Her Facebook life looked perfect. How social media masks mental illness (2015)
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An athlete on the Tour de France knows most winners cheat and the instance of cheaters in the standings clusters densely toward the top.
To even qualify for the game with cheaters, you need to either be a standard deviation better than they are without their cheat, or compromise and also cheat, which in turn legitimizes their tactics.
Social media exacerbates nascent mental illness by creating this same double bind for young people, where to "succeed," in life by getting access to cliques and networks, school placements, job opportunities, and investment opportunities, you need to "play the game," which today means to fabricate an image of performative conventional success and the perception you are a viable centre of attention.
They know it's wrong, everyone else knows it's probably wrong, but the whole exercise is a temporary suspension of disbelief in exchange for lottery style rewards, provided by sponsors.
Good news on both fronts is you can enjoy riding bicycles or any other sport, and indeed life, without the often horrific and spiritually hollow compromises of elite competition, which social media seems to approximate.
The greatest irony is that it is in more humble and private pursuits where most of the real stories of courage, dignity, and personal triumph that people only fake in performances on social media can truly be found.
Facebook does not help you in getting any sucess at all.
I imagine today you would be more isolated than ever before if you decide to not participate. This might not matter much in work life, but for kids in school it is huge.
I guess it depends on how you use it and what's your success condition. In a world where all your friends use it to communicate and tighten bonds, you staying out of it means losing that experience and being left out.
Right now I have a FB account that I haven't actively used in 5 years probably and I can live just fine. But I imagine for the younger audience it's going to be a bit harder when they realize they are left out of stuff. So sometimes this is no longer about using it to get ahead, it's using it to not be left behind.
Hold up.
https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/no-social-media-presence-...
https://www.asalesguy.com/told-coming-no-social-media-presen...
https://www.recruiter.com/i/what-if-a-candidate-has-no-socia...
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The problem is social media use is so normalized, by not having a presence you are setting yourself up to be an outlier and a riskier candidate.
Young people often define 'success' basically in terms of popularity and social acceptance.
And FB/Instagram is the basis for that now, in many ways.
I think there's always been considerable pressure upon young people to 'get along' & 'have friends' i.e. in a time before they 'know who they are' - this is a serious issue for kids I think.
And even into one's 20's these days, it seems everyone is 'building their personal brand' and some may find it hard to simply opt out.
I'm glad I hit 30 by the time this inanity started, I think it's an age wherein we start to take control of our identities.
I got my own shit goin own. Thankfully i've been able to separate myself from everything. I dont think that is as 'easy' for younger folks. However, there are always going to be punkers and alt kids right? I'm sure there are some youths who dont live their lives on social media.
There have always been fads that the cool kids do. That is never going to change. You dont have to have a cool presence online.
It can be difficult to know where negative thinking and intrusive thoughts begin and end. So the idea I want to represent my best thoughts in a reasonable way to the world isn't analogous to cheating or faking something.
It seems more pragmatic. Limited use of social media, expression of identity, online interaction and real-life social cohesion all have tremendous benefits.
A better message seems to be resilience over the human condition, normalizing the universal feeling of hopelessness and recognizing that these thoughts don't make you a victim, a diagnosis, ill or abnormal. They make you human.
But realize that cycling has 1/100th the money that soccer, football, baseball, and basketball have.
And you think those athletes aren't doping if 100 million to half-billion dollar contracts are on the line?
The perception of cycling is that pretty much everyone is doping. Just like the perception of football, and baseball, rightly or wrongly, is that everyone is doping.
Whereas with soccer and basketball the perception is that, while some of them may try doping, the elite skilled players cannot possibly have gotten that way by doping. So people see Steph Curry, or Neymar, or Kyrie, or Messi, and, again rightly or wrongly, they assume these guys have elite skills that the other players just don't have. The perception is that the other players won't ever get those skills either, no matter how much dope they take. The elite skill guys in basketball and soccer are perceived almost as artists. It's almost like those skills are more like art.
It's just the perception. Most people think basketball and soccer take more skill than football or cycling. May not be a fair perception, but that's just how a lot of people see things.
Do you have a blog? Would enjoy reading more of your thoughts/writing...
I wouldn't go quite that far. Some people are very social and show courage, dignity, and triumph.
However those people aren't making endless posts about their workout routine.
More like how people mask mental illness.
It's scary how many people are seething tempests of confused emotion under the hood yet can put on a convincing facade that they are perfectly normal. Just last week one of my co-workers who I've known for years and seemed completely normal on the outside disappeared one day to attempt a Nice-style terrorist attack with a U-haul truck (the FBI nabbed him before anyone was killed).
So, obviously it's the one's that people "have no idea" that do the acts.
That's probably some kind of logical bias with a name and all ("survivorship bias" perhaps: you have to "survive" the scrutiny people get when they appear capable of a horrendous act, to be able to carry such an act out).
