
Bored Lonely Angry Stupid - laurex
https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/2/18510958/social-media-addiction-boredom-loneliness-society-technology-smart-phones
======
dvt
My theory is that social media, the internet, and these manufactured
communities trick our brains into feeling like we belong to _actual_
communities -- when in reality, we do not. I work remotely and I'm no stranger
to being "alone" \-- and as an experiment, I did a "social media" detox for
about 6 months -- I deleted all social media off my phone (FB, IG, dating
apps), I blocked all "social" forums on my computer (HN, reddit, etc.) and
even though throughout my entire adult life I've considered myself an
introvert (which I probably am), I randomly started to interact with people
around me. This was actually pretty surprising.

I've _never_ been a "good morning, Joe!" bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed kind of
person, but that's exactly what I became. I started getting better at
conversations, more interested in people around me, and just generally in more
of a "social vibe." I've always been terrible at remembering names, and
instead of brushing it off (after all, who cares about remembering random old
guy #7 from coffee shop #4?), I started keeping notes of names and appearance
in my phone, so I don't forget who's who. It's actually kind of mind-blowing
that my personality underwent such a palpable change.

I've since sworn off dating apps and attempting to limit my social media as
much as possible. HN and reddit are probably going to get blocked again soon,
too.

~~~
JohnFen
> My theory is that social media, the internet, and these manufactured
> communities trick our brains into feeling like we belong to actual
> communities -- when in reality, we do not.

I was having a discussion with my daughter about this just last night, where I
made a similar point.

I was pointing out how celebrities (particularly, but not solely, movie stars)
are always playing a role, even in interviews, etc. When they make a public
appearance that isn't overtly as a character, the role they're playing is
their "movie star" persona. Unless you are an actual friend of theirs, you
don't really know what their true authentic selves are.

Social media, it seems to me, has caused everyone to do the same thing. In
social media, people tend to be playing a role -- that role being what they
view as the best version of themselves. But it's not their true authentic
selves any more than with the celebrities.

I think this has caused a serious degradation in the social fabric. Before
social media, the most common interactions you had were with friends and
family, and you were mostly interacting with their authentic selves. After
all, nobody really knows you until they've seen you at your worst.

Interactions in social media are not like that. You're interactive with people
playing parts, and that interaction is no longer genuine human contact. It
just has the window-dressing of that.

Loneliness and isolation is the logical result of that. It's a bit like
replacing most of your food with "dietary fiber" that is made to look and
taste like food. It will fill you up and taste good, but in the end you'll
still starve to death.

~~~
BurningFrog
Maybe that's how it was for "normal" people. For weirdos, life before social
media _was_ loneliness and isolation.

Today, no matter how esoteric your passion is, you can find 1000 other people
with the same interest on the internet and talk to them 24/7\. This is the
_golden age_ of the oddball with the unusual interest.

That's not to say your points are wrong or that things are perfect. But let's
not pretend there aren't _both_ pros and cons!

~~~
01100011
As someone who grew up with modems and BBSes in the 80s, I can say that the
ability to connect with other weirdos has existed long before modern 'social
media'. If you were a nerd, you had HAM radio even before BBSes.

~~~
nsomaru
Cheap, ubiquitous access is a game changer, especially in the 3rd world.

~~~
agumonkey
Don't you ever think ubiquitous lowers the quality as much as it raises the
possibility ?

------
griffinkelly
I just got back a month-long trip by myself. It was interesting to note that a
ton of people I talked to before going, friends, family, acquaintances, were
all shocked I would travel alone. The overwhelming response was, "aren't you
going to get lonely?" I think it's important to be alone and enjoy your own
company.

Working remotely too, I get a very similar question. "Don't you miss working
with people?" I work with people all the time, but I think that being alone
magnifies the effect of spending quality time with people, rather than just
spending time together for the sake of being together.

~~~
godshatter
A lot of people don't understand that being by yourself is no the same thing
as being "lonely". "Lonely" implies that you are missing interaction with
others. When I'm alone, I generally breathe a sigh of relief because a lot of
the time socialization is work for me, and it's work I'm not very good at.

I'm almost never lonely when I'm alone, I'm too involved in whatever I'm
doing. Even if I'm bored, I'm generally not lonely. I get more lonely when I'm
in a group of people I don't really know well than I ever do when I'm alone in
my own house. Mostly because I wish I knew them better than I do and wouldn't
feel so left out.

~~~
clucas
Donald Hall wrote beautifully about this:
[https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/double-
solitu...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/double-solitude)

~~~
telesilla
Oh yes: "Now and then, especially at night, solitude loses its soft power and
loneliness takes over. I am grateful when solitude returns."

