, is intrinsically linked to agency. If everyone is
looking for acceptance, we lose our places for madmen and geniuses.

------
beenBoutIT
Someone needs to figure out a way to clone Facebook circa 2005 and just call
the site something other than 'Facebook'. Back then it was an amazing resource
for university students and only allowed people with .edu email addresses from
more reputable schools to join. You could use Facebook to access your course
schedule and see lists of everyone that was in each of your classes. Gradually
they relaxed the rules and started allowing faculty to join, then junior
college students, etc.

------
spr1ted
People should get rid of facebook.. not because of your privacy, but for your
own state of mind. Teenagers should not be on such platforms as the social
norm will change and grow.

------
paulie_a
I actually had a discussion today about someone considering whether they
should say "Happy birthday" because that other person didn't do that
previously.

Finally my response was "who gives a shit, it's Facebook, it doesn't fucking
matter. Just unfriend her instead of bitching about it."

That didn't resonate very well and the person had a very sullen attitude. but
I stand by my statement. Facebook isn't that important.

~~~
bsheir74
They were probably more upset at your rude tone than your stance on facebook.

A nicer way to say it: "It's just facebook so i wouldnt worry about it. Do
whatever you think is right and if theyre your friend in sure they'll
appreciate it"

~~~
paulie_a
The person just wouldn't drop the issue and I did approach it softer and even
attempted to change the subject. After 5 minutes of complaining about
something so trivial I had enough. This is not the first time this person has
obsessed and complained about something on Facebook.

And I totally agree at that point I was rude

------
lolive
Anything about Twitter addiction? [That would avoid me the cost of a
psychotherapy]

------
oftenwrong
Hacker News addiction linked to staking your self-worth on...

~~~
freehunter
I came here to say this exactly. I'm only a hobbyist programmer even though
I'm pretty darn good in my niche technical (non-programming) field. But almost
every time I jump into the comments section my self-worth goes down a bit and
I feel just a bit worse because really this is a community of programmers. And
even though I'm not a programmer, I do write computer programs occasionally,
and quite often I see people calling out my style of programming as the worst
thing in the world.

I have a side business, but I haven't created fifteen startups with successful
exits, so I feel less important than a lot of people here.

I don't have a Dell XPS 13 Developers Edition running Arch, so I'm not as pure
as a lot of people here.

I use Facebook and not Mastodon, so I'm a sheep contributing to the downfall
of society.

I live in the Midwest, where nothing happens and land is worthless and
colleges are even worse and we don't even have the Internet here do we?

If you think Facebook or Snapchat or Instagram are damaging to the self-worth
of its consumers, try being someone who doesn't live in SV and 10x some
Phoenix/Elixir at an AI-owned biomed non-profit stealth-mode VC-backed startup
collective. I've never even wheeled a suitcase into Paul Graham's office! I'm
basically worthless.

------
jokoon
I remember using Facebook in 2008, and creating a group for my class. I
advertised so that people could join it.

It went horribly and a couple of student started insulting me for stupid
things in the Facebook class group. It scarred me psychologically and
emotionally, and I stopped using Facebook altogether and removed my account.

Until there is true and real accountability for things you say online, using
real names should not be a standard. Facebook is a real example of murky
online behavior. It's a haven for bullies and other tough playing egos. It's
going to poison the internet for a long time.

------
calahad
Seems right, but borders on being tautological.

------
Arete31415
Considering the number of GoFundMe's I see for basic medical care, staking
one's self-worth on social acceptance is not some weird psychological
delusion. In this economy and country, social acceptance is the difference
between life and death.

~~~
nostrademons
Somewhat ironically, the higher up you get on the socioeconomic hierarchy, the
less true that is. Both in the obvious way (rich people have these little
tokens called "dollars" that will make a surprising number of people and
organizations do your bidding, particularly institutions like hospitals,
colleges, and politicians), and in a much less obvious way: the most effective
approach to acquiring these dollars is to become the monopoly provider for a
good that lots of people need, and if you don't have lots of capital to buy up
real estate and such, the most effective way to do _that_ is often to seek out
psychological desires that people have but don't want to admit they have (for
example, being liked by everyone) and provide that.

Yes, this is part of what makes social mobility hard. To move up the
socioeconomic strata, you often have to abandon values that were essential to
survival or self-worth at lower levels.

------
ChuckMcM
In related news, work addiction linked to staking your self worth on your bank
balance.

------
delbel
the real question is, is it intentional as a means of social control? I
noticed that the messenger app intentionally delays messages at a rate that is
linked to dopamine ups/down -- when another person sent me a message, and I
went to another area of the website, and paused, there message would "appear"
right when I lost interest, re-engaging me into facebook -- so there is some
kind of thought put into creating a feedback loop to stay addicted to the
platform. That, and the facebook scientists who were caught screwing with
people's minds via social experiments years back and actually openly published
their results, with zero ethical considerations, leads me to be concerned that
this might also be some kind of sinister plot to control dehumanize subjects
on their platform.

------
amelius
How do free/open alternatives like Mastodon avoid this problem?

~~~
detaro
Not entirely, in so far it's happening when you provide the means to compare
filtered perspectives on others' lives to yours.

They do by not having the business pressure to optimize for an engagement,
which leads to artificially highlighting things, hiding negative personal
posts, push-notifications and e-mails to pull people back in when they stay
away for a day or two, ...

------
fallat
HNers: Others studies relating to this?

------
snarfy
What would hacker news addiction be?

------
mike503
Black Mirror... Social scoring.

------
varshithr
That's a bit much

------
h4b4n3r0
I think one’s self worth is intrinsically linked to acceptance, with or
without Facebook, especially in younger people. FB (and others like it) just
exploited the weakness.

------
DanielGee
What about HN's addiction to news about facebook? I thought after a year of
relentless facebook spam, we were past this. Now the top two posts are about
facebook. We have to kick this habit.

~~~
hfdgiutdryg
1) It's a phenomenally successful tech company.

2) It's not uncommon in HN to dislike and/or distrust Facebook.

------
yosito
My understanding is that humans have evolved to stake their self worth on
social acceptance. Facebook just capitalizes on this need that we all have.
It's the natural extension of capitalism and why pure capitalism without
regulation is evil.

~~~
amelius
Could you elaborate on the connection with capitalism?

~~~
yosito
Capitalism = capitalizing on resources to make a profit. Facebook capitalizes
on our need for social acceptance to make a profit.

