Posted on 03/28/2011 6:49:01 AM PDT by greatdefender
CHICAGO — Add "Facebook depression" to potential harms linked with social media, an influential doctors' group warns, referring to a condition it says may affect troubled teens who obsess over the online site.
Don't miss these Health stories Get to work early -- for a cleaning session Slip into the office an hour early for an uninterrupted cleaning session.
.'Chemo curls' another kink in cancer recovery FDA halts imports of dairy, produce from Japan Tangled mess? Pull the plug on cord clutter Gay families more accepted than single moms ..Researchers disagree on whether it's simply an extension of depression some kids feel in other circumstances, or a distinct condition linked with using the online site.
But there are unique aspects of Facebook that can make it a particularly tough social landscape to navigate for kids already dealing with poor self-esteem, said Dr. Gwenn O'Keeffe, a Boston-area pediatrician and lead author of new American Academy of Pediatrics social media guidelines.
With in-your-face friends' tallies, status updates and photos of happy-looking people having great times, Facebook pages can make some kids feel even worse if they think they don't measure up.
It can be more painful than sitting alone in a crowded school cafeteria or other real-life encounters that can make kids feel down, O'Keeffe said, because Facebook provides a skewed view of what's really going on. Online, there's no way to see facial expressions or read body language that provide context.
The guidelines urge pediatricians to encourage parents to talk with their kids about online use and to be aware of Facebook depression, cyberbullying, sexting and other online risks. They were published online Monday in Pediatrics.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Parents....Where are you??
Parents....Where are you??
I suspect quite a few "adults" on FB are affected by the same malady.
I think you are right. I know some people who get all excited and say stuff like, "OMG, I have 500 friends!" No you don't, you just have mostly strangers who have visited your site. It's kind of embarrassing, actually. I've never joined Facebook or any of those sites and can't see it happening anytime soon.
Note: I'm sure there are positive features of these sites, but this article is about the negative ones.
My wife is generally pretty level-headed, but she sometimes watches House Hunting shows. She sees some young couple shopping for a vacation home in Belize, and they have a budget of $500,000 for their second home, and she gets depressed "Why can't we do that??". And, of course, on the show, the couple eventually find the perfect home -- but it costs $600,000 ... and they pay it anyway. Budget? Who needs to stick to their budget?? My wife says, "Grrrrrrrrrrr."
Popular culture makes people mierable. They come to believe that their life ought to be something which it just cannot be.
Another idiotic neurosis-du-jour. Hey teens, pull your head out of your collective self-absorbed rectum and go out and do something real. Here’s an idea, learn how to do something that will someday enable you to pay for some food.
In the words of Betty White “You are all losers!”
Somebody needs to be held accountable !
we are trying
but it is like pissing into a fire to fight the onslaught of sick slime and porno that stream into our homes via the internet...and TV and radio
for every parental control we can try, there is an evil person who thinks it is just jolly to bypass it
I would have not computer access at all for my preteens but the schools are pushing everything online, books, projects etc, and requiring the kids to use email to send in their assignments, email being another filthy stream .. and yes, we have parental controls and spam filters and they dont catch everything
I bought hard copy duplicates of all online textbooks and workbooks and make my kid do her work hard copy
But I an an anomaly, all little friends (ages 12-13) have facebook, twitter, post pictures, jabber about profane trash and collect the most awful sick depressed people of all ages as “friends”
I really don’t know where we as a society are going once these kids turn 18 and there are no “parental controls”
The gays can do what they want...just stay out of my life. I was approached by one when I was 12. I quit the "Y". Mom never knew why.
I never blocked anything from my kids, I figured that they have to learn how to deal with things because I could not always be around. When they listened to RAP, when they watched those stupid MTV shows, etc. I would challenge them on what they thought was so great about it, we would go round and round. Plus, they grew up being active outdoors, so t.v., computers, video games, etc. really weren’t part of their lives.
My oldest was the hardest but lo and behold at 20, the things I have witnessed and learned about him make me smile. He now hates RAP, he hates the idea of “hooking up”, he believes in commitment and marriage and has strong conservative morals. Butting heads all those years paid off big time.
when your 12 yr old daughter is being badgered by truck drivers and adult lesbians to be facebook friends (among other various and sundry chat forums), get back to me on challenging my child about what is so great about them and then letting her handle these issues on her own
Life is already tough enough for preteens
thanks for the advice about being more “active” but it doesn’t apply to me and mine
I already said I’d not even have a computer access for her but school work dermands it
My daughters have Facebook and web access (*also needed for school work these days)
but there are certain rules- starting with:
1)I HAVE THE PASSWORD.
2)They are not allowed to create any new accounts that I dont have the password for.
3) If they ever break rules 1 or 2 they lose the computer, and only get to use it when I am sitting next to them
been there
do that
They are. We had to block Facebook here at work.
As an aside, an employee here "friended" her boss. One morning, after a particularly hard night of "OMG. I. Just. went. to. the. most. AWESOME. party." nonsense, she posted her status as "sleeping".
Her boss, receiving the update, was curious and wandered over to party girl's cube. Sure enough, her status was accurate. Now, she's a former employee.
I have a 12 and 14 yr old—we have 2 desktops and 3 laptops in the house; all are kept in one public room (except for my husband’s 2 laptops) and are all password protected—only my husband and I know it and we change it frequently. Often 4 of the 5 computers are all being used at once.
My 14 yr old rolls his eyes at this but I’ve told him when he is 18, he can have the password.
Harder is the ipods. (They don’t, and won’t, have iphones.) I’ve disabled the Internet from them but I know they can be “jailbroken” so that parental controls can be disabled. Like someone said, at some point this is pissing in the wind.
I do hate how so much is *required* to be done on computers now by the schools (online “posters,” email submissions to teachers, and the like).
They are given very limited “screentime,” as I call it. We take away the ipods frequently. . .
Block her privacy settings to Friends only, nobody can contact her or see her profile. They can’t even see any information if it is blocked so there is no way a truck driver or lesbian can see any information about her. Also, don’t let her put her picture up...use a generic photo or none at all.
unique aspects of Facebook that can make it a particularly tough social landscape to navigate for kids already dealing with poor self-esteemParticularly if they're total losers.
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