lapal_fan Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 6 minutes ago, Xela said: I think the rise of social media has had a massive impact on people's mental health. I think it is toxic. Double barrelled because it's **** addictive too. I think anything that resembles 'reward' should be taken off, like the likes systems or whatever. I find myself looking at my phone for literally no reason other than to 'have a browse'. Even if I'm talking to someone or being with my lad, it takes me away from who I'm actually with.. it's bad and I only realised it a few months back. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 1 minute ago, lapal_fan said: Double barrelled because it's **** addictive too. I think anything that resembles 'reward' should be taken off, like the likes systems or whatever. I find myself looking at my phone for literally no reason other than to 'have a browse'. Even if I'm talking to someone or being with my lad, it takes me away from who I'm actually with.. it's bad and I only realised it a few months back. I used to waste so much time on Facebook, constantly checking it and seeing other updates from friends, colleagues and people I hadn't spoken to in 20 years! I decided one Christmas a few years back to come off it and haven't been back since. It was difficult at first as I was probably was addicted to it but after a while I realised it was a waste of time. I keep in touch with the people I want to via text, whatsapp or email now! I now devote my spare time to this place! I guess VT is a form of social media but different as we are all fairly anonymous and no one is trying to outdo anyone else (apart from Ruge and his sex stories!) I imagine for a teenage girl, the pressure social media creates is huge. Everyone is trying to portray a different image of themselves, of having the perfect life and looking fantastic all the time. Even their role models lie on social media by heavily photoshopping and filtering their pictures. Kim Kardashian probably looks 50% like her Instagram photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapal_fan Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 6 minutes ago, Xela said: I used to waste so much time on Facebook, constantly checking it and seeing other updates from friends, colleagues and people I hadn't spoken to in 20 years! I decided one Christmas a few years back to come off it and haven't been back since. It was difficult at first as I was probably was addicted to it but after a while I realised it was a waste of time. I keep in touch with the people I want to via text, whatsapp or email now! I now devote my spare time to this place! I guess VT is a form of social media but different as we are all fairly anonymous and no one is trying to outdo anyone else (apart from Ruge and his sex stories!) I imagine for a teenage girl, the pressure social media creates is huge. Everyone is trying to portray a different image of themselves, of having the perfect life and looking fantastic all the time. Even their role models lie on social media by heavily photoshopping and filtering their pictures. Kim Kardashian probably looks 50% like her Instagram photos. And if it'll all pans out for the girls, they'll be getting sexually humiliated by Arabs on boats... but it's ok because they're given a few quid to buy the latest Chanel bag.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rugeley Villa Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 22 hours ago, lapal_fan said: Double barrelled because it's **** addictive too. I think anything that resembles 'reward' should be taken off, like the likes systems or whatever. I find myself looking at my phone for literally no reason other than to 'have a browse'. Even if I'm talking to someone or being with my lad, it takes me away from who I'm actually with.. it's bad and I only realised it a few months back. This is a problem for me too. Spend far too much time looking at shit on my phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted February 5, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted February 5, 2019 I've deactivated facebook recently. I can't guarantee I'll stay off as I do like it to keep in touch, or keep aware of, my relatives that I rarely see. But for now I don't miss it. I wasn't exactly very active on there. I do like Instagram though. I won't be losing that for a while. Still active on Twitter but I don't really need that. If it disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't be bothered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villakram Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 2 hours ago, Stevo985 said: I've deactivated facebook recently. I can't guarantee I'll stay off as I do like it to keep in touch, or keep aware of, my relatives that I rarely see. But for now I don't miss it. I wasn't exactly very active on there. I do like Instagram though. I won't be losing that for a while. Still active on Twitter but I don't really need that. If it disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't be bothered. Facebook are currently engaged in trying to merge messenger/whatsapp/instagram. They are not calling it a merger, but seamless cross platform