aesthelete

It's funny how similar AI generated images are to accompanying drawings for "what are ten things that are wrong with this picture?" style questions in an IQ test.

Yeah I'll remain ignorant because I didn't read some poorly composed wall of text written by some random stranger on the Internet.

You know what? You're right after all. This is a great community. I can feel the sense of belonging already. 😆

I ain't reading all that.

That seems like the problem and what’s creating the perception making you agree with this.

No, you just personalize everything.

Again, I'm not making up the statistics. I'm not writing the books or doing the analysis. People who spend their whole career doing this stuff are doing it, and you find it easy to dismiss all of it because you agree with the "criticisms" section of a wikipedia page, have a confirmation bias, and you like the little tech bubble you live in...so it must not be a problem overall if it doesn't affect you personally.

I’m sorry you’re struggling with loneliness, personally I’m definitely not and I can’t say I know anyone who is.

It has nothing to do with me personally. I'm a bit of a hermit myself. I'd say my social needs started to not be met around 2022 (after approximately 2 years of near total isolation due to COVID) but now I'm completely back up to baseline again.

It has to do with the country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone.

The data also doesn't tell the story you're telling anecdotally here: https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2024-06-26/loneliness-most-prevalent-for-bisexual-transgender-adults-in-america-cdc-research-says

Yes, it's possible for people in marginalized communities to reach each other digitally using the Internet; it's also possible for them to encounter more hatred and bigotry online than they used to in real life (albeit with hopefully less dire consequences).

Sounds like we’re just measuring mental health awareness, plus the rise in boomers using the web and often exposing people to their alienating rhetoric.

I don't think I'm "just measuring" anything. If you want to plug your ears and pretend that I'm not talking about real problems, that's all fine and dandy. Go ahead about your day and enjoy your dating apps, but social media isn't all roses.

There is research indicating that, for one thing, these platforms cause real harm to girls in adolescence specifically: https://www.noemamag.com/social-media-messed-up-our-kids-now-it-is-making-us-ungovernable/

We've got a collective fetish for being lightly choked all day while in an air conditioned space and attending meetings about "north star visions".

😆

Dude we're discussing kindergartners.

A kindergartener having to even be in high trauma situations in the first place is a societal failing, and one that probably shouldn't be papered over by giving them first aid training but instead be handled by addressing the reasons why you're putting so many kindergarteners in traumatic situations in the first place.

Edit: I can see the case for this type of training in young adulthood, but kindergartners? GTFOH

Would you say smaller forums where people largely know each other are communities then? IRC? Discord?

Probably not, but they're at least closer. Real communities provide you care, support, relief from loneliness, a sense of purpose, etc. etc. etc.

It's possible for some (lucky souls) to find tiny nuggets of these benefits in even the worst online "communities" (I think partially because we're hard wired as humans to need these things), but by and large it's does not exactly scratch the same itches that your grandma's sewing circle or bridge club used to.

Because I struggle to think what else could or has ever fit such a strict definition.

It's difficult to reason about because if you're anywhere close to my age group (old ass millenial) online "communities" appeared and replaced existing physical communities across the country (I'm speaking in US terms). We're now basically as lonely as we've ever been as a country, and I think it's at least partially related to us going inside and screen timing it up for a number of decades on these platforms where "the community" is a bunch of strangers angrily typing messages to you through the Internet.

I find it no small coincidence that loneliness in America skyrocketed even as people became more active on social media. It points at the exact lack of benefit you get out of these "communities" that you used to get out of the old type.

Yeah but that doesn't mean I think it's a "community" that I am "joining".

Certainly by some definition of the word you can call these things communities just because that's how language works. Using "community" in this way is so pervasive I laughingly recall a tech bro watch company calling the people that buy their watches a "community".

But from the meaning of the word before the rise of social media, social media platforms and the loosely structured groups underneath that you "form" by "joining" (AKA sometimes just looking at a video or web page or something) them definitely don't resemble nor replace a community.

EDIT:

TL;DR: Being subscribed to "Lemmy Shitpost" (or just not blocking it, as is my case) isn't exactly like joining the local chapter of the Loyal Order of Moose.

I don't understand how anyone thinks any social media platform resembles a community.

The problem is the slaughterhouses hiring children, not that the children working there can't moonlight as EMTs. 🤦