Social media and "the true state of reality"

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From what I have seen on the Internet, it seems that people that didn't grow up with social media tend to have a more positive opinion regarding life in general.

Americans tend to date the start of the current "dark age" as the day 9/11 happened, but as a Canadian who grew up in a post 9/11 world, I think this date is just a convenient scapegoat. This event obviously affected many things such as American politics, but I don't think that all the positivity disappeared at this date.

During my childhood, I noticed some kind of paradigm shift around the year 2014 - the year when social media and mobile phones became mainstream where I live.

During my late teenage year, I regularly partook in a writing contest. As a teenager, I was really into dystopian works like 1984, Brave New World etc. The judges of this contest were older folks (around 30+). They thought that the stories I wrote were really dark and very nihilistic. This came as a surprise to me because I wanted the stories to feel as real and grounded as possible.

This made me think, could the existence of social media have lifted some veil of ignorance and exposed the "true state of reality" ?

Everyone on this forum are probably aware that social media is designed with dark patterns in mind. That being said, at the end of the day, all we see is knowledge and information. Social media created a phenomenon where all modern knowledge and communication of human beings are centralized in a few spots.

One could make the assumption that more knowledge, no matter how presented, reflects the state of the world to some degree. They say that knowledge is power and ignorance is bliss.

This makes me wonder if people were generally happier due to a lack of information. Most people on this forum have deleted or blocked their social media site and feel relief as a result. There are obviously more way to acquire knowledge than using social media, but I think the crux of the issue is how the information is presented.

On social media, we generally don't get to choose what the algorithms show us. The same could be said for TV, which obviously existed before social media. News broadcasts shares a similar trait to social media, as it is generally designed to evoke fear, disgust or anger as this makes money. Yet, I personally don't know of any story about people getting depressed just by watching TV news (although I suppose I could simply be too young).

People see more information on the internet than on the TV as it moves faster, so perhaps the issue is the quantity of information.

This begs the questions, is social media the core of the issue or just the enhancer? Could raw knowledge en-masse be what drives us mad?

What do you guys think? Do you believe are simply unhappy due to being exposed how the world truly works? Is social media really the only problem in this equation?
 

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Do you believe are simply unhappy due to being exposed how the world truly works?
My personal emotional state isn't strongly impacted by things that don't directly affect me. That being said, I think that many people are more unhappy than they need to be because a tendency towards being agreeable. The internet and especially the web provide an easy way to feel social pressure even in private spaces. Whether or not this bothers you is a consequence of how agreeable you are.
Is social media really the only problem in this equation?
Social media is far from the only problem in any case. People scapegoat social media in the same way you say people scapegoat 9/11. As many people have pointed out over the years, you can just turn social media off. You can turn the computer off entirely if you like.
Could raw knowledge en-masse be what drives us mad?
I guess this is possible but I don't think most people are exposed to that much information. The internet, and the web more specifically, gives access to a vast amount of information but most people are only accessing a tiny surface. If anyone is getting driven mad by the Lovecraftian nature of the network then I've never met them. Rather I think the tendency is largely the opposite.
This made me think, could the existence of social media have lifted some veil of ignorance and exposed the "true state of reality" ?
I think that the absolute opposite has happened. The ubiquity of computers, personal or otherwise, seems to have made it much easier to ignore the true state of reality. In my view, the most dangerous thing about the internet, web, or social media is their propensity for supporting simulation (in the sense of Baudrillard and not in the sense of The Sims).
 
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Social media is far from the only problem in any case. People scapegoat social media in the same way you say people scapegoat 9/11. As many people have pointed out over the years, you can just turn social media off. You can turn the computer off entirely if you like.

