The relationship between social media use and well-being
I feel the &#x27;social media is bad for you&#x27; thing, but for different reasons.<p>I mean, I don&#x27;t really understand the &#x27;feeling inadequate because of my cousin&#x27;s baby pictures&#x27; thing. I mean, I am happy for them, but that isn&#x27;t the life I want, so I don&#x27;t feel bad that I don&#x27;t have it. Alternately, I could be less jealous than most people, but let&#x27;s run with the more realistic first reason.<p>For me, the problem with social media is a fundamental lack of self control; I get into &#x27;someone is wrong on the internet&#x27; discussions, and for me, those are the &#x27;addictive but not pleasant&#x27; aspects of social media.  For me, a conversation is not fun if we aren&#x27;t arguing in good faith ; if we can&#x27;t acknowledge one another&#x27;s good points and rhetorical flourishes, it is just not fun, and I end up feeling frustrated and rejected.  The unhealthy part is that I feel the discussion is unfinished, and walking away takes a tremendous act of will, and even then, my mind keeps coming back to the conversation.<p>I hope it is just a matter of practice; I mostly have left other mediums with these sorts of unfufilling conversations, or at least learned to restrain myself from participating in the most obviously unproductive conversations.<p>I think the big difference with social media is largely cultural; lots of people are there who lack a background in early internet culture or academic culture, and our shared vocabulary doesn&#x27;t run much past &quot;you are wrong &quot; and there isn&#x27;t the social pressure to be civil like we have here, or to be smart, like there was in the heyday of kuro5hin.