i think social media is the cause of a lot of our problems

i have been thinking about this a lot lately with bullying and violence in schools and all the threads we discuss this stuff.
people say guns are the problem
or parenting
or prescription meds

im sure all those things play some sort of a role but i think that social media is the biggest cause.
there has always been violence. always been bullies. it just seems like these days it is more apparent.

people do so much interacting with others(a lot of them strangers) on the internet and the way people treat others often times is terrible and it bleeds over.

i was reading an article about this dude who is/was an 'INCEL'. that means involuntarily celibate.

i dont want the thread to be about incel people but it got me thinking about how we treat others online and how it bleeds into real life where the actual problems are.

www.huffingtonpost.com...

Jack Peterson believed he was too ugly to get laid. In a dark corner of the internet, he found acceptance among a community of losers. Now he wants out.

Until recently, Peterson identified as an “incel,” or involuntarily celibate. Incels believe that, due to reasons entirely beyond their control ― too short, too bald, too weak a jawline ― they cannot attract a female partner. They believe they’re doomed to remain alone, forever.

i remember being a teen. depressed. felt ugly. no real guidance from my father. mom was across the country. hated life. hated myself. it was a rough time but eventually i got through. a lot of us feel that way especially when younger and most of us do come out of it.

now though you can get online and find a community of other people that feel just like you and you would think that would be a good thing. positive #. talking to others.
does not always work out that way though.

For many incels, this fatalistic worldview is paired with a toxic hatred of women, whom they blame for their lonely predicament. Incels regularly denigrate and dehumanize women in online forums; some even fantasize about raping and killing women for rejecting them.

^^^^^^^ that did not exist 20 years ago. if you were young and depressed or angry or feeling whichever way you had to find other actual people to talk to. work it out via music. activity. some other way right? again, i know it does not always work out but people did not find themselves on the internet in the comfort of their room with a bunch of strangers talking about that kind of #.

But alongside posts about misery and unhappiness are threads that celebrate female murder and discussions on rolling back the rights of women.

In March, a user wrote a message titled “Another roastie bites the dust,” referring to the murder of a model by calling her a derogatory word for female genitalia.

again, this incel article is just an example of a large picture.

look what kids/teens/young people are dealing with today.
it obviously has an effect on them.

even look at us on here. we are adults. long past those formative years and look how we talk to each other.
libtard this. snowflake that. as many names as we can fit in the terms and conditions. clever memes.
we all do it to some degree or another.

now imagine young people that are already having #ing problems....

at least for now i think social media(facebook type sites. message boards like this and reddit, etc) is the main problem today with the young people.

before if you were struggling maybe your counselor or parents or whatever may have helped you find a group or another person or some other avenue to get through. talking to actual people with body language and visible emotions...

now the person is going to do a google search and wind up on some r/ site and start talking to people who are all sitting safely behind their screens and the conversation and things said are going to be way different....

im rambling and cant really figure out how to word what i am trying to say but hopefully you all catch the drift.

i really feel like kids that get bullied or have problems with their ego or image have it a lot worse than we did 20 years ago.
god forbid youre an ugly #er or have braces or are fat or dont have hip clothes.

kids would always get #ed with for those things. school day would suck for a lot of kids but after school it would be over.

now a fat kid is gonna get his picture taken by a bully and theyre gonna send it to all their friends and make memes and in 2 seconds the entire school is in on it. its already on facebook and instagram.. there is no getting away from it...
its bad man


i feel bad about what i did the other day. totally guilty of it too.
ive always been one to make fun of people. everyone. myself included. i love when people at work talk # about me and make jokes and i give it back.

or i see some freak show at wal mart i nudge the wife and we get a little giggle between ourselves. i just have a weird sense of humor and i think everyone and everything is fair game TO A POINT. i do not say things to hurt people.

but last week i did the same thing i am bitching about and i feel terrible.
we went to a community thing at the library and there was a dude dressed as superman and his 3 piece was sticking out all apparent like so i was cracking on him to my wife which whatever. i can say what i want to her. i am allowed to laugh.

but what i did was took a picture of him and posted it on here to continue to crack on him. THAT was not cool and THAT is what i am talking about.
i feel terrible about it. i dont feel terrible about cracking at him cause it was funny. i feel terrible about posting it on the internet so i and others could keep cracking on him.


i guess my long winded rambling posts is to point out i think that major common thread in todays bullying and violence and acceptance or lack of is the internet/social media and how easy it is to clown people and how easily it can be taken way too far.
and we have pre teens and teens who are already having a hard time in the middle of it...

i think its a bad situation

just one dudes opnion

Got to agree it makes some problems much worse though it's not without benefits too.
Like all technology we tend to overuse it and forget the reasons that drove the behavior in the first place.
The root of our problems are much simpler; lack of family/meaningful relationships and work, alienation from nature, lack of ethics and morality.
The more these problems manifest through technology the more will reject it.
We're on the far end of the pendulum swing which is due to go the other way very soon.
How many selfies can one take anyway?

As for that pendulum - I have 7 grandkids the oldest is 14.
None of them use social media or even have a phone.

I'm old school.
I was taught to punch a bully in nose.
None of them ever came back for seconds.
I ended up being good friends with some of them.
All of this namby-pamby "poor me" would appear to be causing problems.
"Boo-hoo...Nobody likes me. I'm going to kill random strangers in mass and get famous."
Strange days these are.