I once made a mindmap that describe the tribulations faced by Gen Z (one of the most depressed generation) based on data I collected and some of my personal experience, the perceived "true state" of reality is as follow:
  • Authorities (governement etc...) are consisted of people out-of-touch with the populace.
  • Every bad news in the world is shoved in your face when you open social media.
  • Tribalism everywhere
  • Economic over-competition, fear of povetry, people struggle to find a job.
  • Buying a house is a pipe-dream nowadays.
  • High cost of living.
  • People feel doomed by the system, that their current economic situation is stagnant and can only get worse.
  • Perceived upcoming cataclysm, climate change is a thing, people say the economy is about to crash, take-over of extemist ideologies, historical trends apparently show that a civil war, famine is likely with the current macro-economic situation (ref 1).
  • Collapse of community, few local communities anymore, multiple broken families etc...
  • A cog in the machine, most people feel lik tools that can be thrown in the trash (being fired) at any moment.
  • People do not understand, older generations generaly fails to understand the struggle of Gen Z.
  • Most people are addicted to the internet.
  • People are lonely, most people struggle to get in relationships.
  • Social competition, fear of being judged, wealth inequality is shoved in your face, people are always being compared to eachothers.
  • Destruction of love, most people are very few opportunities for IRL date, unfufilling relationship etc...
  • Addictions everywhere (internet, drugs, spending etc...)
  • People are constantly shown info that is designed to elicit primal feeling of violence, fear, arousal and disgust.
  • Sheleted childhood, lack of childhood independence by over protective parents, "trust no one" is the default behavior.
  • Nihilism, people feels powerless and adopt extremist ideologies as a result.
  • A generation without future, they feel like they have been lied to about their future.
  • A world changing too fast, people struggle to keep up.
  • Forced herald of change, people are told that they need to help fix things (i.e Climate Change) while they struggle with their own life.
  • Compagnies want your money, geneal feeling that everyone is greedy and after your wallet.
  • Societal divide, skill gaps become clear, people think half of the population are absolute morons.
  • Rejections of politics, young people see politics as pointless tribalism and thus don't bother.
  • Lack of transportation, using more "social transports" (i.e walking with friends) is often simply not an option.
  • Lack of ownership, people no longer have a product, most things are no longer in your control (by default).

A lot of these are totally unrelated to social media, so you are right to say that it's clearly not the only problem. That being said, I still thinks it act as a catalyst as this information is directly or indirectly exposed to you.

Even if you get rid of social media, those idea (the "true state" of reality) still affects people around you that may indirectly express those ideas. I also think that for most of these, just knowing the information can make you depressed even if you are not exposed to it.

----------

I think that the absolute opposite has happened. The ubiquity of computers, personal or otherwise, seems to have made it much easier to ignore the true state of reality. In my view, the most dangerous thing about the internet, web, or social media is their propensity for supporting simulation (in the sense of Baudrillard and not in the sense of The Sims).
Hmm t is true that social media can create simulations of things that have no footing in reality. That being said, I think that even if something is distorted and weaponized, it still has a basis in reality for the most part - although that reality might be distant and totally unrelated to your life.

I think one of the core problem is that the internet (espcially social media) act as a database of the collective "darkness" of humanity. The good side being largely ignored because it's boring.

I think the indirect root cause is our science-driven world - or rather how people interpret information. For example, let's take "people struggle to find a job" as an example. I believe that most people take this an universal and objective truth rather than evaluating the local conditions that govern their life.

----------
References
Ref1:
According to the video "A Historian Explains Being Gen-Z" by Whatifalthist (
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc47CMImA8E
). As a non-historian, I can't comment on the validity of this claim as I lack knowledge, but I have seen a similar sentiment being paraded around, so I thought it was worth noting.
 
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the internet, and especially big social media as something that blasts you with trends and news, easily allows for the dissemination of information on a much grander scale than news on TV ever could. if you have twitter open all day, you'll probably end up seeing all kinds of trending posts, be they just silly jokes, or something horrible happening somewhere in the world, and it's a constant stream if you follow more than a handful of people, while news on TV are restricted to a few hours spread across different time slots, which means they can only cover so much, and, importantly, it's usually restricted to wherever you're living in.

of course there are dedicated news channels and everything that are constantly covering all sorts of events, but even then it's still restricted to limited information. horrible shit could be happening across the globe and it won't show up in your country's news because it's not relevant to said country, not matter how horrific or important it actually is

the internet, on the other hand, gives you access to info from everywhere, and channelled through social media, that plays into a repeating loop where the most depressing and horrible stuff gets broadcast, and a lot of the time with a sort of call to action for the audience, no matter how little you could hope to affect it. now, i think, the wide variety and access of information is obviously a good thing, it's just that if you're always tuned into social media you will probably eventually be overloaded with too much negativity that the human brain just isn't made to process all the time.
it's one of the reasons why it's sometimes important to just take a break from social media for a bit. all the information can be overwhelming.

