I really donāt want to be the annoying āCorrelation is not causation!!!ā guy; but I do have to wonder if āproblematic mobile phone usersā are forgoing personal contact with friends out of ignorance that this is a problem; or whether they are using the relatively high-quantity(but apparently less than fully satisfactory as a substitute) phone/internet mediated contacts because they donāt have as many, or any, viable options for IRL friends.
Socializing isā¦trickyā¦if getting dressed and out of the house is a veritable epic heroic quest; and depression related symptoms and behaviors donāt exactly make it easy to maintain(much less expand, hahahā¦) oneās social network.
I know, personally, that I donāt putz around on various online fora because I think that itās actually an adequate substitute for a social life; but because it is less wholly inadequate than not doing so and not having personal contact.
Hopefully the researchers are able to compensate for this confounding effect; but I definitely get the impression that some concerned-layman chiding about āyou need to get out more/stop isolating yourself behind the computerā comes from a position of being so unfamiliar with not having a viable social circle that it is simply assumed that the person who is engaging in some sub-optimal form of substitute socializing must be neglecting the social circle they obviously have, because doesnāt everyone?; rather than considering that the behavior may be an (admittedly, probably counterproductive in the long term) attempt to at least ascend to the nearest local maximum in absence of better options.
Seconded. What else do people with anxiety disorders and depression do to help them cope? Among the answers are self-harm, alcoholism and drug abuse. Are the mobile phones keeping them from more fulfilling contact, or are they keeping them from drinking? I have to think that sometimes itās one and sometimes itās the other.
Wouldnāt it kind of depend on what the cell phone was saying? I can think of a good many phone calls that would have the opposite effect.
" Socializing isā¦trickyā¦if getting dressed and out of the house is a veritable epic heroic quest; and depression related symptoms and behaviors donāt exactly make it easy to maintain(much less expand, hahahā¦) oneās social network"
Sincere thanks. This perfectly describes my everyday situation. Nobody else, it seems, has ever understood just how difficult and overwhelming the most basic things can be - even going to the letterbox and taking out the rubbish (box and bins no more than perhaps 15 metres from my front door) can be too much to deal with.
So far my ārecordā for not stepping foot outside my front door has been 12 days. During which time my only contact with the outside worldā¦ was through my moby.
Unfortunately, people seem to cling to the idea that problems with action must stem from problems with knowledge(right back to Platoās theory that to know the good was to do the good) at least in part because their list of options dwindles, fast, if the problem is not in fact a knowledge problem.
You see the same thing in other conditions that result in improper or inadequate action: the āOh, surely we can solve executive function problems with some Organization 101 tips and a day planner!ā routine is a personal non-favorite. Trouble is, even if you can convince them to stop providing the advice that you already know, and watch yourself acting in spite of; they get a bit less annoying but donāt have much āsecond-lineā advice. The one that always gives you the sense that this therapy may not be money well spent is where their sole contribution is to translate the complaint you came in with into either latin, greek, or medical jargon, as appropriate, and call it a diagnosis.
āSo, Iāve been finding that none of the things I historically have enjoyed provide me with any pleasure, happiness, or engagement.ā āHmm. Thatās characteristic of Anhedonia.ā āHowā¦umā¦tautologically accurate of youā¦ā
At least with better established areas of medicine, the diagnosis sometimes provides information beyond that contained in the patientās description of the symptoms. Team psych is rarely so helpful.
I feel i have to speak up here given Iām probably on of those people this study would wave around going See look! technology turns people into bitter assholes!
After I failed college I basically ended up having to live with family since no real social connections, and I had no real way to get to and from work because disabilities mean I can never drive (and am a poor candidate for Lasik. I check every few years in case that changes and itās still not a good risk. Something about how my eyes move and things are titled or whatnot.) Because I was with family though I had no friends to help with the slack. All these little things going on to keep me isolated with nobody really intending on Bad Things. Part of it was me just kinda shrugging and drifting along since up till then College was the Big Huge Thing. I failed that, and it kept feeling like i got hit in the face by it on a daily basis and so I just withdrew.
I help out, build things, help with my special needs siblings, helped when mom got hospitalized, but itās more I exist and have no real non-family social network.
