Just how bad is the impact the internet has had on vulnerable and mentally ill people? - Social Contagion is a Silent Killer

[DK 699]

One thing that also concerns me with the youngest generation is some of these fuckers had creepy parents that made their facebook since before they were born. Imagine how much anxiety a child must have when their whole possible public life is possibly going to be scrutinized by the world we can now fit in their pocket. I think having some alone time can be enlightening and healthy but I question if really being alone in the future will be something antiquated with how easy it is to reach out and communicate even with randos online.

If I ever have a kid, I'm just going not let them have internet.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

Say what you will about the autists and the trannies, but they're not the worst of it. I'm far more worried about this Gangstalking/ TI people I've heard about. I think that's much more dangerous and less funny.

I disagree, I find this video VERY funny.

 

[DROP OUT]

Like a lot of others here, I don't necessarily think it's the internet that's a problem, more or less it's social media. It truly is two sides of a coin where on one side, you can find a lot of people with similar interest, on the other side it's a the dangerous reality that comes with being a part of a side of the internet with like-minded beliefs. Mentally ill people, and hell even people that aren't entirely ill and are easily manipulated and vulnerable, can find the wrong side of the internet and it can affect them for the worse. And it's not just those eccentric types of people, but also younger people as well. Nowadays, if there's some popular kid who finds a bone to pick with some other kid at like a middle school or high school, they can easily attack them with a message on social media that will stay up publicly there for as long as they want it. It's not like they can just spread insults by word of mouth anymore when there's more effective options.

While I might be relaying what others have said, the point is that the impact definitely is there.

 

[neverendingmidi]

How easy it is for false information and people who believe it can form groups is the real nightmare. Think in the 90s we'd ever see flat earthers or anti-vaxxers? Expect in the upcoming years where deep fakes become common and believable we'll see some real shit happening. Imagine flat earthers passing around a fake video of head NASA scientists laughing about how it is flat. Or the possible damage that could be done to those with gangstalking delusions if someone were to make a fake video of their friends or loved ones talking about all that nonsense gangerstalkers blather about how if someone scratches their asshole on the bus it means they said something about you.

Just be real prepared for a real clown world in these coming years.

There's been credulous people before, and always will be. Snake oil and perpetual motion machines were a thing, we've just change the wording.

IMO it's the actual physical isolation that's the problem. Doesn't matter if you have five very close internet friends, or thousands of randos you call friends, it's the isolation from interacting face to face that's the problem. In 1919 you might've had friends that were far away, but you communicated purely by letter writing. You still had to interact with the people around you for day to day companionships. Which means you had to learn at least the basics of how not to piss people off.

Now people have friends online who they can curate their appearance and manners to just when they deal with them, and are far less able to interact with anybody in RL. I've seen this happen to a person. I've mentioned it here before, but she ran a dog rescue. The woman herself could be a bit abrasive, but as she was trying to get donations and foster homes she was forced to at least meet the base level of courtesy. Then she got Facebook. Now she could post about what a hero she was, and none of the other people knew anything about her other than her posts and blew smoke up her ass. Yes she was a saint. Yes her opinions were obviously the only right ones. Yes yes yes yes yes. And she started pissing off people she actually interacted with. She stopped doing things because she was online, but got pissed if people had other plans and couldn't make it to events. She no longer had to be nice and try to get people to volunteer, because if they didn't like how she treated them they were obviously in the wrong. It was kind of sad in retrospect how quickly thing fell apart.

 

[Lemmingwise]

People in this thread vastly overestimate the danger of misinformation. Antivax? That's the biggest scare? After the discovery that doctors should wash their hands before delivering a baby it took 80 years for them to actually start doing it and end half of the babies being dead on arrival.

If you look at say flat earth videos it's not hard to tell that only a couple even reach 100 iq (hint: it's the musicians and speakers that are being paid to be there). People with that cognitive level don't make the important decisions. The people that do have that capacity are not so much mislead, as that they're figuring out ways to screw you.

On the whole social media is accelerating culture development, in the way that the printing press does. Reading some of those old pamphlets, like those that were basicly adverts to go to the new world (america), they were really strange too. Just some guy who wanted more help to build new amsterdam, shit like that. It's also what made protestantism possible as they could now print bibles and get it from plebs to plebs.

Do you think people didn't experience a very comparable worry at the crazies reading and interpreting the bible? And then more and more people learned to read. One monk wrote in horror at someone not even noticing him entering the room as he was absorbed by the book. As if his soul wasn't there.

Let's get back to current time.

The social media conversations are a strange mix of being simulated and real. I imagine it makes life a lot more bearable for many disturbed people. I think it is a great outlet to the mentally disturbed, introverts, trannies, hideous and the disabled who can't easily leave their house.

Though considering people can't come over and help you when in need, the risk is when people begin to live there exclusively. Then it can probably accelerate isolation and mental illness.

I think overall it probably has a more positive effect, mentally.

 

[Overcast]

I'm just scared that so few people it seems recognize how big of a problem this sort of thing is. Considering how out of touch our leaders are from the general populace, it doesn't surprise me that they'd be convinced that mentally ill perverts and degenerates are anything but and make up a larger percentage of the world than they actually do and pass laws giving them free reign to do what they want.

Meanwhile, the common everyday person who has absolutely no control over this sort of thing ends up suffering for it.

I guess it's always been like this to some extent, but goddamn social media has not helped at all in that regard.

 

[Never Scored]

Fucking Lowtax of all people called crazy people meeting other crazy people and forming networks of crazy people on the Internet 14 years ago.

 

[Dom Cruise]

What I see going on today is that the internet is creating a series of basically Religious cults that more and more people are being absorbed into, maybe sometimes hesitantly, but happening nevertheless.

These cults are diametrically opposed to one another, their happiness is predicated on the opposition's suffering and misery, nothing less, there is zero hope for compromise, they don't even see the opposition as real human beings.

I don't want to be hyperbolic and say that one day this will explode into a sea of apocalyptic scale violence the likes of which humanity has never seen but well....