Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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Closed up image of a Female using TikTok application on a smartphone in home. 5 September, 2022. ChiangMai, Thailand.

TikTok is on the Verge of a Ban. Now Users Are Flocking to Another Chinese App.

National security and the mental health of a generation are at stake

A federal ban of the wildly popular social media app TikTok is set to take effect on Sunday, unless a last-minute intervention occurs, or an American-owned business buys the company. The FBI, as well as several state authorities around the country, have said the app represents a national security threat, as it allows a foreign adversary to access the data of the 170 million Americans who use it. Apart from the issue of national security, plenty of people, particularly sociologist Jonathan Haidt, have pointed out TikTok’s profound negative impact on kids and users in general. TikTok uses an advanced algorithm system to hook its users. Haidt and his research assistant, Zach Rausch, list out the multiple harms: Executives within the Read More ›

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Cerebral cortex disintegrating into ash, surrealism, muted grayscale tones, digital sketch, brain cells collapsing into void, signifying loss of memory

Oxford Word of the Year: Brain Rot

The flood of online content deteriorates our mental and intellectual states
Ironically, “brain rot” started making the rounds primarily on TikTok, one of the biggest culprits when it comes to getting people addicted to screens. Read More ›
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Illustration featuring a surreal arrangement of floating media screens

Scott Galloway: Get Men Off the Screens

The conversation revolved around one big question: What happened to men?
Galloway also resists the notion that one needs to “find their passion” to lead a fulfilling life: Those who say that to young people are “already rich.” Read More ›
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Full-length body portrait shot of a group of seven young male and female teenagers standing and using smartphones and tablets while waiting for a queue. Concept of technology addicted in modern life

Experience is Going Extinct

A review of Christine Rosen's "The Extinction of Experience"
As more of our daily experience goes mediated and buffered through screens, it’s important to wonder what we’re losing. Read More ›
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Horizontal surreal magazine collage of young female look at giant hand hold phone addicted social media news fakes on creative background

Zuck and Co Are Under Fire (Again)

Meta targeted teens, according to internal company emails

Is there any company out there who has hurt young people more than Mark Zuckerberg’s gargantuan Meta empire? A host of lawsuits and a damning report from the New York Times tells us that the massive parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp willingly pursued its addictive business model despite the evident damage its products were doing to users, particularly kids. Who remembers when Facebook launched and its promises of a more connected world? Who remembers the optimists hailing the internet as the next step in human connectivity? A mere twenty years later and the technology lords are facing an overdue reckoning. Natasha Singer writes, The state lawsuits against Meta reflect mounting concerns that teenagers and children on social media Read More ›

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Young beautiful caucasian purple grey hair woman outdoor in the city on the subway using smart phone hand hold - technology, social network, communication concept

Ozempic: Weight Loss Drug or Supermodel Shortcut?

Social media fuels impossible body standards. So, Gen Z flocks to weight loss drugs.

Ozempic, the weight loss medication that diminishes one’s sense of hunger, has been used as a simple and yet effective treatment for obesity. There is debate on whether the use of drugs to combat weight gain is healthy, or should be pushed back against by simply eating better and engaging in regular exercise. Now, though, a certain brand of Ozempic users is complicating the discussion. People, particularly the young, are starting to use Ozempic to carve out the ideal beach bod. But the risks to this aren’t benign, according to a report by the New York Post. Using Ozempic or other weight loss drugs without a proper prescription can be dangerous. Per the Post: “Drugs including Ozempic and Wegovy should Read More ›

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Composite collage image of delighted black white colors person hold telephone raise fist celebrate like notification facebook instagram tiktok

Beyond Social Media’s Impact on Mental Health

Social media addiction can harm more than our moods

A young writer, herself a member of Gen Z, has dared to point out the obvious about social media. Sure, it’s verifiably making us sad and anxious, but it goes beyond that: it’s turning us into bad people. Freya India, a columnist at Quillette and a new contributor to Jonathan Haidt’s Substack After Babel, notes that while it’s important to talk about social media and mental health, it’s just as vital to talk about what this stuff is doing to our character. She writes, Our loss of empathy, our lack of regard for others, our neurotic obsession with our own image — it’s taking a toll. Maybe subconsciously. But I think deep down we know it. We know when people are using Read More ›

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smartphone coiled metal wire in the hands of a man, gray-green background, censorship of social networks. cancel cultural ban, erase

Yes, TikTok is Bad. But is a Ban the Answer?

This might be the way censorship sneakily invades.
It might make more sense to have conversations about age limits with TikTok. Like nicotine, should it be reserved for those above the age of 18? Read More ›
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Psychotherapist writing notes, giving diagnosis to emotional man

Too Much Focus on Mental Health?

Is our fixation on wellbeing making us miserable?

“We have to deal with the cancer that is mental health.” So tweeted former presidential nominee Nikki Haley back in January. Most people knew what she meant, which was that we have to take mental health seriously and do our best to foster positive mental health. From the way she phrased it, though, you’re tempted to think that “mental health” itself is, well, what she said it is: a “cancer.” The emphasis on mental health and therapy is widespread. In many ways, it is good and proper to encourage people to be more open about their mental struggles and to get help for what they’re going through. The amount of trauma, abuse, and other mental disorders that people hide is Read More ›

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Closed up image of a Female using TikTok application on a smartphone in home. 5 September, 2022. ChiangMai, Thailand.