ā¦Except through the computer.
Because of my social failings and lack of outlets things that happen on the computer take on more meaning, what one would normally take no notice of take on huge meaning to me, which ends p causing weird things. I get blocked out of a social group in a text game off here, most people wouldnāt care. For me though that wasā¦ Everything so when it blew up I blew up which fed back in. Well because i basically wreckingballed this one highly active place everywhere else those people go are suddenly seeing me as toxic when all Iām doing is trying to rebuild what substitute for a social life and interpersonal connections i can. Iām not always successful, and I have been and sometimes still am a verbally abusive jerk.
But When you feel like you have little you cling to what little you have, and for a lot of people the Internet, Online, and the like is that last straw to cling on to since normal human interaction is either overwhelming, too much of a production to do for a variety of reasons (For example I canāt drive and live rural so yea. Going Out is a bit of a thing for me. End of the day I wouldnāt blame computers so much as simply look at people that desperately cling to their phones or feel like paying x amount per y messages on sites like Ashley Madison need help that they arenāt getting.
We are after all social creatures. Getting rejected hurts. Getting rejected when you know youāre in a lifeboat situation socially hurts even worse because it reaffirms that feeling you are a failure, a freak among freaks, rejected because you canāt hack it in the world. Go crawl in a hole. Nobody will miss you.
Itās hard to crawl back from. Harder still when trying to find some sense of worth and everyone is going āwrite for you,ā āstop seeking external validation,ā āyouāre a weak person that only wants to seek approval.,ā āGo away we donāt have time for you, seek professional help,ā an the likeā¦
We are social creatures. We do not do well when we cannot find that social niche to fit in. Even those that prefer alone are still secure socially and have that need met. A lot of people are not so lucky so tend to getā¦ angry when they see themselves as threatened, or draw further inward if confronted.
Indeed! My experience of psychiatrists is that they spend an hour asking you how you feel and you tell them you feel pretty bad, then they say, āYou have dysthymia.ā You mean the condition of feeling pretty bad all the time? Thanks!
This is especially frustrating to me because in the last year Iāve read a lot about Borderline Personality Disorder - a mental illness that describes me very well - that psychiatrists never asked the right questions to check for. If they had, I think their diagnosis might have actually helped me learn something about myself.
I like my psychotherapist, but thatās not about getting a diagnosis.
This was very enlightening for me to read. I pass for ānormalā super well. I do things like have a job, friendships, family, etc., so in some ways Iām pretty lucky. But I donāt think people have any clue what an internal struggle that is for me, how exhausting it is to parse out how I am supposed to behave in social situations. Sometimes I get insanely agitated over things that donāt make any sense - like someone at a coffee shop asking how I am doing. Mostly of the time I can say, āFine,ā and move on, but sometimes that kind of thing seems paralyzing.
But youāve really hit on it here - itās fight or flight mode (flight being emotional flight or dissociation). Since I am just passing for a person that can have friends and a job and a family, I feel like Iām constantly under threat of being outed as a Machiavellian pretender - a non-human. Every social interaction feels like a test I have to pass. This is a really helpful perspective, my therapist asks me what itās like for me when I get in these situations and I honestly had no idea, now I think I can give a more useful explanation.
Considering in every social situation Iāve felt like an outsider and every time I feel getting passed over itās because Iām not part of the group/clique/crowd and that iftoo much attention is drawn to me Iām going to get thrown out for not totally absolutely conforming.
Iām too agressive for a lot of online communities, because i see that sort of trying to be nice but not actually speaking your mind outside of veiled snide remarks as passive aggressive horseshit that further makes it hard for me to pick up on if Iām screwing up and if I need to fix thingsā¦ and so by the time people STOP with the passive aggressive itās too late and Iām about to get chunked out.
In meatspace Iām generally just off in a corner due to every time Iāve tried growing up getting a verbal dressing down, or honestly feeling like everyone is going to think Iām some kind of weird stalker person or something.
So donāt feel bad. Youāre not alone in the whole socially fubarness feeling. Dunno how thatāll help, but it might make you feel less like youāre one kind of singular freak thatās just too stupid to get what everyone else takes for granted.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
