Here's an article about adult women spiraling into self-loathing and anxiety for no apparent reason. In another article by Haidt, we can read about the anxiety fueled obsessions of teenage girls...
The problem is a culture that is obsessed with physical beauty and agelessness, ignoring intelligence and character. As a society, we just can't seem to progress beyond teenage values. Frankly, I'm proud of my wrinkles as each one represents a valuable lesson in life.
Well.............are Tik Tok videos truly representative of a generation? The problem with all these critiques, including some really interesting books, is that they elevate what is seen on social media to be representative of real people and then generalize to a whole group. Two fallacies which lead to poor analysis. They keep chasing their tails talking about a small group who are only partially presenting their true thoughts on social media and pretending there is not a lot of posing or branding going on.
One need only observe people in public to conclude that the majority of people, regardless of generation, are spending a lot of time online. Of course there will be outliers who are not on social media, myself being one, but this is clearly a big problem that a lot of people are willingly subjecting themselves to. Haidt is the clearest voice on this right now, though he largely focuses on the harm done to youth. Social Media is a net negative for society, culture, and individuals.
Talking specifically about TikTok in my comments. And the article was talking about millennials mostly. But, think Haidt has some fundamental timing errors on his analysis and also talks a lot about a small sub section of youth, post millennial, who might be harmed by social media without engaging in some of the other critiques of psychologist and changing or enlarging definition of harms engendered by them. In scientific language, confounding variables is an issue all over the research he champions. In survey research (something I have personally been involved in) there has been all sorts of growing confounding issues and honestly issues. Plus I have 16 millennial nieces and nephews along with my son a Zer and 2 nieces/nephew who are Zers along with many many friends with kids in both generations to observe. So, I am biased to looking askance to research that makes gross generalizations that doesn't fit into the reality I see.
I found the author's assertion that millennials are "getting old" ridiculous. The oldest millennials are just entering their 40s. Women that age are still having babies. They're not in menopause (unless by surgical necessity or hormonal deviation from the norm). They're not going grey to any substantial extent (unless they have a genetic predisposition to early grey; I got my first grey hair at 17). If they're having "old people" health issues, it's likely due to poor health choices throughout their lives.
I'm an early Gen-Xer, and I didn't begin to feel that I was genuinely "starting to get old" until I was into my 50s. And I'm well aware that, even now in my late 50s, I am still only on the starting edge of old age. My father-in-law passed away last fall at 89, and it was only as he entered his 80s that he really began to hampered by "old age."
American adults spend over 4.43 billion total minutes per day on TikTok, behind Facebook with 5.2 billion minutes as of 2023.
U.S. adults spend 55.8 minutes per day on TikTok.
4.43 billion minutes divided by 55.8 minutes is 79.4 million people a day.
There is no reporting of net total daily viewership of so-called Mainstream Media, but with the top shows reaching only 2 million people, they have a long way to go to reach 79.4 million.
In all honesty, we never in our lives gave much thought to whether we were all that hot.
Sure, we always knew "that guy", the one every girl we knew went nuts over for some reason, and we all knew the poor slob that was physically and socially awkward, but the vast majority of us just never gave all that much thought to our particular rating unless some girl or group of girls said something nasty.
It is just different for them. It just is.
But, ya know, to be fair, we are far more visual creatures than they are and in most circumstances men are hunters and women fishermen. In the mating game, we have to be attractive enough in enough ways that they will give us the time of day if we approach them. They on the other hand need a lure to attract fish (thats us).
So, a hunter can hunt with whatever is at hand. A fisherman with stale bate or a worn out lure is shit outa luck. (Unless they are using a net.....but that goes down some nasty paths)
Admit it, guys would NEVER do that TikTok. Would never ever cross our minds.
I see an awful lot of ads for men's clothing, deodorants, body creams, body shaping, etc. Pretty sure it's not for male bonding (although that may also have some validity). Body image has a role in human sexuality, but in our modern visual culture, it has become all important and overrides other more traditional character traits. I actually think that women are less impressed with the visuals in the hunt for mates than are men but are more concerned with their own physical attractiveness for the reason you stated above; they know what bait works on men after all. Yet, lasting relationships and family success depend less on transient physical attraction than on quality character traits. Could our western rates of failed marriage and sinking level of marriage proposals be influenced by on-line dating and other unrealistic expectations encouraged by the visual culture?
There’s an assumption that couples being married for decades are successful and/or happy. Many people feel trapped or have simply settled. The rise of college-educated working women along with the reduced stigma of divorce has given women the ability and confidence to get divorced. Declining marriage proposals is due to a reduction in religious & love themes associated with the contract and a realization that it isn’t a really a commitment…so what’s the point?