with that said, it's not just that the internet spreads bad news more easily than traditional media. the world is getting worse. of course, this is a very subjective statement depending on what level you're analysing it on - on a local level, depending on where you live, things might be getting better, in your social life things might be getting better, but globally? things sure are getting fucking worse in a lot of ways. they are also getting better in a lot of ways, technology and science are improving, medicine is improving, etc, but on a tangible level for a lot of people, things are getting worse.
housing prices are completely unsustainable and inaccessible to most people, energy and gas prices are going up across the world, horrible geopolitical events are happening with extremely wide reaching implications, and so much more

is progress happening? in a lot of ways, yes, and you can also find those news on social media. but the way the world is getting worse for the people growing up today is very much real and impossible to ignore, with or without social media
 
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From what I have seen on the Internet, it seems that people that didn't grow up with social media tend to have a more positive opinion regarding life in general.

Americans tend to date the start of the current "dark age" as the day 9/11 happened, but as a Canadian who grew up in a post 9/11 world, I think this date is just a convenient scapegoat. This event obviously affected many things such as American politics, but I don't think that all the positivity disappeared at this date.

During my childhood, I noticed some kind of paradigm shift around the year 2014 - the year when social media and mobile phones became mainstream where I live.

During my late teenage year, I regularly partook in a writing contest. As a teenager, I was really into dystopian works like 1984, Brave New World etc. The judges of this contest were older folks (around 30+). They thought that the stories I wrote were really dark and very nihilistic. This came as a surprise to me because I wanted the stories to feel as real and grounded as possible.

This made me think, could the existence of social media have lifted some veil of ignorance and exposed the "true state of reality" ?

Everyone on this forum are probably aware that social media is designed with dark patterns in mind. That being said, at the end of the day, all we see is knowledge and information. Social media created a phenomenon where all modern knowledge and communication of human beings are centralized in a few spots.

One could make the assumption that more knowledge, no matter how presented, reflects the state of the world to some degree. They say that knowledge is power and ignorance is bliss.

This makes me wonder if people were generally happier due to a lack of information. Most people on this forum have deleted or blocked their social media site and feel relief as a result. There are obviously more way to acquire knowledge than using social media, but I think the crux of the issue is how the information is presented.

On social media, we generally don't get to choose what the algorithms show us. The same could be said for TV, which obviously existed before social media. News broadcasts shares a similar trait to social media, as it is generally designed to evoke fear, disgust or anger as this makes money. Yet, I personally don't know of any story about people getting depressed just by watching TV news (although I suppose I could simply be too young).

People see more information on the internet than on the TV as it moves faster, so perhaps the issue is the quantity of information.

This begs the questions, is social media the core of the issue or just the enhancer? Could raw knowledge en-masse be what drives us mad?

What do you guys think? Do you believe are simply unhappy due to being exposed how the world truly works? Is social media really the only problem in this equation?
The lack of information doesn't makes people hapier. The fact of being easy to get information nowadays is one of the best things of our times, people's lives are easier due to this.
But people get happier without social media because they can be more productive, can stop to be addicted to it and pay attention to more important things in life. Also because social media has a toxic environment, and it's meant to be like this cause when users are fighting and having virtual discussions they are engaged, and the company's making money.
:GUFO:

So the whole problem is the thing behind social media, a big algorithm that is manipulating people and trying to make them addicted, sad and stressed. There's a lot more to talk about this, but I think this is good short answer.
 
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So the whole problem is the thing behind social media, a big algorithm that is manipulating people and trying to make them addicted, sad and stressed. There's a lot more to talk about this, but I think this is good short answer.

I think there are more factor that contribute to the '"darkness" but you are right to say that social media is harmful.

That being said, I believe that even if a person would learn about the state of the world by reading a book (without any exposure to social media), they would still be somewhat depressed, but not as much as reading social media.

is progress happening? in a lot of ways, yes, and you can also find those news on social media. but the way the world is getting worse for the people growing up today is very much real and impossible to ignore, with or without social media
As stated earlier in this thread, I am no historian, but I wouldn't be suprised if the decline of the world started prior to the inception of the internet. People like to frame the 80s/90s as a golden age. I have even seen some people describe it as the peak of human society.

