Tuesday, March 7, 2017

The Crushing Anomie of Online

While social networks are advertised as providing the foundation in human relationships which is seemingly so absent anywhere else, that's not exactly how participation in such networks will play.  (RT:  Facebook blues: Social media linked to feelings of isolation, study says)

Coming as no surprise to anyone:

Facebook may have revolutionized how we stay in touch with friends and family, but a new study has found that too much time on social media actually leads to increased feelings of isolation.

The study, published Monday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, examined feelings of social isolation among more than 1,787 US adults between the ages of 19 and 32. 

The researchers defined social isolation as the lack of a sense of belonging, true engagement with others, and fulfilling relationships.

- RT


The case as developed by the researchers:

Participants were given a questionnaire which assessed how socially isolated a person felt, as well as how much and how often they used 11 popular social media platforms – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine, and LinkedIn.

The researchers found that participants spent an average of just over an hour (61 minutes) on social media each day, and visited social media sites a median of 30 times each week.

Twenty-seven percent of the participants reported feeling high levels of social isolation, with researchers concluding that greater social media use was linked to greater feelings of social isolation.

- RT

That's almost one in three who are getting the opposite effect to that which is suggested develops within such a social network.  In any grading system on the planet, that's an "F" on the report card.


Doctor Spock:  is the thinking the decreases in empathy in societies since the Nineties are due to the increasing isolation engendered by the burgeoning social networks during the same period?

Roger that, Benjie.  (Ithaka:  Britain's Empathy Leaked to the Sand but Education Seeks to Restore It)

That's exactly the premise, mate.  If that cause isn't what did it then what do you propose?


Freud:  why do you keep flogging this topic?  It's about sex, isn't it?

No, it's not about sex and I won't be needing any of your cocaine either, Doc.


The more you use a social network, the worse it gets:

For instance, those who used social media more than two hours daily were around twice as likely to report feeling high levels of social isolation. Those who visited social media sites 58 times or more per week were about three times as likely to report feeling high levels of social isolation.

We are inherently social creatures, but modern life tends to compartmentalize us instead of bringing us together,” lead author Brian Primack, director of the Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health at the University of Pittsburgh, said in a press release. 

- RT

Freud:  that did not answer my question about flogging the topic!

Tell you what, Sig.  You have six kids, right?  Think about it.


“While it may seem that social media presents opportunities to fill that social void, I think this study suggests that it may not be the solution people were hoping for,” he continued.

The researchers noted that part of the problem could be that social media can give people the impression that others are leading happier lives, because people sometimes portray themselves unrealistically online.

- RT


Even if Sigmund Freud never did anything else, he would have been cool with this.

Freud quipped: "What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now, they are content with burning my books."

- RT

That was in response to the NAZIs when during the early Thirties they were burning the books he had written.  (WIKI:  Sigmund Freud)


There's no clear answer regarding cause / effect:

“We do not yet know which came first – the social media use or the perceived social isolation,” co-author Elizabeth Miller, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, said in a statement.

“It’s possible that young adults who initially felt socially isolated turned to social media.  Or it could be that their increased use of social media somehow led to feeling isolated from the real world.”

Miller also said it “could be a combination of both,” but noted that if social isolation came first, it does not seem to be alleviated by spending time online.

- RT

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