"we are trapped in permanent adolescence; that we are hopelessly late to achieve grown-up benchmarks"
I know 50 year old people that this applies to. Wonder why no men? #metoo didn't convince women that male oppression is intolerable? Rise up! Don't let a man treat you like shit because of your physical characteristics...oh, no, no...willingly do it yourself!!
We have a sad, desperate, empty society of people seeking fulfillment in the meaningless.
Ignore the visceral female instinct to destroy one another at your peril. Especially when there is a sense of scarcity, deep instincts kick in - and we live in a scarce time.
I've seen a lot of smarter women than me see red like a bull and try and obsess over other women at work - over petty nonsense. In every case, managment's instincts to use disciplinary tactics which would've worked for a couple of bullheaded young guys completely backfired and the situation lead to firings, resignations, and a mess for the rest of us trying to get projects done on time.
Feed that into an a self-learning algorithm, and I'm surprised the results are actually this tame
Women are the worst bitches to other women...men don't come close. Why would these women be willing to put themselves in front of a platform of shitheads to be mercilessly ridiculed?
Here's a secret my mom told me that may be helpful for millennials to remember. It will help them understand older people. No matter how old you are, you will always feel like you haven't aged as much because our brains still see us as us. It's the outer world who notices (or stops noticing). This is why you sometimes see 50 or 60 year olds (or Madonna) making fools of themselves. They don't feel any different. You won't, either. Also, while I'm on it, start asking yourselves how dumb you were 5 years ago. Doesn't matter what age you start. The answer will always be pretty dumb. There is no age at which you wake up one day and are done growing and learning.
I feel it, too. In my body, but my head doesn't recognize that I'm old looking throughout the day. I have to look in the mirror or have young people around.
I think everyone is missing the reality that Tik Tok users (primarily Gen Z and Millienials) are just REALLY bad at guessing ages. I'm 46 and looking at these women I nailed almost all of my guesses (the first girl is clearly in her mid to late 30's). I think this is much more about the fact that social media, filters, etc. have completely warped people's ability to recognize what a normal 30 year old looks like IN REAL LIFE. While the factors of over botoxing/filling can definitely give young people who are doing those procedures earlier and earlier the look of being an older person trying to look young, the vast majority of these women look pretty normal for their age.
The issue is that these young Gen Z folks see way more filtered faces on social media than they do in real life these days and so they have a really skewed ability to recognize what a real person in their 30s looks like.
At a firm I worked for long ago, we had a very nice bookkeeper who was overweight. One day a store clerk asked her when she was due. How humiliating and inexcusable. And on social media people who are ananymous are often brutally mean. Why anyone on TikTok would ask people to rate their age or looks is beyond my comprehension.
One of the saddest stories I’ve read here. How can anyone in their right mind post a picture with such a foolish question? Only to receive anonymous replies trying to be funny and cruel.
Let me throw in a not brooding and cynical comment to get things going.
I watched the video of the first lady in my web browser. I will never have tik tok on my phone. I thought she looked 28-32. I didn’t see how old she actually was though. But I do stare at peoples faces all day and women don’t get all dolled up to talk to their therapist.
Also, this is a bad idea unless you are very secure in who you are as a person. You will get trolled by a bunch of teenage boys that think its funny to say you look 50.
Anyone who's very secure in who they are wouldn't be a part of this nonsense in the first place as they wouldn't care to do stupid things for attention.
Filters and cosmetic treatments are given as examples of distortions, but they are secondary. The primary distortion is the screen itself. At one time we all knew about the almost magical trait of photogeneity--it was even a special award at beauty pageants, and it's not age-dependent. I once knew an 80-something woman who appeared perfectly normal in person, but in any photo she lost years and became prettier. It's a phenomenon. I suppose if I were a USSC justice I might say I couldn't define what a pretty woman is because I'm not a physicist.
The screens have ruined everything, distorted everything, warped everything. Throw your phone away. If you're a parent, don't give one to your child. Turn back to the in-person world.
Obviously not old enough to avoid falling for this type stupidity. Like in the middle age public hangings, people show up in droves to dish out, verbal abuse, hate and punishment for their own entertainment.
