Oh, boy, time for another 'Let's Vilify Social Networking!' article...
Can Facebook lead to psychosis? One study says so
Researchers at the University of Tel Aviv say social networking can have seriously deleterious effects on the psyche.
Well, that's dramatic. Let's see what was actually found.
[...] Which is why I have been moved to contemplation on hearing news of research from Israel. It declared that Facebook and its ilk can move the vulnerable (which might mean anyone) in the direction of psychosis and delusion.
The vulnerable are NOT the entirety of any population. And that line annoys me because it can be used to justify two equally bad attitudes:
1) You're vulnerable, just like everyone else! That's why we must PROTECT you and GUIDE you, precious, because you're too stupid to manage on your own.
2) Yeah, everyone else is vulnerable, too! Quit whining! You just need to be tougher!
Can we start appreciating that there's such a thing as MAGNITUDES of susceptibility?
[...] He wondered whether psychopathologies might be related to activities on Facebook and in chat rooms.
Well, social networking is known to be addictive. Addictions of any sort are known to cause issues in the mentally vulnerable. That's why some psychologists believe in a full-blown addictive personality. Is this supposed to be some great revelation?
As the Daily Mail reports, the researchers discovered that the patients -- who all were experiencing "loneliness or vulnerability due to the loss of or separation from a loved one" -- suffered from further negative effects the more they "socialized" online.
Well, the loss of a loved one is known to cause mental issues PERIOD in the sufficiently vulnerable. And yes, obsessive behavior tends to exacerbate other issues, as any veteran of Fandom Wank can testify. For one, that's how we got INTERROGATING THE TEXT FROM THE WRONG PERSPECTIVE.
The Mail quoted Dr. Nitzan as saying: "In each case, a connection was found between the gradual development and exacerbation of psychotic symptoms, including delusions, anxiety, confusion, and intensified use of computer communications." (At the get-go, the patients in the study all had "relative inexperience with technology.")
That's "delusions, anxiety, AND confusion". And yes, I'd say vulnerable people with "relative inexperience with" alcohol, religion, political movements, etc. tend to stumble into obsessive and ultimately destructive behavior very easily when they pick such things up after a great trauma! Is this a great surprise?
Now, before one starts slinging around shocking headlines, how about one testing those who HAVE relative experience with technology?
[...] Some might argue that, by virtue of their initial loneliness, these people were more vulnerable to such delusions.
YOU called them "vulnerable" near the start of the article!
However, none had apparently revealed any psychotic or delusional symptoms before beginning to Facebook away.
How does that logic work? It assumes all people who are "vulnerable" to mental issues in response to certain stimulus must experience those issues before they even receive that stimulus! Um... right. So those with a predisposition to alcoholism experience the symptoms of alcoholism before they pick up a single bottle?
It seems to have been the sheer limitlessness of the Web that drove them toward psychological malaise.
It seems to have been the sheer limitlessness of wanton speculation that drove this article towards psychological rubbish.
As Dr. Nitzan said: "Some of the problematic features of the Internet relate to issues of geographical and spatial distortion, the absence of nonverbal cues, and the tendency to idealize the person with whom someone is communicating, becoming intimate without ever meeting face-to-face."
Um... yeah. Because that's totally impossible IRL. Idealization of people you meet IRL? Never happens. And everyone has perfect understanding of nonverbal cues IRL, which is there's an entire field devoted to studying them.
I'm not going to argue that the Internet doesn't worsen those things, but those aren't problems UNIQUE to the Internet.
[...] I fancy that few haven't, at some time or another, obsessively refreshed a site or logged on to it hundreds of times a day, in the hope that some particular form of communication will come their way.
Well, e-mail alerts would take care of that. If I actually used them.
But, seriously - WHY NOT? I don't even understand the problem here. Does this bloke also complain about carnival games, claw-and-toy machines, or lottery tickets as ~causing psychosis~? Because, from a mathematical POV, those who play them qualify as muuuuch more delusional. (I still remember a math-competition coach ranting that, for all the good buying a lottery ticket did you, you might as well flush your dollars down the toilet.) Yet I don't see articles about casino-induced psychosis getting spread by neo-Luddites...
[...] However, as the site has become the ubiquitous means of communication, this supposed break with reality is the new reality.
HUH? Come OFF it, you imbecile, you NOWHERE showed that the psychosis was the USUAL state of people using Facebook. You're just glossing over everything for the sake of a snazzy punchline and some stimulation for a presumed audience who will be gleeful to learn that that stuff the new kids are doing is just OH-SO-AWFUL AND HORRIBLE, and that they are the last of their righteous era, untainted by modernity.
Because it's not as if any technology that we now consider essential to modern life was once regarded as something that would cause forgetfulness, delusions, and arrogance, is it?
And no, I'm not talking about ELECTRONIC technology.
...this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
...
...writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them the speakers always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and if they are maltreated or abused they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves. - Socrates
I have a feeling that what is now described as psychotic and delusional will soon be seen as the normal state of human affairs.
See Socrates above. And also, stop the smug, pompous splitting. Idealization isn't its ONLY side, you arrogant twit.
This entry is mirrored at http://guardians-song.dreamwidth.org/91777.html. Comment wherever you like. Just remind me to get off the internet and do my homework.