The only people capable of seeing the private face (and thus potential red flags) are close family members and trusted friends.
Some people are just extremely good at hiding things, even from close friends/family (even those that are usually good at seeing through people).
...by strongly encouraging people to build and maintain a facade and identify with it.
Chance meetings can become longtime friendships. Great memories that would have faded away no longer have to.
For me, social media has mostly improved my life.
It's a fad in some circles to hate on social media. And a particularly tiresome one, since it's doing nothing more than highlighting the pathological ways humans have always behaved, even in its absence. Availability heuristic.
Victims of addictive behaviors need help, not blame like "just because you're addicted".
It'll amplify good intentioned and sincere efforts (reconnecting, sharing good news, etc.) as well as toxic ones (hatred, lies, and so on) just as all forms of media have done in the past as well.
The same happened with the printing press as well as the emergence of the Internet itself.
Interestingly, in middle school, my friends and I sort of built our own social network. We all made websites on "Expage" and would link them to each other. It seemed like everyone in the school was doing it and I remember being pretty happy when a girl I liked gave me a shoutout on her website. I feel like we all learned a lot from that experience because inevitably, there was plenty of drama and hurt feelings.
That's a big part of what got me into software development in the first place.
One could argue that opiates improve their life, in the short term at least. Therefore, in my opinion parent comment claimed that we will not know the effect of FB for another 10-20 years, and I agree. There is a lot more to us, than what we feel right now, our minds are very complicated. What if in 20 years you starting feeling depressed for no obvious reasons?
FB and social media will definitely have a major impact on the human mind. I am not sure if I find value in being friends with people from high school as my mindset has shifted so much I cannot stand people that used to be my friends. Seeing their children and vacation pictures adds no value to my life, it serves as a distraction and makes me want to "keep up with the Joneses"
Then I realized that my mindset was all wrong. I should be stoked for those people! I do cool stuff too, even if I'm not always doing it.
Only follow your friends and people you actually care about. Then it's a feed of interesting thing about people you actually like.
Problem solved.
It doesnt bother me much, but I sometimes feel bad for my wife. She seems everyone doing fun shit on instagram and she is stuck at home. We cant afford to drop 10k+ a year on trips. We get one or two a year which is enough for me.
The thing is when we go on these trips, we just enjoy each other. We take pictures, but we arent fucking posing for instagram 20 times a day. We take pictures to remember the moment together, and to share them with our family in the future.
If you don't have a number right away, maybe start there.
A person committing suicide while acquaintances who barely know her are surprised is not a new phenomenon.
http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/12833146/instagr...
"Everyone now agrees that Madison was depressed, though she had never previously exhibited symptoms. (Depression exists on Jim's side of the family.) Something had changed with her brain chemistry. She was not seeing the world in the same way she had before. She had lost weight too, had become so thin as to appear sick.
The day before Madison returned to Penn for spring semester, she had a session with her therapist that Jim (note her father) also attended. She admitted to having suicidal thoughts. "If you have suicidal thoughts, don't act them out," her doctor said. "Either call me or call someone in your family.""
I don't see how social media can mask anything once this happens. The article mentions Jim din't like to discuss suicide as to encourage it, but he also mentioned transferring, and Madison herself went to her coach with a letter to quit track.
There's no "masking" at this point. The issue is, to be blunt people don't take these kind of things seriously. They want to believe the person will power through it and any signs that they do they seize on. I think maybe the sense of public failure-that she would have to drop out due to the pressure- guides this, as well as the realization of a mental illness.
I know HN has their own memes now, but it's kind of odd to blame social media when the young woman had plenty of real contact with family, friends, and coaches. But people here are invested into "social media= bad" that articles like this really fuel their prejudices.
I don't have any mental illness but I do a deliberate effort to portray something else on Facebook and Twitter. You can't share anything private. Who knows, border agents, customs or criminals might use it against you in the future.
Also if you don't use it, it leaves open the door for others to define your digital identity. Someone could open a profile with my first name and last name and share pictures that are meant to debase, defame or something else. At least if I share something, I can push something that I want and define myself what is my digital identity.
Plus the other which is being able to be contacted by remote family or other high school contacts etc.
Sort of like "huge pile of empty high end electronics boxes on curb on trash (recycle) day after holidays" is also a signal.
That's just the tip of the iceberg, though.
But what can be done? Spread the disposal over many months? The signal is still there.
Cart your (sensitive) recylcing to a recycling center yourself, rather than relying on exposed curbside pickup.
> Spread the disposal over many months? The signal is still there.
That probably works too, if you have a bin and the signal is stuff extending beyond the bin signalling to drive-by opportunists; by spreading it out over time, you can keep the stuff you don't want to expose in (and at the bottom of) the bin, which exposes you to people who dig through the bin for intel, but that's a whole lot more active search.