I wonder if this perceived "golden age" could simply be coming from a place of ignorance and if people had a heavily biased perspective based from where they live (in most case the USA).

As someone born in 2000, I can't really comment on this era since I simply wasn't there. That being said, I find it hard to believe that the world only started it's decline 20 years ago. I believe that people simply got access to more information and realized the state the world it.

While they are undeniably many things wrong with this world, there is no doubt that there is much exageration by what we hear. Most young people - including me - have a very warped perspective on reality.
 

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That being said, I believe that even if a person would learn about the state of the world by reading a book (without any exposure to social media), they would still be somewhat depressed, but not as much as reading social media.
But as I stated earlier, getting information on internet is much easier and faster than in a book, and social media isn't the only way to learn about the state of the world. The problem of social media is the way it's created and that's why people get sad using it.
 
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But as I stated earlier, getting information on internet is much easier and faster than in a book, and social media isn't the only way to learn about the state of the world. The problem of social media is the way it's created and that's why people get sad using it.

I absolutely think that social media is a major part of the problem. I simply think that it would be possible to reach the "true state of reality" conclusion using other means. But you are right, social media is essentially designed to speedrun your emotions into depression.
 

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Even if you get rid of social media, those idea (the "true state" of reality) still affects people around you that may indirectly express those ideas. I also think that for most of these, just knowing the information can make you depressed even if you are not exposed to it.
This is my main question, how do you know that these statements constitute the true state of reality? Have you arrived at these claims empirically, rationally, or by assumption? Have you arrived at them by personal experience or by communication with other people?
People like to frame the 80s/90s as a golden age. I have even seen some people describe it as the peak of human society.
As an aside, I did live through some of that period. Anyone who is describing it as the peak of human society is either paraphrasing The Matrix, joking, or extremely ignorant. I grew up in the 1990s and I certainly miss certain aesthetic aspects of that time period. On the other hand, here in the US we had the Gulf War, Ruby Ridge, Waco, Ted Kaczynski, OKC, Bosnia, and Columbine. I think the only reason to assume this time period was special is that it probably represents the peak of American hegemony. Since around 2007, I think American hegemony has strongly declined but this doesn't necessarily mean that the world is declining as you say. If you ask someone 20-30 years older than me, they'll probably pick the 1950s or 1960s as the best time to be alive. In a couple decades you might find yourself talking about the good old days of 2004. I think it mostly amounts to putting on nostalgia goggles.
 
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I think there are more factor that contribute to the '"darkness" but you are right to say that social media is harmful.

That being said, I believe that even if a person would learn about the state of the world by reading a book (without any exposure to social media), they would still be somewhat depressed, but not as much as reading social media.


As stated earlier in this thread, I am no historian, but I wouldn't be suprised if the decline of the world started prior to the inception of the internet. People like to frame the 80s/90s as a golden age. I have even seen some people describe it as the peak of human society.

I wonder if this perceived "golden age" could simply be coming from a place of ignorance and if people had a heavily biased perspective based from where they live (in most case the USA).

As someone born in 2000, I can't really comment on this era since I simply wasn't there. That being said, I find it hard to believe that the world only started it's decline 20 years ago. I believe that people simply got access to more information and realized the state the world it.

While they are undeniably many things wrong with this world, there is no doubt that there is much exageration by what we hear. Most young people - including me - have a very warped perspective on reality.
the thing is it's very hard to judge on a global scale whether things are better or worse now than they were "before" because of just how much has happened and keeps happening.
you mention 9/11 which is indeed often quoted as an indicator for the start of this decline, and there is some validity to that - the war on terror impacted the entire world, not just the USA and the countries it directly targeted, as the US's influence extends to most of the western world, and the whole world in fact, and it led to spikes in racism and targeting and the intensifying of awful security practices in tons and tons of countries.
though, if anything, now, 20 years after the fact, the impact of 9/11 has significantly scaled down compared to the craze of those initial years. so really, it's just another major event that significantly changed things for the worse

but it's important to remember that the cold war only ended just over a decade before 9/11. and that was a major war that lasted decades, and that started multiple proxy wars all over the globe. despite russia's current invasion of ukraine, the relationship between the US and russia today are certainly a lot better than they were all those decades ago, and the effects of their conflict were massive.
so we're not in a decade-spanning massive global war. that's good, so it could be said we're in a "better" time than the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc.

