That’s fine that’s what you get from it. I never meant attention seeking as a pejorative. I just think it’s a starting point to ask questions. Like why are they seeking attention? but you can go on with a shallow diagnosis if you want. It’s cool.
Hey, if you’d like to continue going beyond your initial shallow comment, please do. Why do you think such kids would seek attention in such ways?
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Self-disgust is self-obsession honey and I do as I please
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Maybe I’m just too shallow to go any further? why is seeking attention shallow behavior? I can think of a million reasons why kids seek attention. That’s not new… cyber bullying themselves? that’s new. Why would they do it? I gave my suggestion. You decided that’s shallow. I’m not obligated to expand on it but I will point out that you think attention seeking is inherently shallow. I wouldn’t. I’d call it normal behavior. I’d say doing it through self harm of any sort isn’t healthy behavior.
“Stop Liking yourself!”
No, I don’t understand either.
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Did you have to look them up?
(Sorry if that hurts, couldn’t resist the temptation.)
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And isn’t part of the point that they do NEED attention? Why is “attention” bad? Why is seeking out positive social interactions with our fellow human beings some form of weakness? We ARE social animals, after all. We developed this whole civilization thing so that we could spend our time and attention on each other.
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That’s not what I said. I think the pat diagnosis that “they’re seeking attention” is shallow. It adds nothing to the conversation. Of course the use of social media is a form of seeking attention from someone.
That common charge is also usually used in a trivializing and dismissive way. If you’re not using it that way, that’s at least good to hear.
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Well I must say I was so outraged I was forced to think about teen sex for weeks!
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I can imagine that some people do the chat equivalent of berating themselves in a mirror, but if they’re doing it to affect or reframe the actions of other people, that doesn’t sound like self-harm, or even harm necessarily; it could be just a pragmatic way of dealing with your vile teenage peers.
I don’t find this at all credible. They may want to appear as though they are being harmed but does anyone believe that a person is actually hurt by pretending to be bullied? Sounds more like Munchausen Syndrome.
Do you have a source for this statement?
Why is seeking out positive social interactions with our fellow human beings some form of weakness?
On what planet is this an example of POSITIVE social interaction? If it were POSITIVE social interaction the article wouldn’t have been written because no study would have been done.
You can also say it was meant to concentrate wealth, but the fact that we actively create art to share our feeling is evidence enough for me.
Wow. Okay. Maybe one where you actually treat other human beings as just that, instead of assuming they are all evil and out to get you. I mean, that mind set probably says far more about the person believing that. It’s about community building.
There are plenty of works about community building, which are positive social interactions. People who study subcultures and youth cultures are doing just that - how do we as human beings build up communities in an increasingly atomized society.
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For people who don’t understand the connection of this topic with Manic Street Preachers, lyricist and guitarist Richey Edwards was one of the first people in Britain to be in a position where he could speak openly about his self harming to a large audience.
Some people thought that was attention seeking behaviour too, but his disappearance and assumed death 23 years ago (there have been no confirmed sightings since February 1995) suggests otherwise.
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Holy shit. I didn’t know about this. That’s terrible.
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What they said.
I would also add that the whole track is a massive “fuck you” to severe depression.
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To which I’d add, if a child is seeking attention, the responsible thing for the adults in their life to do is question whether and how they might be neglecting the child’s developmental needs. Just as one example unrelated to this study’s behavior, a young child throwing a tantrum is natural behavior and clearly the healthy strategy isn’t to give into it. But if a child is constantly throwing tantrums, they’re probably being neglected in some way, even if the neglect takes the form of always giving into the tantrums.
It’s weird how often adults judge the motivations of children without every bothering to ask or find out what the children themselves have to say about their behavior. Contrasting that with what you did which was actually RTFA instead of dismissing it all as attention-seeking or self-harm.
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I also think people are jumping to conclusions about what “cyberbulling yourself” means. It has a pretty huge span. If you respond to your facebook post or reply to your tweet then maybe the expectation is that your friends will see it. It could be considerably less public than that.
If my daughter tells me there’s a voice in her head always telling her she’s doing going to mess up, always telling her she’s awful, does that somehow retroactively make her experience of invasive negative self-talk attention seeking? And, as others have noted, if telling me about it is seeking attention, I shouldn’t diminish that either, she needs my attention.
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And might be critical to identity formation!
Possibly paraphrased Helen Keller quote-
“Before I knew the word “I”, I did not know who I was.”
Related: excellent Radiolab episode.
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