Every time I see an article on Tiktok I am increasingly glad I am not on there. Aside from eroding your attention span and critical thinking ability it also erodes your self esteem. Great. But ageism seems to be getting turbocharged in this day and age. I'm not old by any definition but I've seen teenage girls calling women over 20 hags, and on the other side you've got these incels talking about women over 25 "hitting the wall". I feel bad for the girls affected by that kind of talk (along with all the filters and baby botox) because ageing is inevitable and the only way to prevent it is to die young. I miss when being older meant having intelligence and wisdom and was something to look forward to. I see it less among young men, but they have their own malaise caused by social media and the internet (body anxiety, porn addiction &c).
Baloney. Yes, that line was an artifact from our rebellion against the staid '50's (especially our sexual revolution), with a huge dollop of distrust associated with Vietnam. But the vast majority of us were working hard for a living and starting families by our mid-to-late 20's. And we were quite aware of our parents lives in WW II and the Depression, which we highly valued. There was no "meme" except about the war, even in uber-liberal San Francisco where I grew up.
Of course and built a middle class dominated economy and started the technological interventions that feed the world (drop in malnutrition), power the world (#1 feat that increased living standards), and of course nuclear weapons to end it all. I was telling you why that saying appeared in the 1960s................not taking a shot.
If anyone needed to understand the enormous and real difference between genders, this story settles it. Only women, gay men or completely emasculated men (who are not men to me) could come up with something as insanely victimizing, masochistic and self- loathing as this.
This article reminds me of the saying; “You can’t judge a book by the cover. It’s what’s on the inside that really matters.” I’m not one to tell anyone how to live their lives, but please don’t look for acceptance in people that you don’t know. Be thankful for what you have and who you are.
This is really narcissism not self loathing at all. Self denigration keeps you completely at the center of your own focus. Oh my oh my so sad am I. I. I. I. I.......
Here's an article about adult women spiraling into self-loathing and anxiety for no apparent reason. In another article by Haidt, we can read about the anxiety fueled obsessions of teenage girls...
I wonder why?
I wonder what the common thread might be?
Doesn't anyone have anything to do anymore? What's with the chronic self-absorption and navel-gazing? These women are exhausting.
Rehabilitating the Democratic Party is a self-indulgent enterprise. I am sure Bari and Suzi et al are up to the task!
The problem is a culture that is obsessed with physical beauty and agelessness, ignoring intelligence and character. As a society, we just can't seem to progress beyond teenage values. Frankly, I'm proud of my wrinkles as each one represents a valuable lesson in life.
.
Well.............are Tik Tok videos truly representative of a generation? The problem with all these critiques, including some really interesting books, is that they elevate what is seen on social media to be representative of real people and then generalize to a whole group. Two fallacies which lead to poor analysis. They keep chasing their tails talking about a small group who are only partially presenting their true thoughts on social media and pretending there is not a lot of posing or branding going on.
One need only observe people in public to conclude that the majority of people, regardless of generation, are spending a lot of time online. Of course there will be outliers who are not on social media, myself being one, but this is clearly a big problem that a lot of people are willingly subjecting themselves to. Haidt is the clearest voice on this right now, though he largely focuses on the harm done to youth. Social Media is a net negative for society, culture, and individuals.
Talking specifically about TikTok in my comments. And the article was talking about millennials mostly. But, think Haidt has some fundamental timing errors on his analysis and also talks a lot about a small sub section of youth, post millennial, who might be harmed by social media without engaging in some of the other critiques of psychologist and changing or enlarging definition of harms engendered by them. In scientific language, confounding variables is an issue all over the research he champions. In survey research (something I have personally been involved in) there has been all sorts of growing confounding issues and honestly issues. Plus I have 16 millennial nieces and nephews along with my son a Zer and 2 nieces/nephew who are Zers along with many many friends with kids in both generations to observe. So, I am biased to looking askance to research that makes gross generalizations that doesn't fit into the reality I see.
Good point. I'm a millennial woman and would never post about myself in this way. Or any way, really.
I found the author's assertion that millennials are "getting old" ridiculous. The oldest millennials are just entering their 40s. Women that age are still having babies. They're not in menopause (unless by surgical necessity or hormonal deviation from the norm). They're not going grey to any substantial extent (unless they have a genetic predisposition to early grey; I got my first grey hair at 17). If they're having "old people" health issues, it's likely due to poor health choices throughout their lives.
I'm an early Gen-Xer, and I didn't begin to feel that I was genuinely "starting to get old" until I was into my 50s. And I'm well aware that, even now in my late 50s, I am still only on the starting edge of old age. My father-in-law passed away last fall at 89, and it was only as he entered his 80s that he really began to hampered by "old age."
Small group?
According to https://backlinko.com/tiktok-users
American adults spend over 4.43 billion total minutes per day on TikTok, behind Facebook with 5.2 billion minutes as of 2023.
