In the same way junk food is equivalent to a healthy meal (IMO). There is a reason some mental health issues have been skyrocketing, and this is a big part of it.
Not ‘online communities being the cause’, rather ‘lack of genuine in person community and physical connection’ being the cause.
Same as junk food isn’t necessarily the cause of health issues - rather lack of enough healthy, not processed to the tits food is the cause.
Replacing most/all food intake with junk food is going to be bad.
Doing it periodically with enough of the ‘real thing’ to compensate? No issues.
The issue is not enough of the real deal. Which is possible until something breaks because of the alternative, but not necessary.
If you put someone in a capsule in say Antarctica, and they only communicated with other people via video chat - would anyone be surprised if they went crazy?
Hell, I think we’d all be surprised if they didn’t.
The challenge right now is a lot of people (including many people here) are de facto in that pod in a way that they can’t see, because theoretically they could walk outside and have conversations, etc.
They just won’t actually do it, because there are less visible factors pushing them away - factors that in many cases they aren’t allowed to see or acknowledge.
> rather ‘lack of genuine in person community and physical connection’ being the cause
Yes, caused by toxic corporate culture and the modern American work week. There are no third spaces because everyone is busy working, and we all hate the people we work with.
When people say "community", your corporate hell-hole should be the absolute last thing to enter your mind. The fact it's what you turn to and long for really highlights the problem. We've destroyed communities and conned the average joe into thinking work life is their life. Their family. Now we take that away and they're nothing.
The problem isn't the taking away, the problem is getting to a point where the only thing standing between happiness and being a loser is asking how the weather is going by the water cooler.