------
nabnob
I've definitely noticed this trend in my own thinking - hyper-individualism,
along with a healthy dose of woe-is-me. It's especially bad on sites like
Tumblr, where people list out their mental health problems along with other
ways they define themselves in the header of their blog.

On the one hand, I think it's good that people are discussing things like
depression, anxiety, etc. more openly. But as someone who has struggled with
depression and feeling suicidal at various points, I think there's a healthier
way to frame your thinking, so that you're not acting like depression, or
loneliness, or sadness are inevitable, and like you have zero control over
your mood or feelings.

I had this epiphany after going through a break up, where I could feel myself
heading towards a depressive spiral. I was obsessing over how sad I was,
replaying happy moments and unfulfilled fantasies about the future in my
head...and then I realized I was actually making myself feel worse, and that I
could actually make myself stop wallowing in my own sadness by thinking about
other things.

I think the most important thing to do is to get away from staying in your own
head and overthinking things. Interact with other people in real life (not on
social media), do physical exercise, practice mindfulness meditation, and try
observing your feelings and separating your sense of self from those feelings.

~~~
sdegutis
The only thing that has been working for me was following traditional Catholic
teachings to a "t". I know religion is taboo in scientific circles, and
educated people think of it as just another psychological tool, but it's
actually the other way around. Catholicism encompasses everything about
psychology, but while remaining grounded in the philosophical truths and
principles that make up objective existence.

Without that, we have no anchor, and so psychological principles change
regularly as the leaders of the field "learn more" about how they were
previously mistaken (and then wipe their hands clean of the damage done to
innocent people by their incorrect teachings, as they cover it up and move
on). Saint Frances de Sales and Saint John Bosco were called masters of human
psychology, and secular psychology is only now catching up to them in
agreement.

Before we can get rid of negative problems in ourselves or others, we must
first understand the nature of ourselves, and of the problems, because if we
misunderstand these true natures, we're going to be remedying it the wrong
way. And thinking of life or the mind as merely effects of the material world
is already starting off on a bad principle, and leads to things like over
medication, presuming that the mind can be fixed by changing things in the
physical brain, which is really only a telephone by which the soul interacts
with the physical world.

I know enlightened minds will scoff at these ideas, assuming religion to be
for the ignorant, and maybe I am an ignorant fool, but anyone who agrees that
there are absolute and objective truths will see clearly that the world is
going insane. Parents proudly teaching their children that they can choose
their gender, encouraging safe spaces where intellectual growth is supposed to
be sought by mature young adults, grown men and women spending all their free
time chasing every physical and mental pleasure as slaves of their passions
without ever accomplishing anything of value, left wondering why they feel
unfulfilled at the end of each wasted day.

Anyone who recognizes these truths and is frustrated by the world going in the
wrong direction, especially with how it has been addressing (or rather
enabling and encouraging) mental health issues, should not scoff at the ideas,
principles, values, and beliefs that produced men and women who were willing
to give up every good pleasure on earth for the honorable and noble goal of
selflessly doing good for others in this life, that they may reap rewards for
themselves and others in the next life. The Catholic Church has produced so
many saints like Saint Benedict, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint John Paul II,
Saint Mother Theresa of Calcutta, and so many more that you'd do well to look
further into what biases and inaccurate beliefs you have against its
objective, intellectual, noble truths.

~~~
b_tterc_p
The Catholic Church also held orgies in its sacred halls, enabled and hid a
variety of pedophiles, and led a variety of violent conflicts for selfish
gains. That doesn’t mean Catholicism is bad, or even “the church”. but citing
a few saints as evidence that something is good is some pretty serious cherry
picking.

Religious structure is good. People do better when they have a compelling
framework and a strong social community. The issue with specific religions is
it holds specific beliefs as a pre requisite, so it’s hard to just jump in
amidst large bodies of diverse opinions and conflicting scientific evidence.
Most people would benefit from joining any well intentioned religious group.
And most of the moral arguments for any specific one tend to be compatible
with the rest. So yeah, religion is generally a good thing for people; no,
it’s not fair to claim it’s unilaterally good; and in general, mixing
emotional arguments with world views on the nature of existence is likely to
annoy others.

~~~
sdegutis
> The Catholic Church also held orgies in its sacred halls

You were lied to, my friend.

> enabled and hid a variety of pedophiles

Individuals did that, and that's very sad and damaging.

> and led a variety of violent conflicts for selfish gains

Read up on the Crusades (and Spanish Inquisition) from a Catholic perspective.
It's not as cut and dry as people make it.

> The issue with specific religions is it holds specific beliefs as a pre
> requisite,

That's fine, as long as the beliefs are true.

> so it’s hard to just jump in amidst large bodies of diverse opinions

Look into any religion hard enough and you will find all categories of them to
be logically and historically unsustainable except Catholicism. That's why I'm
here. It is the only belief system fully compatible with intellectual
integrity. Saint Thomas Aquinas said the same thing when he said that anyone
who actually looked into Islam would see clearly that it is utterly absurd and
full of contradictions.

> and conflicting scientific evidence.

There is none.