communication with paper walls is pretty much that. Delete... trying to extricate myself from whatsapp right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddywhack Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 On 03/02/2019 at 21:15, Xela said: I used to waste so much time on Facebook, constantly checking it and seeing other updates from friends, colleagues and people I hadn't spoken to in 20 years! I guess VT is a form of social media but different as we are all fairly anonymous and no one is trying to outdo anyone else I used to constantly see updates from friends I haven't spoken to in 21 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 5, 2019 Author VT Supporter Share Posted February 5, 2019 12 minutes ago, Paddywhack said: I used to constantly see updates from friends I haven't spoken to in 21 years. Do you not think this is a good thing? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 2 hours ago, villakram said: Delete... trying to extricate myself from whatsapp right now. Its difficult when its the default app (along with Facebook Messenger) that everyone seems to have. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 5, 2019 Author VT Supporter Share Posted February 5, 2019 23 minutes ago, Xela said: Its difficult when its the default app (along with Facebook Messenger) that everyone seems to have. Yep. 95% of my online communication is done via either Facebook, Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp (the other 5% being SMS). I do have Twitter and Instagram accounts, but basically never use them, so they could both be deleted with no effect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddywhack Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 2 hours ago, mjmooney said: Do you not think this is a good thing? I was just making a shit joke about trying to outdo Xela, saying he was seen updates from people he hadn’t seen in 20 years. But terrible jokes aside, I think it’s great for keeping in touch with good friends that have moved away and things like that, but I have about 100 people on there from school that I barely spoke to at the time, let alone now. I wouldn’t mind because I’m nosey, but it’s not their updates, my newsfeed is full of things they’ve liked or commented on or some terrible news article they’ve shared. Facebook is pretty much unusable for me now to be honest, Twitter and Instagram are much ‘cleaner’. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFC_Hitz Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 6 minutes ago, Paddywhack said: I was just making a shit joke about trying to outdo Xela, saying he was seen updates from people he hadn’t seen in 20 years. But terrible jokes aside, I think it’s great for keeping in touch with good friends that have moved away and things like that, but I have about 100 people on there from school that I barely spoke to at the time, let alone now. I wouldn’t mind because I’m nosey, but it’s not their updates, my newsfeed is full of things they’ve liked or commented on or some terrible news article they’ve shared. Facebook is pretty much unusable for me now to be honest, Twitter and Instagram are much ‘cleaner’. >Options > Unfollow Bazza 'bcfc' McGinty Job done. You're still friends but now you wont see pictures of him tucking into a fry up and a pint of Carling, in 30° heat in Benidorm. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddywhack Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 7 minutes ago, AVFC_Hitz said: >Options > Unfollow Bazza 'bcfc' McGinty Job done. You're still friends but now you wont see pictures of him tucking into a fry up and a pint of Carling, in 30° heat in Benidorm. But I’m happy to see his photos, I’m just not interested in seeing some 3 year old ladbible video that his cousin has tagged him in the comments. Plus, I’m not doing admin on my social media, you didn’t have to mess with settings on Twitter and insta. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 6, 2019 Share Posted February 6, 2019 (edited) On 03/02/2019 at 20:51, Xela said: I think the rise of social media has had a massive impact on people's mental health. I think it is toxic. There's an interesting academic report on this, from four scientists at Stanford University, which came out this week. They created a trial in which one group of people used Facebook as normal, while another were paid a nominal sum to deactivate it for four weeks. Some of the findings include: 'Deactivation caused small but significant improvements in well-being, and in particular on self-reported happiness, life satisfaction, depression, and anxiety . . . Our overall index of subjective well-being improved by 0.09 standard deviations. As a point of comparison, this is about 25-40 percent of the effect of psychological interventions including self-help therapy, group training, and individual therapy, as reported in a meta-analysis by Bolier et al. (2013). These results are consistent with prior studies suggesting that Facebook may have adverse effects on mental health. However, we also show that the magnitudes of our causal effects are far smaller than those we would have estimated using the correlational approach of much