It is a combination of a lot of things that is causing problems, social media being one of them. Guns are just tools, some people feel powerful and controlling when they have them in their hands but the majority of people just like the security of being able to protect themselves. Violent interacting video games are only a problem if someone who is a little off uses them, they are usually not bad people but their thinking has been compromised and they dream of getting back at those who picked on them or wronged them. Most times it is that person's perception that is off, they let themselves get worked up and it makes them do wrong things but also the people who pick on them should be aware they are doing wrong too.

It is a very complicated issue, our society has gone far astray and I doubt if it will be getting fixed for a while, the government also likes to make us more dependent on them, so do technology companies and the people engineering our foods. Not so easy to blame all this on one factor.

Spot on man.

I honestly think attention spans have become so manipulated into a state of hyper-sensitivity that our articulation in language has eclipsed our emotional awareness. In other words, we've forgotten how to slow down and recognize the peace that is the calm indifference between each other prescribed by nature. Technology has filled that gap, leaving that once familiar calm indifference to be falsely interpreted as a state of anxiety and confusion.

We're witnessing a mass collective regression into spiritual immaturity.

Sorry bud, some people are losers. Nothing you can do about it.

a reply to: TinySickTears

Social media is a push towards homogeneity. Outliers in homogeneous social systems become ostracized and bullied. A good microcosm of this is a chicken coop or wolf pack, where the 'weakling' is harassed mercilessly until dead.

How the hell do you become ‘involuntarily celebrate’? Did someone lock their privates in a chastity belt? I realize some people choose to be celibate, but I don’t get how you could be that involuntarily unless you were the Elephant Man and even then there is always someone else just as ugly to sleep with which still makes it a choice. Silly, lol!

I do agree with you about social media. I don’t use it because I don’t believe the benefits outway the negative plus I am mostly anti-social anyway.

originally posted by: Metallicus
How the hell do you become ‘involuntarily celebrate’? Did someone lock their privates in a chastity belt? I realize some people choose to be celibate, but I don’t get how you could be that involuntarily unless you were the Elephant Man and even then there is always someone else just as ugly to sleep with which still makes it a choice. Silly, lol!

I do agree with you about social media. I don’t use it because I don’t believe the benefits outway the negative plus I am mostly anti-social anyway.

If you spent a few minutes perusing the ramblings of people who identify as incel, it becomes readily apparent that they are celibate due to their personality and outlook more than their physical appearance.

a reply to: TinySickTears

Great perceptive thread!

I think you found the reason for the suicide epidemic among the youth, we are currently experiencing in this country.






www.cbsnews.com...

originally posted by: olaru12
a reply to: TinySickTears

Great perceptive thread!

I think you found the reason for the suicide epidemic among the youth, we are currently experiencing in this country.




www.cbsnews.com...

i think it is a huge huge part.
for sure

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan


If you spent a few minutes perusing the ramblings of people who identify as incel, it becomes readily apparent that they are celibate due to their personality and outlook more than their physical appearance.

youre probably right.
but some dude that thinks he is fug winding up on a site where they perpetuate that and get into talking about women like what i posted is not a recipe for good things to happen you know

Regarding incels, this is one reason why prostitution should be legal...

Social media has a way of amplifying egos and other narcissistic behavior. All one has to do is look at all the people who post those stupid mirror selfies or feel it is necessary to share every aspect of their life online. Social media also has a way of amplifying bullying to ways we didn't experience. Back in the day, at worst, you got embarrassed in a class room and that was maybe the end of it. Now, you can be embarrassed in front of thousands or even millions of people you don't even know.

I don't think it's the cause I think social media is exposing or shedding light on the inequities of western culture as well as exposing the massive inequalities of our economic system

what's it's essentially doing is bringing things to light

I think all of our problems boil down to lack of critical thinking and poor education.

If we collectively knew better, and could think better things, most of this could be resolved and we'd lead better lives.

People get certain ideas in their heads and that's where all of this originates from.

a reply to: Edumakated

Regarding incels, this is one reason why prostitution should be legal..

This is totally true.

Commerce between consenting adults shouldn’t be the concern of government. There is no crime of person or property so in my opinion Government needs to stay they hell out of the business of its citizens.

I feel the same way about illegal substances. Private commerce is not the business of government unless there is a victim.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan

originally posted by: Metallicus
How the hell do you become ‘involuntarily celebrate’? Did someone lock their privates in a chastity belt? I realize some people choose to be celibate, but I don’t get how you could be that involuntarily unless you were the Elephant Man and even then there is always someone else just as ugly to sleep with which still makes it a choice. Silly, lol!

I do agree with you about social media. I don’t use it because I don’t believe the benefits outway the negative plus I am mostly anti-social anyway.

If you spent a few minutes perusing the ramblings of people who identify as incel, it becomes readily apparent that they are celibate due to their personality and outlook more than their physical appearance.

I appreciate the summary considering I don’t care to waste any of my life investigating these people. If you have a decent attitude anyone can get laid. There is never a shortage of lonely people looking for physical comfort.

a reply to: TinySickTears


Ummm...yet...here you are...on a social media site...

being the problem...







YouSir

originally posted by: toysforadults
I don't think it's the cause I think social media is exposing or shedding light on the inequities of western culture as well as exposing the massive inequalities of our economic system

what's it's essentially doing is bringing things to light

Copy that...

A foreshadow of our dystopean future of a renewed economic master race with their disposable slaves.
or more economic never ending WAR. With any luck at all, the Apocalypse will spare us the pain.

a reply to: olaru12

on the rare occasion that we agree