~~~
sudosteph
> Look into any religion hard enough and you will find all categories of them
> to be logically and historically unsustainable except Catholicism. That's
> why I'm here. It is the only belief system fully compatible with
> intellectual integrity. Saint Thomas Aquinas said the same thing when he
> said that anyone who actually looked into Islam would see clearly that it is
> utterly absurd and full of contradictions.

Roman Catholicism says that communion will turn wine and bread into literal
flesh and blood. How on earth is that "compatible with intellectual
integrity"? Or believing in a literal virgin birth? Another thing I can't
intellectually justify is insisting on priest celibacy and keeping women out
of the priesthood.

I'm not going to debate in favor of Islam, but it seems that mainstream
protestant beliefs (or at least those which I'm familiar with, the beliefs of
United Methodism) are just as capable of claiming the good parts of Christian
philosophy, without insisting on the parts which clearly just exist due to the
the Roman Catholic penchant for power wrangling and hierarchies.

~~~
sdegutis
> Roman Catholicism says that communion will turn wine and bread into literal
> flesh and blood. How on earth is that "compatible with intellectual
> integrity"?

That is called Transubstantiation and it is a daily recurring miracle.
Miracles, by definition, are God bending the rules of physics, which He
created and continually sustains, and is thus allowed to bend. This is
philosophical but logically consistent.

> Or believing in a literal virgin birth?

Another miracle.

> insisting on priest celibacy

That's a rule, and put there for a very good reason. The less divided your
heart is by worldly cares, the more you can care only for the people God put
in your care.

> keeping women out of the priesthood

Just as much as men are kept out of giving birth. Consider this quote from G.
K. Chesterton: "How can it be a large career to tell other people's children
about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about
the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow
to be everything to someone? No. A woman's function is laborious, but because
it is gigantic, not because it is minute."

> are just as capable of claiming the good parts of Christian philosophy,
> without insisting on the parts which clearly just exist due to the the Roman
> Catholic penchant for power wrangling and hierarchies.

They say "you are saved by faith alone" and "the Bible is the sole authority
on religion" and yet the Bible literally says "you are not saved by faith
alone". That's plenty enough to disregard all their remaining arguments in my
opinion.

After using the process of elimination, only the Catholic Church's doctrines
remain intact.

~~~
sudosteph
So for #1 and #2, you just hand-wave your doctrine as "miracles" that defy all
otherwise known and consistent laws of the universe. Doesn't seem like
intellectual integrity to me.

And #3 and #4 are directly at odds. You say Priests are not allowed to have
children, which is why they are celibate (fair enough) but we all know
children can't be born without both a Father and Mother involved. So when men
choose not to have children for the priesthood, it's seen as noble. But Women
aren't given that same choice in your view (Except they are, because nuns
exist, yet Nuns cannot ever actually lead the Church).

Why don't you admit that the reason the Catholic church does not allow women
priests is not because "a women's function is laborious" (a function not all
women naturally can even do, otherwise why can't barren women be priests?),
but rather because you take the words of Paul literally and do not allow a
woman to hold authority over a man? That's the real reason and you know it.

Also, the "faith alone" thing is a bit misunderstood to be honest, mostly
caused by how protestants overload that word. They basically mean that you
cannot be saved by works alone under any circumstance, and that if you are
unable to produce any works but have faith, you can still be saved (the
example here is the penitent thief on the cross). After that, they consider
works to be a natural outcome of legitimate faith, and that if you have the
chance to do works and don't you'll lose your justification by faith.