Researchers at the University of Tel Aviv say social networking can have seriously deleterious effects on the psyche.
Well, that's dramatic. Let's see what was actually found.
[...] Which is why I have been moved to contemplation on hearing news of research from Israel. It declared that Facebook and its ilk can move the vulnerable (which might mean anyone) in the direction of psychosis and delusion.
The vulnerable are NOT the entirety of any population. And that line annoys me because it can be used to justify two equally bad attitudes:
1) You're vulnerable, just like everyone else! That's why we must PROTECT you and GUIDE you, precious, because you're too stupid to manage on your own.
2) Yeah, everyone else is vulnerable, too! Quit whining! You just need to be tougher!
Can we start appreciating that there's such a thing as MAGNITUDES of susceptibility?
[...] He wondered whether psychopathologies might be related to activities on Facebook and in chat rooms.
Well, social networking is known to be addictive. Addictions of any sort are known to cause issues in the mentally vulnerable. That's why some psychologists believe in a full-blown addictive personality. Is this supposed to be some great revelation?
As the Daily Mail reports, the researchers discovered that the patients -- who all were experiencing "loneliness or vulnerability due to the loss of or separation from a loved one" -- suffered from further negative effects the more they "socialized" online.
Well, the loss of a loved one is known to cause mental issues PERIOD in the sufficiently vulnerable. And yes, obsessive behavior tends to exacerbate other issues, as any veteran of Fandom Wank can testify. For one, that's how we got INTERROGATING THE TEXT FROM THE WRONG PERSPECTIVE.
The Mail quoted Dr. Nitzan as saying: "In each case, a connection was found between the gradual development and exacerbation of psychotic symptoms, including delusions, anxiety, confusion, and intensified use of computer communications." (At the get-go, the patients in the study all had "relative inexperience with technology.")
That's "delusions, anxiety, AND confusion". And yes, I'd say vulnerable people with "relative inexperience with" alcohol, religion, political movements, etc. tend to stumble into obsessive and ultimately destructive behavior very easily when they pick such things up after a great trauma! Is this a great surprise?
Now, before one starts slinging around shocking headlines, how about one testing those who HAVE relative experience with technology?
[...] Some might argue that, by virtue of their initial loneliness, these people were more vulnerable to such delusions.
YOU called them "vulnerable" near the start of the article!
However, none had apparently revealed any psychotic or delusional symptoms before beginning to Facebook away.
How does that logic work? It assumes all people who are "vulnerable" to mental issues in response to certain stimulus must experience those issues before they even receive that stimulus! Um... right. So those with a predisposition to alcoholism experience the symptoms of alcoholism before they pick up a single bottle?
It seems to have been the sheer limitlessness of the Web that drove them toward psychological malaise.
It seems to have been the sheer limitlessness of wanton speculation that drove this article towards psychological rubbish.
As Dr. Nitzan said: "Some of the problematic features of the Internet relate to issues of geographical and spatial distortion, the absence of nonverbal cues, and the tendency to idealize the person with whom someone is communicating, becoming intimate without ever meeting face-to-face."
Um... yeah. Because that's totally impossible IRL. Idealization of people you meet IRL? Never happens. And everyone has perfect understanding of nonverbal cues IRL, which is there's an entire field devoted to studying them.
I'm not going to argue that the Internet doesn't worsen those things, but those aren't problems UNIQUE to the Internet.
[...] I fancy that few haven't, at some time or another, obsessively refreshed a site or logged on to it hundreds of times a day, in the hope that some particular form of communication will come their way.
Well, e-mail alerts would take care of that. If I actually used them.
But, seriously - WHY NOT? I don't even understand the problem here. Does this bloke also complain about carnival games, claw-and-toy machines, or lottery tickets as ~causing psychosis~? Because, from a mathematical POV, those who play them qualify as muuuuch more delusional. (I still remember a math-competition coach ranting that, for all the good buying a lottery ticket did you, you might as well flush your dollars down the toilet.) Yet I don't see articles about casino-induced psychosis getting spread by neo-Luddites...
[...] However, as the site has become the ubiquitous means of communication, this supposed break with reality is the new reality.
HUH? Come OFF it, you imbecile, you NOWHERE showed that the psychosis was the USUAL state of people using Facebook. You're just glossing over everything for the sake of a snazzy punchline and some stimulation for a presumed audience who will be gleeful to learn that that stuff the new kids are doing is just OH-SO-AWFUL AND HORRIBLE, and that they are the last of their righteous era, untainted by modernity.
Because it's not as if any technology that we now consider essential to modern life was once regarded as something that would cause forgetfulness, delusions, and arrogance, is it?
And no, I'm not talking about ELECTRONIC technology.
...this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
...
...writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them the speakers always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and if they are maltreated or abused they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves. - Socrates
I have a feeling that what is now described as psychotic and delusional will soon be seen as the normal state of human affairs.
See Socrates above. And also, stop the smug, pompous splitting. Idealization isn't its ONLY side, you arrogant twit.
This entry is mirrored at http://guardians-song.dreamwidth.org/91777.html. Comment wherever you like. Just remind me to get off the internet and do my homework.