Although I do think you have a point, I find this framing very convenient.
Remembering how incredibly shitty people could be in middle and high school, it's not hard at all for me to see how constantly comparing oneself to one's peers could be detrimental to one's health. It was bad enough having to go to school every day, but (back in the day) at least I didn't have to have that shit follow me around everywhere else too. In short, yeah, I'm having a hard time buying any comparison between Doom and Facebook.
All that said, I also have a hard time seeing a legislative solution to this problem, especially given what the typical legislature looks like these days.
> In short, yeah, I'm having a hard time buying any comparison between Doom and Facebook.
That's kind of my point: The tech community can relate to Doom in the context of their own childhoods because we grew up with it. Adults can't relate to Instagram in the context of childhoods because that came after our time. So without first-hand experience, they substitute whatever feels correct, as prompted by hyperbolic articles like this one.
Every generation thinks the way they grew up was correct, while subsequent social changes are bad. There has always been moral panic about what "kids these days" are doing, from social media to video games to portable music players to watching TV and so on.
It was the exact same story with video game violence: Adults at the time didn't grow up with video games, so they assumed the worst. Politicians and news media stepped in to seed the most dramatic possible interpretations, pointing to correlations with increasing gun violence (at the time). To adults who didn't grow up with the context and saw no personal upside to the video games, heavy-handed legislation felt right.
Video games can be totally addictive, are you saying no one wad harmed by Fortnite or World of Warcraft? China is banning video games for kids because it became a national problem. What studies they did to reach that conclusion I don't know but I don't think it was baseless.
Yes, but that's an entirely distinct argument and a different conversation from "violent games are bad because they're violent".
Also note that both Fortnite and World of Warcraft are entirely multiplayer games. The way I see it, their addictive nature comes from the same set of factors that make social media addictive. In terms of addiction, Fortnite and WoW are like Instagram, not like Doom.
After numerous missteps, of which probably the most famous is either the four pests campaign or the birth control ("one child") campaign, I would be very hesitant before assuming any punitive or corrective policy China has any basis in facts or will even have the desired effect.
"According to one study from the American Journal of Psychiatry, between 0.3% and 1.0% of Americans might have an internet gaming disorder."
"Gaming has also been associated with sleep deprivation, insomnia and circadian rhythm disorders, depression, aggression, and anxiety, though more studies are needed to establish the validity and the strength of these connections"
Tons of things happened lately as well like traditional families collapsing and a huge spike in single parenting.
Also the smartphone.
I am not saying this has nothing to do with social media, I am saying this is probably really complicated.
US spending on science, space, and technology correlates with an r=0.99789126 to suicides by hanging, strangulation, and suffocation. Is that just a coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. The issue is, you hate FB so you are happy to jump to conclusions. Now, we can all agree the internet does cause harm to individuals and companies in general have a history of skirting responsibility.
And let's get real, this is not just a FB problem. If you really care about this, you have to burn a whole lot more than just FB. And it's probably going to include most internet companies. Cyberbullying is going to happen wherever teens spend most of their time on the internet.
We have important societal issues to solve. c54's comment touched on that in an insightful way. There are other things to balance here. Marginalized groups have benefited a lot from social media much like geeks benefited a lot from video games, D&D, and board games. But we don't like to talk about that because in many minds FB == the devil, and mentioning any benefit means propping up the devil. Soon we'll be talking about TikTok in the same manner.
This should be investigated but it needs to be done with an objective point-of-view. You do not have an objective point-of-view. Facebook does not have an objective point-of-view. The media definitely does not have an objective point-of-view. Let's at least try to be scientific.
Remembering how incredibly shitty people could be in middle and high school, it's not hard at all for me to see how constantly comparing oneself to one's peers could be detrimental to one's health. It was bad enough having to go to school every day, but (back in the day) at least I didn't have to have that shit follow me around everywhere else too. In short, yeah, I'm having a hard time buying any comparison between Doom and Facebook.
All that said, I also have a hard time seeing a legislative solution to this problem, especially given what the typical legislature looks like these days.