U.S. adults spend 55.8 minutes per day on TikTok.
4.43 billion minutes divided by 55.8 minutes is 79.4 million people a day.
There is no reporting of net total daily viewership of so-called Mainstream Media, but with the top shows reaching only 2 million people, they have a long way to go to reach 79.4 million.
Yeah Jim, but we are dudes.
In all honesty, we never in our lives gave much thought to whether we were all that hot.
Sure, we always knew "that guy", the one every girl we knew went nuts over for some reason, and we all knew the poor slob that was physically and socially awkward, but the vast majority of us just never gave all that much thought to our particular rating unless some girl or group of girls said something nasty.
It is just different for them. It just is.
But, ya know, to be fair, we are far more visual creatures than they are and in most circumstances men are hunters and women fishermen. In the mating game, we have to be attractive enough in enough ways that they will give us the time of day if we approach them. They on the other hand need a lure to attract fish (thats us).
So, a hunter can hunt with whatever is at hand. A fisherman with stale bate or a worn out lure is shit outa luck. (Unless they are using a net.....but that goes down some nasty paths)
Admit it, guys would NEVER do that TikTok. Would never ever cross our minds.
I see an awful lot of ads for men's clothing, deodorants, body creams, body shaping, etc. Pretty sure it's not for male bonding (although that may also have some validity). Body image has a role in human sexuality, but in our modern visual culture, it has become all important and overrides other more traditional character traits. I actually think that women are less impressed with the visuals in the hunt for mates than are men but are more concerned with their own physical attractiveness for the reason you stated above; they know what bait works on men after all. Yet, lasting relationships and family success depend less on transient physical attraction than on quality character traits. Could our western rates of failed marriage and sinking level of marriage proposals be influenced by on-line dating and other unrealistic expectations encouraged by the visual culture?
There’s an assumption that couples being married for decades are successful and/or happy. Many people feel trapped or have simply settled. The rise of college-educated working women along with the reduced stigma of divorce has given women the ability and confidence to get divorced. Declining marriage proposals is due to a reduction in religious & love themes associated with the contract and a realization that it isn’t a really a commitment…so what’s the point?
"we are trapped in permanent adolescence; that we are hopelessly late to achieve grown-up benchmarks"
I know 50 year old people that this applies to. Wonder why no men? #metoo didn't convince women that male oppression is intolerable? Rise up! Don't let a man treat you like shit because of your physical characteristics...oh, no, no...willingly do it yourself!!
We have a sad, desperate, empty society of people seeking fulfillment in the meaningless.
Your last sentence sums up nicely what I have been thinking but was not able to pull it together so eloquently.
Ignore the visceral female instinct to destroy one another at your peril. Especially when there is a sense of scarcity, deep instincts kick in - and we live in a scarce time.
I've seen a lot of smarter women than me see red like a bull and try and obsess over other women at work - over petty nonsense. In every case, managment's instincts to use disciplinary tactics which would've worked for a couple of bullheaded young guys completely backfired and the situation lead to firings, resignations, and a mess for the rest of us trying to get projects done on time.
Feed that into an a self-learning algorithm, and I'm surprised the results are actually this tame
Women are the worst bitches to other women...men don't come close. Why would these women be willing to put themselves in front of a platform of shitheads to be mercilessly ridiculed?
Sad people, perhaps immature, do stupid things. I wonder how they vote?
You know how they vote because Tik Tok tells them how to vote.
Here's a secret my mom told me that may be helpful for millennials to remember. It will help them understand older people. No matter how old you are, you will always feel like you haven't aged as much because our brains still see us as us. It's the outer world who notices (or stops noticing). This is why you sometimes see 50 or 60 year olds (or Madonna) making fools of themselves. They don't feel any different. You won't, either. Also, while I'm on it, start asking yourselves how dumb you were 5 years ago. Doesn't matter what age you start. The answer will always be pretty dumb. There is no age at which you wake up one day and are done growing and learning.
I'm old and feel it, and I'm pretty sure Madonna is the same now as she was in the '80s.
I feel it, too. In my body, but my head doesn't recognize that I'm old looking throughout the day. I have to look in the mirror or have young people around.
I think everyone is missing the reality that Tik Tok users (primarily Gen Z and Millienials) are just REALLY bad at guessing ages. I'm 46 and looking at these women I nailed almost all of my guesses (the first girl is clearly in her mid to late 30's). I think this is much more about the fact that social media, filters, etc. have completely warped people's ability to recognize what a normal 30 year old looks like IN REAL LIFE. While the factors of over botoxing/filling can definitely give young people who are doing those procedures earlier and earlier the look of being an older person trying to look young, the vast majority of these women look pretty normal for their age.