There's a sermon by Wesley on that here: [http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-
wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley...](http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-
sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-43-the-scripture-way-of-salvation/)

~~~
simula67
> So for #1 and #2, you just hand-wave your doctrine as "miracles" that defy
> all otherwise known and consistent laws of the universe. Doesn't seem like
> intellectual integrity to me.

It is not intellectually dishonest to believe that God, who governs the
universe and it's laws is able to suspend them if he so chooses.

> Why don't you admit that the reason the Catholic church does not allow women
> priests is not because "a women's function is laborious" (a function not all
> women naturally can even do, otherwise why can't barren women be priests?),
> but rather because you take the words of Paul literally and do not allow a
> woman to hold authority over a man? That's the real reason and you know it.

No, that is not the real reason. The idea that men and women are complementary
is rooted in Christian teaching since the beginning. My understanding is that
the reason women are not allowed to be priests is partly because during mass
the priest stands in for Christ ( in persona Christi ) and Christ was born a
man. Women hold authority over men all the time in the Catholic church, many
doctors of the Church are women.

> Also, the "faith alone" thing is a bit misunderstood to be honest, mostly
> caused by how protestants overload that word. They basically mean that you
> cannot be saved by works alone under any circumstance, and that if you are
> unable to produce any works but have faith, you can still be saved (the
> example here is the penitent thief on the cross). After that, they consider
> works to be a natural outcome of legitimate faith, and that if you have the
> chance to do works and don't you'll lose your justification by faith.

This is just a long winded way of saying you are not saved by faith alone.

~~~
sdegutis
Doctor of the Church means a teacher whose teachings are universally
applicable to everyone in the Catholic Church. It has nothing to do with
authority. Many nuns were traditionally teachers of children, too. And each of
the female doctors of the church, as far as I know, where nuns who submitted
all their teachings to their superiors and confessors, who then examined and
verified her writings for orthodoxy (1 Timothy 2:14) before recommending them
for others or permitting them to be published (cf. Imprimi Potest).

------
dlkf
I find this concept of the "history of emotions" unconvincing on so many
levels. Between the mind-body problem and our coarse understanding of the
brain, it's hard enough to talk sensibly about emotions in the present. That
language changes and new words are invented is hardly evidence that the
spectrum of human emotions (and where we lie on it) has undergone a
fundamental shift. The problem space here is complex, mysterious, and rife
with opportunities to conflate the map and the territory. The authors are
exploiting this confusion to sell a pre-determined narrative about social
media which, while great for Vox articles and Ted talks, doesn't actually
offer any new knowledge.

------
ouid
The assertion that "for most of human history boredom and loneliness have been
the norm" is idiotic. The 19th and 20th centuries in america are not "most of
human history". For the actual vast majority of human history, we were hunter-
gatherers. We operated in tight social circles, and, and I'm just assuming
here, we were rarely alone. I don't know how bored you would be as a hunter
gatherer, either, but I suspect not terribly.

~~~
jimbokun
I've been hunting, when I was much younger.

So I can attest the hunting part of "hunter-gatherer" can be exceedingly
lonely and boring. It's mostly being very still and quiet, waiting for a prey
animal to wander by.

~~~
DoreenMichele
_It 's mostly being very still and quiet, waiting for a prey animal to wander
by._

Yep.

In his teens, my dad used to make money by killing foxes for the bounty on
their head when one was raiding some farmer's chicken coop. If you could do it
in one night, it was good money. The more nights it took you, the lower the de
facto hourly pay.

He would lay perfectly still for several hours in the dark by himself with a
cocked gun waiting for the fox, often with bugs crawling over him that he
didn't swat at because that would involve moving. He usually got it the first
night.

------
sverige
> Over the course of the 19th century and 20th centuries, these older senses
> of vanity, of the vain futility of life, fell away. And as a result, what we
> see today is that when people post on social media, there’s no sense of
> their own limitations as humans. There’s often little modesty, or little
> fear that one could be going too far in self-promotion.

Apparently I was raised with outdated values, since I am pretty much always
aware of the vain futility of life and the serious limitations of my humanity.
I don't understand the current culture of constant self-promotion and
especially the public advertising of what used to be considered moral
failings.

I lived over half my life without the internet, though, so it's not hard for
me to imagine a world without smartphones and the online world. I spent a lot
of time in the mid-90s online, then was mostly offline for over five years,
then connected again around 2003 or so. For the past few months I have been
seriously considering going completely offline again, and my current work
situation makes that possible except for a handful of administrative tasks
that would take maybe ten minutes a week. If I completely disappear from here,
I've followed through on the thought.

I think the point of TFA might be that the damage to our culture due to always
being connected outweighs the benefits. It sure seems that way to me.

