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Comment by GeoAtreides | Hacker News Reader

The uptick in teenage self-harm and suicides says otherwise.

Of course it was different, people in 1940 and 1950 were not doomscrolling endlessly throughout the day while algorithms enmeshed them in self-contained bubbles and bombard them with personalized ads, no, they were listening to radio, read newspapers, talked in person more. Social media is a new and never seen before phenomenon, with its own advantages and disadvantages.

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I think there's a bif citation needed on whether social media influences anxiety and depression in younger people. It's a nice scapegoat, but the world is harder and more competitive than it's ever been. I can't work in a textile mill and become a union president and support a family. The job doesn't exist anymore, and even if it did it wouldn't pay enough to achieve those coveted milestones of a "quiet life."

The discussion on the impact of social media rages on: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39983233

Is the world harder? Or we're relentlessly told that's harder? And can we actual tell the difference?

Nobody is saying that social media hasn't had any effect on the world, just that the human desire for more worldly things wasn't caused by it. The expression "keeping up with the Joneses" far, far predates social media.

The difference is that before social media, the Jones were your neighbors -- your immediate, face to face, irl tribe. Social media makes everyone on planet Earth the Jones (more or less). And, let's not forget, there were no algorithms in old times, there were no bubbles created by those algorithms, there was no 24/7 constant scrolling (more or less)... These all matter, they all have an effect on the brain and on the mind.

I agree that's a difference, I simply don't agree with your original hypothesis. The constant hunger for more and more worldly things isn't going to go away, or even get significantly better, if we erase advertising and social media from the world.

If advertising doesn't induce demand, then what does it do?

I'm of the firm opinion that advertising is snake oil. But even if you do believe that advertising causes demand, it doesn't follow that we would see a significant decrease in demand if advertising was gone. If advertising hypothetically increases demand by 5%, that's not going to make that much of a difference when it's gone.

There can be other reasons too coinciding in time.

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