but at the same time certain social conditions, at least in, say, the US, were generally better then than they are now. consider how insane of a prospect buying a house is today, compared to a few decades ago. but at the same time, that's only for a subset of people, right? that easier access was for white people, not black people, for example. another example is gay rights, those certainly weren't better in the previous decade.
so we have gotten some good social progress since then, in some ways, but not economic, but also right now we're at a surging point of racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, alt-right movements everywhere. compared to, say, 80 years ago, we're still in a better place regarding those issues, that's fairly obvious, but at the same time there's definitely a lot of pushback against progress the last few years.
all of this is fairly obvious, and it's also simplifying all of this way too much, but my point is, there's no real way to gauge whether things are "better" or "worse" than the "past" because of just how many factors are to be taken into account, it's simply not something that can have an all-encompassing answe

but this is avoiding the main point, which is how this is viewed in relation to the internet.
which is why, despite this whole tangent, i did say that i think things are getting "worse", that is if you're viewing it through the lifespan of the internet at least, which is obviously significantly shorter than all of human history, and that's just considering the "modern internet", because it's of course debatable just when the internet "started" and so on
 
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I don't know about you but I often get a really weird feeling when I think that my particular age(17) are one of the last to see a world in which social media, internet and mobile phones weren't popularized as they are today, it was not mainstream and mainly used by agencies/CS graduates and I have my sweetest memories in my childhood playing Nerf Wars, watching the world cup on a big screen with all the school envolved, doing beyblade championships and a whole lot of various games and when I see nowadays my cousin saying she is fat and she needs to be like the instagram models she follow or my younger brother being basically raised inside the apartment with youtube and tiktok instead of real people it is alarming for me how it influences their behavior and at what point this virtual world will have over the education of this kids and their sons. I'm probably sounding like a boomer saying phone bad and I agree with them but the invention of the cellphone and modern social media were a huge and probably irreversible mistake because people are not going to fight the comfort that all of these technologies bring on the other hand, I predict that in the medium-term future there will be a surge of a movement against technology in favor of a local communiy like mindset but I could be wrong after all...
 
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This is my main question, how do you know that these statements constitute the true state of reality? Have you arrived at these claims empirically, rationally, or by assumption? Have you arrived at them by personal experience or by communication with other people?
It's a combination of personal experience and seeing people talk about their fears. Whatever this is the the "true state" is up to debate, but I believe it is what most think the "true state" of reality is.

all of this is fairly obvious, and it's also simplifying all of this way too much, but my point is, there's no real way to gauge whether things are "better" or "worse" than the "past" because of just how many factors are to be taken into account, it's simply not something that can have an all-encompassing answe

Yeah, it is hard to truly determine if things are truly getting worse overall or if it's just a few issues that are in our face. The "true state" of reality sentiment imply that some kind of illusion was shattered and that the truth was revealed (how bad the world is).

I think people are scared because they fear that the problem of the worlds are governed by a constant - human nature (i.e greed). Everyone is well aware that change can happens (see the entirety of history), but if the problem is cemented in a constant, this naturally makes things a lot more difficult to change.

I'm probably sounding like a boomer saying phone bad and I agree with them but the invention of the cellphone and modern social media were a huge and probably irreversible mistake because people are not going to fight the comfort that all of these technologies bring on the other hand, I predict that in the medium-term future there will be a surge of a movement against technology in favor of a local communiy like mindset but I could be wrong after all...

Yeah I agree. Unless harsh legistation happens, people ain't gonna leave social media and their phone any time soon. Even if some benevolent entity would try to force change, such move would probably be met with revolt. The only thing that could maybe have an effect is a worldwide danger warning campaign, but I doubt big tech would allow such a thing to happens.
 

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I find it strange that what is true would be up for much debate.
Well I guess people come from different perspectives, which could lead to some debate. That being said, I think the reaol meat of such discussion would lie in the severity of the presented facts.

