Study: emotional support from social media found to reduce anxiety

Posted by giuliomagnifico 7 hours ago

Study: emotional support from social media found to reduce anxiety(news.uark.edu)

65 points | 70 commentspage 2

elliottkember 6 hours ago|

Maybe social media is like cigarettes, in that it cures the anxiety it causes. A powerfully addictive cycle.

jwoods19 5 hours ago|

I think of social media as the fast food of the information landscape. It’s okay to have it a time or two a week but if it’s your entire information and entertainment “diet”, you’re going to feel sick.

Our brains aren’t designed to be lit up with dopamine every 5 seconds for hours on end nor are they designed for foods that are high in sugars, fats, and salts every day.

sheepscreek 6 hours ago||

Haven’t read the article (wouldn’t load for me) but what type of content you watch makes a difference too. I watch funny cats and dogs videos with my daughter all the time and they 100% make us feel better. But finding those said videos on social media is a “process” - it’s like going through a pile of rotting fruits to find something to feed your kid.

I can give an hour long monologue on YouTube’s continued exploitation of children. Their half assed attempts to fix this (by some well intentioned Googler’s, who I’m sure must have had a lot of pushback) aren’t enough. Just try unblocking a channel for your kid’s account (you can’t - the only option is to unblock EVERYTHING).

bluebxrry 2 hours ago||

Breaking news: MMORPGs are less fun when doctors keep calling mom to ask how the MMORPG is because it kicks you off of the dial up. News at 9: is my iPhone actually an iPod with a cellular dial up modem glued inside. Late night: Stick around to watch an old man yelling at clouds.

jl6 5 hours ago||

Social media use can be fine for people who are well-grounded grass-touchers in their everyday life, but this grounding comes with maturity and typically isn’t found in younger people, for whom abstract online spaces can be powerfully dissociating and are very unlikely to be healthy.

We are starting to understand the impact of ultra-processed food. When will we clue up to ultra-mediated social interaction?

ohrus 5 hours ago||

I skimmed the important parts of the paper. This is akin to finding that cigarettes reduce stress. Any smoker/former smoker will tell you this is true (in the immediate sense).

Does that give any weight to the stance that smoking is good for you and society at large? No.

We are right to panic about social media.

anoplus 5 hours ago||

I am determined to find real life local connections. No doom scrolling, no “social” media no hacker news

flatline 5 hours ago|

You and me both. No dating sites either, if I'm not crossing paths with someone in the wild through the course of my everyday activity, we are probably not a fit. I have found social media tremendously helpful at connecting people to real-life local activities, but I also had to move to a place that actually had enough of those for it to matter. There are plenty of places that never had much going on, and what social fabric did exist has been worn thin by social media, which offers a poor replacement.

samtheprogram 6 hours ago||

This is the equivalent of saying that a cigarette reduces anxiety. The overall habit absolutely does not reduce anxiety.

xlaacid 5 hours ago||

The journal Psychiatry International, it is part of the MDPI publisher, which sometimes faces scrutiny regarding rapid, high-volume, and sometimes inconsistent peer-review processes. Be skeptical of its contents.

starkeeper 6 hours ago||

Yep, when I see those 12 ads in 5 minutes of browsing it sure lowers my anxiety!

When I comment on something disturbing that I don't think I want to see again they think I love it and give me more. This is great for my emitional well being too!!!

zxcvasd 6 hours ago|

[dead]

WhatIsDukkha 6 hours ago|

Social media is a Dunning Krueger support network.

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