I’m not claiming there’s a direct link. I am saying there’s no evidence to support your claim that repulsive content is fine because the evidence suggests that we did not turn out just fine. My anecdotal evidence is that I had more empathy as a child than as an adult, which is largely thought abnormal, and I think desensitization due to watching beheadings and shit in my formative years might be part of the reason.
Yes, my intention was to respond to an anecdote with another anecdote to illustrate that point. Some of us can claim they looked at depraved shit as a kid and turned out fine, but statistically, many of us did not turn out fine.
For me, I’ve only spent more time online as I’ve gotten older for the reasons you stated. As a kid, my screen time was maybe an hour or so. I’m not saying the Internet turned me into an asshole, but I do believe that it had a hand in it.
I think it’s less the network’s fault, and more on where someone chooses to spend their time on the network. If you’re on Facebook, it is in their interest to piss you off so you stay and fight. But plenty of other tools exist to connect folks online without being manipulative.
It’s like fire, nuclear energy, or most any other tool. Use it right and everyone benefits, use it wrong and people get hurt.
Yes but we can’t tell if that’s caused by being online, it’s possible you’d have had the same problems anyway or possibly worse. For all we know the internet helped you deal with your issues and without it you’d have ended up a serial killer.
I’m not claiming there’s a direct link. I am saying there’s no evidence to support your claim that repulsive content is fine because the evidence suggests that we did not turn out just fine. My anecdotal evidence is that I had more empathy as a child than as an adult, which is largely thought abnormal, and I think desensitization due to watching beheadings and shit in my formative years might be part of the reason.
When I was younger I wasn’t sad because I was online, I was online because I was sad and felt out of place in reality.
The cough isn’t the cause of the cold, it’s a symptom.
Also, I gained more empathy the older I got. So you probably need a bigger data set than your own experiences.
Yes, my intention was to respond to an anecdote with another anecdote to illustrate that point. Some of us can claim they looked at depraved shit as a kid and turned out fine, but statistically, many of us did not turn out fine.
For me, I’ve only spent more time online as I’ve gotten older for the reasons you stated. As a kid, my screen time was maybe an hour or so. I’m not saying the Internet turned me into an asshole, but I do believe that it had a hand in it.
I think it’s less the network’s fault, and more on where someone chooses to spend their time on the network. If you’re on Facebook, it is in their interest to piss you off so you stay and fight. But plenty of other tools exist to connect folks online without being manipulative.
It’s like fire, nuclear energy, or most any other tool. Use it right and everyone benefits, use it wrong and people get hurt.
Agreed, but we’re specifically talking about looking at depraved content on the Internet.
Yes but we can’t tell if that’s caused by being online, it’s possible you’d have had the same problems anyway or possibly worse. For all we know the internet helped you deal with your issues and without it you’d have ended up a serial killer.
Life is just very complex.