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

[Bi Eraser]

The reddit trans thread along with browsing /r9k/, to a less extent /lgbt/ and my own personnel experiences has got me thinking recently about just how negatively the internet has effected people.

Think about it, you got reddit trans community's that create echo chambers of mental illness who view anything out of the norm as gender dysphoria and troon out young impressionable kids, /r9k/ is just a sad circlejerk where the sheer amount of >TFW no gf and >TFW die alone will cause people who are pretty okay to be bogged down via social contagion and /lgbt/ has a legit group trying to troon out people not only there but also in /r9k/ normally saying >ANON TAKE HRT, YOU'LL FEEL GREAT JOIN MY DISCORD HTTPS:SUKDIK.

Social contagion is pretty fucking dangerous but it's not really a hot topic, even for anti internet boomers.

 

[VV 422]

it's had an awful impact. the internet is so detrimental to the minds of retarded people that one of them made an entire website specifically dedicated to cataloguing the worst of them
I can't imagine being part of the hate mob who uses it.

 

[Wallace]

There's a pretty large body of research on the correlation between Internet usage and mental illness already.

... [T]he structure of one's social network exerts complex yet profound influences on individual behavior and mental health (in adolescents).

Social media use is significantly associated with increased depression.

Childhood conduct disorder symptoms were significantly associated with greater daily social media use during emerging adulthood, and that more daily social media use was significantly associated with current antisocial personality disorder symptoms.

Online social networking and mental health

What is less clear is if the relationship between Internet usage and mental illness is causal, and if so, why.

 

[Easterling]

Think of it like this "before the internet if a man wanted to wear a diper or fuck a toaster they would be called a degenerate and told to seek help or even instatuionalised. But thanks to the internet if you want to fuck a toaster or wear a diper or even cut off your own cock you can find entire communities of people with urges and desires just like you to affirm that there is nothing wrong with you its society's fault for not accepting you and accomading you. And the best part is all that is at your finger tips just a few clicks away". Before the internet there would be deviants in society but it was much harder for them to organise and proliferate.

 

[Idiotron]

It had a worse impact on us because 10k mentally ill people can team up and start influencing how companies and even government institutions do their thing.
Look at the trans thing. Before social media, it was a niche thing for mentally ill weirdos. Now, 15 or so years later, everyone in the West has to accept it and it's mostly due to people saying stuff on the internet. People who turn their penises inside out... but they're numerous on the internet and, despite being inept in real life, they can organize online and influence the legal system... and now we have children being fed hormone blockers and nobody can do anything about it... scary when you think about it.

 

[Exsosym]

The more damage the better.

 

[I'mFedupWithThisWorld]

It had a worse impact on us because 10k mentally ill people can team up and start influencing how companies and even government institutions do their thing.
Look at the trans thing. Before social media, it was a niche thing for mentally ill weirdos. Now, 15 or so years later, everyone in the West has to accept it and it's mostly due to people saying stuff on the internet. People who turn their penises inside out... but they're numerous on the internet and, despite being inept in real life, they can organize online and influence the legal system... and now we have children being fed hormone blockers and nobody can do anything about it... scary when you think about it.

I cringed at 'turning penises inside out' and I'm a chick. Just the mental image requires mind bleach.

I will admit, for introverts like myself the internet has offered me a place to be myself. But social media is definitely a double-edged sword. On the one hand it allows you to find a group of people who share similar interests or hobbies that you do. On the other hand it is a form of escapism from reality. It is a blessing and a curse. You find people who accept you for who you are and share similar thoughts and opinions (and I'm not referring to weird degenerates but for example lets say people who play Minecraft and believe that Herobrine exists)

Over time though that group of people can become toxic and make your life a living nightmare every time you try to say or do something. We are addicted to it (social media), and even though it is bad for us we cannot seem to pull ourselves away from the toxicity. Everyone no matter who they are wants to be accepted, wants validation, confirmation that they belong. So even when things become toxic they still hope for validation and acceptance, hanging onto the slight possibility that something will change and things will go back to the way they were before.

However things never truly go back exactly to how they were before.

Sorry for the long seemingly rambling rant.

 

[JoshPlz]

The damage to mentally ill people and in turn society as a whole is vast and underrated.
We can already witness the results every day. The impact will likely become even more evident once the older, less or unaffected generations die off.

The reasons were already mentioned. Easy access to echo chambers of similarly ill people take a lot of incentive to seek treatment away - reinforcing the delusions instead.

Now, an interesting question would be: Do the Internet's negative effects on mentally ill people outweigh positive ones? And by how much?

 

[DK 699]

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.

 

[Stress Sigh]

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.