Escaping the Dopamine Cartel

We can't even be bothered with "entertainment" anymore.
Ted Gioia investigates the impact of the "dopamine culture," our modern tendency to flit among tabs and scroll endlessly through fifteen-second-long video clips. Read More ›
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A child using smart phone lying in bed late at night, playing games. Children's screen addiction and parent control concept. Child's room at night. Sensitive content on screen

Andrew McDiarmid on Teens and Smartphones

We can mitigate the mental health crisis, but we have to act now.
Noted social psychologist Jonathan Haidt notes that the mental health epidemic among teenagers, particular teen girls, really began around 2012 or so. Read More ›
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Composite image of 3d image of human brain

You Can’t Always Be Happy

Our dopamine system both excites and tames pleasure
Humans cannot achieve permanent happiness. Earthly pleasures do not ultimately satisfy us. The Bible said it. The neuroscientists have proved it. Read More ›
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young  unhappy woman suffering from depression, and stress

Is This a Moral Reckoning? 41 States Sue Meta for Knowingly Addicting Young Users

The lawsuit claims that Meta's platforms are harming its young users. The data backs it up.
The lawsuit coincides with a new article from Jean Twenge, known for researching "Gen-Z" and their painful relationship with addictive digital media. Read More ›
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Young Asian man sitting on stairs outside reading a book

Why You Should Read More Fiction

The mental benefits for reading good stories are many.

When looking for “solutions” to today’s mental health crisis in the United States, particularly among the millions of men who are checking out of society, reading fiction may not immediately come to mind. However, a new article from Psychology Today argues that reading fiction is “essential” for today’s men. The author of the article, psychologist Jett Stone, focuses on men in part because today’s literary market is largely geared towards women, and fiction and femininity are often closely associated. Nonetheless, he believes that reading fiction can benefit both women and men. He writes, Recent research indicates that reading fiction fosters critical thinking by presenting ideas subtly and in more roundabout ways than nonfiction. One study of adolescents found that frequent fiction readers possessed more Read More ›

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Young anxious woman lying in bed staring at smartphone screen at night, reading about depression symptoms in internet, phone addicted female can not stop scrolling news media before bedtime. Anxiety.

Cal Newport: Overstimulation Is Ruining Your Life

Turns out the solution is simple: don't use things that overstimulate you.
"Don't use things that cause overstimulation," Newport says. "The dopamine system is powerful, so don't give it the targets it's going to fire up for." Read More ›
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Hispanic man staring sadly at his smartphone

The Real Issue With the “New Drug”

Pornography is a drug, through and through, and is used mainly to alleviate negative emotions and meaninglessness

One of the biggest harms of the Internet is online pornography. While prostitution (which has the root word porneia) has been around since the dawn of human history, never before has access to explicit content been so easy and varied. Today the porn industry rakes in around $100 million globally, with the U.S. making up $12-14 million of that revenue. According to this report, 40 million Americans regularly view pornography, and 25 percent of all Internet searches are porn-related. These stats are shocking, to say the least, but it begs the question of how we best understand and treat porn addiction in today’s context. While most of us would naturally assume such addiction is related to sexual impulses, “Dr. K,” Read More ›

closed-up-image-of-a-female-using-tiktok-application-on-a-smartphone-in-home-5-september-2022-chiangmai-thailand-stockpack-adobe-stock
Closed up image of a Female using TikTok application on a smartphone in home. 5 September, 2022. ChiangMai, Thailand.

TikTok is Storing Data in China, Contrary to Former Claims

TikTok CEO said user data isn't stored in China. Turns out it is.

Many online creators and entrepreneurs give sensitive data to TikTok, the China-owned social media app, so they can do business on the platform. That includes social security numbers. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told Congress earlier this year that users’ data was stored outside of China in places such as Virginia and Singapore. Apparently, however, that is an inaccurate claim. According to a report from Forbes, TikTok has indeed been storing sensitive data on Chinese servers, where employees there can access it. Alexandra S. Levine reports, A trove of records obtained by Forbes from multiple sources across different parts of the company reveals that highly sensitive financial and personal information about those prized users and third parties has been stored in China. Read More ›

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Young woman using smart phone

TikToxic: The Popular App is Feeding Teens a “Diet of Darkness”

Apart from the debate over espionage and data privacy, TikTok is a highly addictive app

TikTok has gained a fair bit of fierce criticism over the last few months; the China-owned social media app is the most popular on the market, with tens of millions of users and downloads. That includes, of course, teenagers. Apart from the debate over espionage and data privacy, TikTok is a highly addictive app. We covered more on that here, but recent studies show that it’s not just the amount of time spent on the app that is troubling, but the specific kinds of content young people are ingesting every day. Julie Jargon writes in the Wall Street Journal, Data privacy, though, might be less worrisome than the power of TikTok’s algorithm. Especially if you’re a parent. A recent study found that Read More ›

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A glacial rivers from above. Aerial photograph of the river streams from Icelandic glaciers. Beautiful art of the Mother nature created in Iceland. Wallpaper background high quality photo

The Solution for Tech Addiction

Trail Life USA is a way to get guys off their phones and into the wilderness

In a recent Mind Matters podcast episode, host Robert J. Marks spoke with Kent Marks, former Boy Scout guide who now works with Trail Life USA. In the wake of Boy Scouts’ precipitous decline over the last decade, Trail Life offers boys the chance to get outside and go on wilderness adventures. This is a huge opportunity to help young men get off the screens and into the beauty of creation. Speaking about the gravity of the problem, Robert said, The impact of social media has just been terrible. Teenage suicides are up, depression rates are up. I think a third of all girls involved in social media have body image problems. And that’s terrible. These are the symptoms of Read More ›