[chongli]

Teen magazines don't let you send in pictures of yourself and collect likes from everybody in your social group.

This is where all the stress comes from. Young girls are under enormous pressure to be attractive and gather tons of likes from their peers. The feedback loop has tightened so much that it reinforces the repetitive behaviour of posting and checking for likes. It's addictive!

[morpheuskafka]

By contrast, however, they offer no positive feedback whatsoever. At my school social media contributes positively to most people's self esteem because it is a constant source of positive feedback from friends on personal activities and memories. IDK why we are blaming Instagram for bullying and issues that have been around for years.

[bspn]

> At my school social media contributes positively to most people's self esteem because it is a constant source of positive feedback from friends on personal activities and memories

But that's the problem. People get a "like" or equivalent on a photo or post and they conflate that with self-worth. They then see their friend (or worse, enemy) get more likes and either feel unworthy or a need to compete. I get the short-term self-esteem boost from a popular post, but the long-terms effects of chasing such positive affirmation are not healthy and will likely to lead to deeper issues later in life particularly once you enter the workforce.

Disclaimer: I went to school pre-social media so insert appropriate dinosaur reference.

[morpheuskafka]

Having friends and others that care about what you do is inherently part of social species' self worth--that doesn't imply "chasing positive affirmation", which is a problem. Nor does it necessitate a quantitative approach to counting likes. "Likes" are just the modern day version of getting a verbal "that's cool" from a friend. If someone goes around and counts how many positive things are said to them and compares it to others, that is an issues but it's not an issues of technology

[skohan]

That's an interesting perspective. I also did not like it when things I liked in school like TV and video-games were blamed for ruining my generation.

What do you think about the evidence that more teenagers than ever are suffering from severe anxiety?(https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/magazine/why-are-more-ame...)

[tomc1985]

Well now we are raising a society where previously neutral social spaces are changing to only permit encouraging and positive things, everything-else-be-damned. Allowing people to constantly pat each other on the back without criticism is going to make people even more spoiled and insufferable