 

[JoshPlz]

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 don't think I can agree with that. At least when confronted with Gangstalking, normal people will immediately rightfully identify someone who believes in crap like that as a mentally ill nutjob.

Meanwhile transgenderism is a mental illness that large amounts of the population have been brainwashed to accept as perfectly normal already.
Treatment attempts that help transgender people to accept themselves and their body the way they are, have become rare and are frowned upon.
Irreversible damage done by overriding the natural hormone balance, or outright physical mutiliation of even children is seen as perfectly fine.

Thats what makes it so much more dangerous imo.

 

[IV 445]

To all categories, yes and double yes.

The mentally ill should seek help. Instead, they see people with their same condition, living somewhat better lives than them, even marginally, encouraged not to seek help.

(This applies to almost anything outside the norm)

This is bad. Many of the mentally ill don’t have a lot of social contact. Even a slight nudge is the same as embracing their sickness. They don’t have anybody else to say otherwise.

The only question for me is, how many? I have no clue. I’d like to know more

 

[TFT-A9]

About the worst thing a fucked-up person can hear is bad advice. The Internet is like someone went to the world's biggest orchard of Bad Advice trees, picked every single fucking fruit, dropped them into a gigantic bin and squeezed their juice into a vat using an industrial press.

 

[Stress Sigh]

About the worst thing a fucked-up person can hear is bad advice. The Internet is like someone went to the world's biggest orchard of Bad Advice trees, picked every single fucking fruit, dropped them into a gigantic bin and squeezed their juice into a vat using an industrial press.

And decided to sell or give this juice to their friends, family, or any stranger that will take it.

 

[dreamworks face]

Social media is solidifying the crazy - crazy people are forming networks of crazy and becoming crazier than any individual member could be. The craziness is memetic and percolating to the culture. People are saying shit in public that would be considered absolutely fucking insane not even ten years ago and no one says anything. Now with bluetooth headsets and text to speech, you can no longer tell the schizophrenic from the millennial, the crazy from the leftist.

 

[sperginity]

It has caused mental illness imo, not just worsened it in people who already have it. for example: mild social anxiety is pretty normal for a lot of kids during puberty, and social media gives them a way to avoid having to interact socially, which worsens the anxiety and makes it bad enough to qualify as a disorder (avoidance always worsens anxiety). Being able to block anyone that upsets you is another form of avoidance that can worsen anxiety. I don't think anyone should have to put up with listening to what random shitty people have to say, but IRL there is some cost/benefit analysis that has to be made about straight up leaving a place because a jackass is there. You can't plug your ears and go "LA LA LA" while you buy groceries, and maybe a restaurant is so good that you don't mind that the waiter is annoying, etc. Online you just click a button to end the mildest of discomfort. Pornography has caused more paraphilias to crop up, it seems like a weird number of girls are seriously into fetishes now when it used to be almost exclusively a male phenomenon. Paraphilias are a life sentence for your sex life, and therefore romantic relationships. Trooning out has been written about enough, I agree though, it can be induced in vulnerable people.

I am also fairly sure that SM fuels suicides in kids that aren't otherwise mentally ill. I try to imagine what it would have been like to be in middle school if every mean comment someone had made about me was not only written down, but on a permanent format, where I could have accessed it at any time. That would have been devastating to me before I was mature enough to deal with that. Hell, a lot of adults can't seem to cope with that. It also sucks now because parents can keep their specific kid off of the internet but their shitty classmates who have phones can just show it to them anyway.

 

[Stress Sigh]

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.

 

[IN 041]

Back in the day the town tard would only interact with others occasionally and nobody would feed into their behavior. Now these tards can find each other online and amplify their own power.

 

[Bi Eraser]

I am also fairly sure that SM fuels suicides in kids that aren't otherwise mentally ill. I try to imagine what it would have been like to be in middle school if every mean comment someone had made about me was not only written down, but on a permanent format, where I could have accessed it at any time. That would have been devastating to me before I was mature enough to deal with that. Hell, a lot of adults can't seem to cope with that. It also sucks now because parents can keep their specific kid off of the internet but their shitty classmates who have phones can just show it to them anyway.

Yeah same honestly, imagine being bullied and literally having NO break from it, you're not safe away from school and you're not safe inside it. Even as a Zoomer I got pretty lucky because our school didn't really have harassment hunts, boys just hit each other and girls just bitched. Being a kid nowadays must be a mind field, with the popular kids basically having a fucking Inquisition to sick on people that anyone can join and people basing their entire self worth from outside validation from SM.

 

[TFT-A9]

Back in the day the town tard would only interact with others occasionally and nobody would feed into their behavior. Now these tards can find each other online and amplify their own power.

tfw green boyz amongst us