For example take the "Lack of ownership" I mentionned earlier. While the fact that many things ar getting locked behind DRM and subscriptions, one could argue that people have the chance to own more things due to the rise of open source software, Linux, utilities like yt-dl etc.

I believe having a full picture of the "true state" is simply impossible as it would require omniscience as there is just too many variable. The next best thing would be theoretically be the internet, but we all know that it is not by any mean a perfect record since its users are biased by their nature (i.e tendency to post bad news).
 

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During my late teenage year, I regularly partook in a writing contest. As a teenager, I was really into dystopian works like 1984, Brave New World etc. The judges of this contest were older folks (around 30+). They thought that the stories I wrote were really dark and very nihilistic. This came as a surprise to me because I wanted the stories to feel as real and grounded as possible.
"They thought that the stories I wrote were really dark and very nihilistic.". They said that as a good thing or a bad thing? Judging from your reaction, probably the second one.
 
From what I have seen on the Internet, it seems that people that didn't grow up with social media tend to have a more positive opinion regarding life in general.

Americans tend to date the start of the current "dark age" as the day 9/11 happened, but as a Canadian who grew up in a post 9/11 world, I think this date is just a convenient scapegoat. This event obviously affected many things such as American politics, but I don't think that all the positivity disappeared at this date.

During my childhood, I noticed some kind of paradigm shift around the year 2014 - the year when social media and mobile phones became mainstream where I live.

During my late teenage year, I regularly partook in a writing contest. As a teenager, I was really into dystopian works like 1984, Brave New World etc. The judges of this contest were older folks (around 30+). They thought that the stories I wrote were really dark and very nihilistic. This came as a surprise to me because I wanted the stories to feel as real and grounded as possible.

This made me think, could the existence of social media have lifted some veil of ignorance and exposed the "true state of reality" ?

Everyone on this forum are probably aware that social media is designed with dark patterns in mind. That being said, at the end of the day, all we see is knowledge and information. Social media created a phenomenon where all modern knowledge and communication of human beings are centralized in a few spots.

One could make the assumption that more knowledge, no matter how presented, reflects the state of the world to some degree. They say that knowledge is power and ignorance is bliss.

This makes me wonder if people were generally happier due to a lack of information. Most people on this forum have deleted or blocked their social media site and feel relief as a result. There are obviously more way to acquire knowledge than using social media, but I think the crux of the issue is how the information is presented.

On social media, we generally don't get to choose what the algorithms show us. The same could be said for TV, which obviously existed before social media. News broadcasts shares a similar trait to social media, as it is generally designed to evoke fear, disgust or anger as this makes money. Yet, I personally don't know of any story about people getting depressed just by watching TV news (although I suppose I could simply be too young).

People see more information on the internet than on the TV as it moves faster, so perhaps the issue is the quantity of information.

This begs the questions, is social media the core of the issue or just the enhancer? Could raw knowledge en-masse be what drives us mad?

What do you guys think? Do you believe are simply unhappy due to being exposed how the world truly works? Is social media really the only problem in this equation?
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Lamp Fool

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A lot of these are totally unrelated to social media, so you are right to say that it's clearly not the only problem. That being said, I still thinks it act as a catalyst as this information is directly or indirectly exposed to you.
The theme through these tribulations seems to be powerlessness. The solution I think is being intentional in our actions, including what we read and post online. Although the design of the sites/apps really discourages doing this, I actually think social media has the potential to be used for good if the users have the discipline to use it with a purpose in mind.
 

Punp

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"Hi guys, I'm plugged into the Matrix 24/7, and while I recognise that social media is manipulative and driving a narrative, could it be I'm depressed because I'm receiving too much TRUTH from the Matrix? Why is the Matrix so real and good bros?"
-Manpaint

For a real answer, the general decline in mental health is a combination of capitalist exhaustion, a declining world economy, increased threat from 9/11, google taking over youtube, social media invading real life and dopamine chasing. Yes there is such a thing as being overwhelmed with data, but it isn't necessarily "truth".
 
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fakeness: wtf happened in 2010s that people now support rich people/monopolies? (not all irl, but on interent, most of normies), like they ever care, provide something... they do, but we surely could do better (ok, id stop here and wait away my black parade 20-sec phase...)
 
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