The issue is that these young Gen Z folks see way more filtered faces on social media than they do in real life these days and so they have a really skewed ability to recognize what a real person in their 30s looks like.
Next version will be fat girls asking how pregnant they look
Oooh never ask a woman how far along in pregnancy she is. That’s a huge mistake. Ask me how I know.
Ha!
At a firm I worked for long ago, we had a very nice bookkeeper who was overweight. One day a store clerk asked her when she was due. How humiliating and inexcusable. And on social media people who are ananymous are often brutally mean. Why anyone on TikTok would ask people to rate their age or looks is beyond my comprehension.
One of the saddest stories I’ve read here. How can anyone in their right mind post a picture with such a foolish question? Only to receive anonymous replies trying to be funny and cruel.
Let me throw in a not brooding and cynical comment to get things going.
I watched the video of the first lady in my web browser. I will never have tik tok on my phone. I thought she looked 28-32. I didn’t see how old she actually was though. But I do stare at peoples faces all day and women don’t get all dolled up to talk to their therapist.
Also, this is a bad idea unless you are very secure in who you are as a person. You will get trolled by a bunch of teenage boys that think its funny to say you look 50.
Anyone who's very secure in who they are wouldn't be a part of this nonsense in the first place as they wouldn't care to do stupid things for attention.
Filters and cosmetic treatments are given as examples of distortions, but they are secondary. The primary distortion is the screen itself. At one time we all knew about the almost magical trait of photogeneity--it was even a special award at beauty pageants, and it's not age-dependent. I once knew an 80-something woman who appeared perfectly normal in person, but in any photo she lost years and became prettier. It's a phenomenon. I suppose if I were a USSC justice I might say I couldn't define what a pretty woman is because I'm not a physicist.
The screens have ruined everything, distorted everything, warped everything. Throw your phone away. If you're a parent, don't give one to your child. Turn back to the in-person world.
Obviously not old enough to avoid falling for this type stupidity. Like in the middle age public hangings, people show up in droves to dish out, verbal abuse, hate and punishment for their own entertainment.
I think it is also akin to self-flagellation in the middle ages.
🎯
Every time I see an article on Tiktok I am increasingly glad I am not on there. Aside from eroding your attention span and critical thinking ability it also erodes your self esteem. Great. But ageism seems to be getting turbocharged in this day and age. I'm not old by any definition but I've seen teenage girls calling women over 20 hags, and on the other side you've got these incels talking about women over 25 "hitting the wall". I feel bad for the girls affected by that kind of talk (along with all the filters and baby botox) because ageing is inevitable and the only way to prevent it is to die young. I miss when being older meant having intelligence and wisdom and was something to look forward to. I see it less among young men, but they have their own malaise caused by social media and the internet (body anxiety, porn addiction &c).
Being older still.means that. Part of the wisdom is seeing things as they are not as you wish them to be.
As I get older I like to tell myself that my decades have given me wisdom - which they have. At least I hope so lol.
Boomers are a big factor in the loss of respect for older wisdom. Remember :"Don't trust anyone over 30'? A huge meme of the 60's.
Baloney. Yes, that line was an artifact from our rebellion against the staid '50's (especially our sexual revolution), with a huge dollop of distrust associated with Vietnam. But the vast majority of us were working hard for a living and starting families by our mid-to-late 20's. And we were quite aware of our parents lives in WW II and the Depression, which we highly valued. There was no "meme" except about the war, even in uber-liberal San Francisco where I grew up.
LOL.........because over 30 gave us Vietnam and segregation and women belong in the kitchen among other delightful events.
They also saved the world from Nazism.
Of course and built a middle class dominated economy and started the technological interventions that feed the world (drop in malnutrition), power the world (#1 feat that increased living standards), and of course nuclear weapons to end it all. I was telling you why that saying appeared in the 1960s................not taking a shot.
If anyone needed to understand the enormous and real difference between genders, this story settles it. Only women, gay men or completely emasculated men (who are not men to me) could come up with something as insanely victimizing, masochistic and self- loathing as this.
I'm 137 years old, but I don't look a day over 124.
This article reminds me of the saying; “You can’t judge a book by the cover. It’s what’s on the inside that really matters.” I’m not one to tell anyone how to live their lives, but please don’t look for acceptance in people that you don’t know. Be thankful for what you have and who you are.
This is really narcissism not self loathing at all. Self denigration keeps you completely at the center of your own focus. Oh my oh my so sad am I. I. I. I. I.......