My question was more about what can be done by an American citizen (as I assumed it was the case here) since the cliché is that the US doesn't do recycling.
This is mostly FUD though. Dutch police did an experiment where cops using traditional methods were 3 times (iirc) more effective at spotting vacationers than ones using the internet. It's much more important to secure your home than it is to not post to social media.
Similarly, if you have a cleaner or contractor coming by, you probably will defer it until you’re back.
It just scraped social media for posts about people going on vacation and when they'd be back.
They what? Where was this happening?
https://www.geekwire.com/2013/illegal-employers-social-media...
I guess what I'm getting at is that I don't understand what it would look like if outwardly showing your depression wasn't stigmatized. The only alternative I can come up with is that people would have to be totally apathetic to your happiness or your sadness.
There's some kind of balance to be had. I find that I can express my sadness, but I have to be mindful that when I hang out with friends, even when I'm feeling down, I don't make it all about me. I have to still try to be a good friend and listen, etc. Avoid being someone who's emotionally draining to be around. Friendship is an exchange.
They're not failing, it just isn't their intent. If you're contemplating suicide, perhaps your distant aunts and people you last saw in high school are not the appropriate lifeline.
I'm around children a lot, especially the 10-12 age group which happens to be my daughter's social circle. I'm amazed to see how many kids are glued to Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and other such apps that I don't even know about. Either we act now, or it'll be too late for that generation, as well.
It's very easy for an adult to lock down which apps can be used on a child's device, which websites can be accessed, etc. Social media can be stopped, but this must happen one tedious step at a time.
I do think the focus on social media here is misguided or at least not productive. Penn and other colleges need more readily available mental health services and programs to reduce the stigma around accessing them. From what I hear, not much has changed on that front.
Just as you said for yourself, her story spoke more to me as a story about how severe depression can hide in plain sight, in any era, but also in an age where constant checkins and engagement is almost mandated by social media. I didn't get the impression at all that the tragedy was exacerbated by social media, other than possibly misleading her loved ones to think she was happier than she was.
Unfortunately, that's actually kind of a bandaid approach. It's a little like saying "We don't really need to make the factory safer so fewer people get hurt. We just need another doctor in our on-site clinic and it should be a free visit if the injury occurred on the job."
You go to a mental health professional because something is wrong. Often, that something wrong is social/environmental.
This trope that depressed people just need better access to mental health professionals is a left-handed way of blaming those individuals and suggesting they are simply randomly defective and washing our hands of trying to make a better world. In most cases, they are more rightly viewed as "the presenting problem" -- the signifier of something systemic gone wrong.
Family counselors are routinely presented with a situation where, for example, a teenager is acting out and being labeled as The Problem. They never accept that as the actual truth. They know that they need to deal with the family dynamic. Simply blaming the teen as the easy out will not go good places.
It's getting harder and harder to find what's authentic unless you actually manage to physically meet these people in unmanaged and scripted situations...
Perhaps the real story here is about the audience of this woman's profile. They were naive in thinking that a collection of photos and posts represents a person in its entirety.
If the social media companies limited themselves to just that, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The fact is, they specifically zero in on stuff that "engages", so if you happened to innocently like a friend's vacation photo, your feed will be modified to show you more of that stuff, because the machine thinks that's what you want to see all the time.
If you're involved in animal rights advocacy, don't be surprised if your feed is full of horrible pictures of overcrowding and abusive conditions on farms. If you're interested in fitness, IG will show you a flood of semi-pornographic "workout routines" of fitness models, but very little about proper form.
These are platforms where the search functionality is intentionally gimped to search for usernames and hashtags as opposed to actual text content, which a lot of IG posts have; it's not all just pics and videos.
They are.
Your argument seems to confound the author and the audience. Sure, the audience is shown only what they like. As you correctly point out, that is the engagement social media seeks to maximize. The author, on the other hand, is free to publish what they choose.
I highly recommend others don't also.
Who has it harder? The jock with the flawless physique, the hottest girlfriend, and the perfectly thrown spiral; or the nerd who get's pushed around and laughed at by all the girls? The answers are not so easy.
Relevant quotes:
"All that once was directly lived has become mere representation."
“The spectacle is a social relation between people that is mediated by an accumulation of images that serve to alienate us from a genuinely lived life. The image is thus an historical mutation of the form of commodity fetishism.”
“... just as early industrial capitalism moved the focus of existence from being to having [things], post-industrial culture has moved that focus from having to appearing.”
I take plenty of issues with social media but this is just facebook bashing for sport.
IMO law should forbid social media platforms from employing DRM altogether. Their monetization scheme will eventually adapt and Facebook and Google's financial situation is none of my conern.
BUt, at least in my circle, there are some people who do the total opposite. That is, they keeeeep complaining about their life/boss/politics/etc but actually they're a nice person and totally normal in real life.