------
weeksie
I think this is right. At least the lonesomeness and monotony. That's how I
remember my childhood and I grew up in Alaska in a tiny fishing town in the
70s-80s (...) so that put a lot of my experiences back a bit, but the flip-
over of the internet in the 90s and then, you know, phones, just changed
everything. The way that extra time can be absorbed now, entirely without
friction, is a step change on the pace of how a person experiences the world.
Long idle times are more painful now, though they were always a little
painful. That acute discomfort drives us back into "action" and we've built a
world around ourselves that is one big dopamine feedback loop and . . . that's
fine.

Like it's not better or worse but it's just how we live and it's extremely
different than how we lived 30 years ago (and so on down the pike) and these
huge step changes happen more and more often the richer and better at
communicating we get. Which is totally, totally fine.

Sometimes you gotta marvel at those fast changes. Glad to see people
studying/documenting this. Amazing to think how this suite of emotions will be
coded in another 20 years.

------
tom-thistime
Maybe. But I was already bored, lonely, angry and stupid before devices and
social media were even invented.

~~~
jfengel
Though not TV and the telephone. The interviewee isn't really blaming the
Internet, but rather many of the trappings of modernity. The Internet and the
smartphone may exacerbate it, but the overall thesis is that we've spent about
a century becoming more and more connected, and more and more continually
entertained.

I'm not entirely sure I buy the notion: Shakespeare describes characters who
troll for entertainment(Don John, Iago), and Jane Austen's characters often
grapple with boredom. Our expectations do seem to ratchet up with our
technological ability to fulfill them, but I feel like it's more of a hedonic
treadmill. Boredom and loneliness may be, on some scale, roughly constant.

I do believe that social media has allowed us to ratchet up the effects of the
"angry" and "stupid" part, possibly to unmanageable levels.

------
kurthr
I love the Verizon phone ads on there, "Be the first to Real Time!" They
really make the point.

------
revskill
My experience with being online, is that: if you're in a messy online
environment, you can comment or raise your voice, but it's nessesary NOT to
follow your comment's responses. Our brain unfortunately accept everything
that we don't want to put in our brain. And it hurts.

------
austincheney
Bored and lonely? I blame my military deployment.

------
blancNoir
The other BLAS.

------
puranjay
I think this article might be the final trigger to convince me to switch to a
dumb phone

~~~
hindsightbias
You’ll get lost. Many gas stations don’t have maps anymore.

And what will you do at concerts? Listen to the music?

------
cerealbad
it's a historical plateau. if you were born in 1899 you may have lived as:
baby (vaccinated), child (student), farmer (subject), citizen (worker), ally
(soldier), employee (consumer), retiree (investor).

if you were born in 1999 i am hard pressed to imagine over the next 100 years
you will see this much of a sea-change. in the most hyper-optimistic
development: baby (ivf), child (self-educated), teenager (self-starter), adult
(colonist), neural map (biomachine), rebirth (clone).

far more likely you see space stagnation after a manned mars mission in the
2060s, and various forms of "new" movements arising arguing for ethics around
engineered reproduction both for humans and animals to be reworked around a
global utility model due to various food and water shocks, a type of one-
child-world policy.

it could very well be that a dominant monarchy reappears, since empires with
long lived monarchs provide at least 50 years of stability if managed
correctly, and we are approaching various global inflection points in the 21st
century which could cause a large and unnecessary loss of human life due to
poor long term planning (family management in the developing world, too many
abortions/immigration in the first world causing genetic displacement and
social revolutionary movements, extreme weather events stretching global
insurance/banking/money markets and the typical decline of the concept of
civil liberties for an new enforced set of social civilities with fragmentary
groups echoing radical ideas in secrecy - which historically leads to
insurrection and civil war).

people don't really change as quickly as their technology does, so it's very
dangerous to hear all thoughts without also having some type of pan-humanist
framework in which to put them and try to form relative links between
superficially disparate ideas. it's much easier to jump to contrast and
division, and then force the issue, the radicalization of at risk youth into
violent murder in public spaces is especially concerning, the school shooter
phenomenon is mutating into a church shooter or a mall shooter, a park
shooter, a club shooter. half a dozen coordinated shooters could shut down an
entire city, at which point every city will need check points and will have to
become gun free, a sort of TSA for metropolitan and then suburban areas. i
wonder if at some certain point life would be safer in a prison than outside
one. technology will advance towards safety and must necessarily lead to
schemes with voluntary basis of total monitoring, eg food credits if you allow
permanent personal surveillance. the cheesy 80s dystopia now creeping over the
horizon. the hug and squeeze technique of totalitarianism, where you're
crushed between abundance and fear is a model that is being exported globally
and seems quite profitable and certainly preferable to war, famine and
disease.