prior literature. We find little evidence to support the hypothesis suggested by prior work that Facebook might be more beneficial for “active” users—for example, users who regularly comment on pictures and posts from friends and family instead of just scrolling through their news feeds. . . . As the experiment ended, participants reported planning to use Facebook much less in the future. Several weeks later, the Treatment group’s reported usage of the Facebook mobile app was about 12 minutes (23 percent) lower than in Control. The Treatment group was more likely to click on a post-experiment email providing information about tools to limit social media usage, and five percent of the Treatment group still had their accounts deactivated nine weeks after the experiment ended . . . In response to open-answer questions several weeks after the experiment ended, the Treatment group was more likely to report that they were using Facebook less, had uninstalled the Facebook app from their phones, and were using the platform more judiciously. Reduced post-experiment use aligns with our finding that deactivation improved subjective well-being, and it is also consistent with the hypotheses that Facebook is habit forming in the sense of Becker and Murphy (1988) or that people learned that they enjoy life without Facebook more than they had anticipated.' (p4) http://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf There are multiple findings, including others that are less damning towards Facebook, but the evidence suggests that using Facebook is addictive and makes people feel bad. Edited February 6, 2019 by HanoiVillan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted February 7, 2019 Share Posted February 7, 2019 Having a 24 hour blood pressure monitor fitted tomorrow as my last BP reading was off the chart (208 over 136). Heart rate was normal. Thing is, I actually feel more relaxed nowadays with work. However, likelihood is that medication for life is on the horizon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 12, 2019 Author VT Supporter Share Posted February 12, 2019 (edited) Just got back from my first cataract operation (they'll do the other eye in a few weeks). Eye's slightly sore, but otherwise, the worst part was the hours of hanging around for what was basically a ten minute procedure. EDIT: The surgeon's name was John Buchan. I am immensely proud of my willpower in resisting the temptation to ask him if he did the operation in 39 steps. Edited February 12, 2019 by mjmooney 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted February 12, 2019 Share Posted February 12, 2019 On 03/02/2019 at 21:15, Xela said: I used to waste so much time on Facebook, constantly checking it and seeing other updates from friends, colleagues and people I hadn't spoken to in 20 years! I decided one Christmas a few years back to come off it and haven't been back since. It was difficult at first as I was probably was addicted to it but after a while I realised it was a waste of time. I keep in touch with the people I want to via text, whatsapp or email now! I now devote my spare time to this place! I guess VT is a form of social media but different as we are all fairly anonymous and no one is trying to outdo anyone else (apart from Ruge and his sex stories!) I imagine for a teenage girl, the pressure social media creates is huge. Everyone is trying to portray a different image of themselves, of having the perfect life and looking fantastic all the time. Even their role models lie on social media by heavily photoshopping and filtering their pictures. Kim Kardashian probably looks 50% like her Instagram photos. You came back on it for a little while if i recall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted February 12, 2019 Share Posted February 12, 2019 (edited) 49 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: You came back on it for a little while if i recall If i hear rumours that a fit work colleague has posted holiday bikini shots on FB I may have 're-activate' and have a nose But I generally only log back on to get someone's birthday date and then deactivate straight away Edited February 12, 2019 by Xela Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted February 12, 2019 Share Posted February 12, 2019 Back to the docs tomorrow - my 24 hour BP monitor results weren't great. Seeing doc tomorrow and then booking in an ECG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottaloo Posted February 12, 2019 Share Posted February 12, 2019 17 minutes ago, Xela said: Back to the docs tomorrow - my 24 hour BP monitor results weren't great. Seeing doc tomorrow and then booking in an ECG Sorry to hear that Alex. I'm no expert with BP although i do have a monitor in my home and was able to drop my readings from 160/102 to typically 130/75 thanks to more regular exercise.....and it didn't take my body long to get the message. I'm sure you know this already but from the sounds of it, your job is pressured with long hours. Does your company have a health scheme you can be referred through ? Fingers crossed anyway 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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