Locking this post down because comments have gotten heated

I do want to point out that social media use may be one of the first of these 'evils' to meet actual statistical significance on a large scale. I've seen meta-analyses which show an overall positive association with negative outcomes, as well as criticisms and no correlation found, but the sum of those (a meta-analyses of meta-analyses) shows a small positive association with "loneliness, self-esteem, life satisfaction, or self-reported depression, and somewhat stronger links to a thin body ideal and higher social capital."

I do think this is generally a public health reflection though, in the same way that TV and video games can be public health problems - moderation and healthy interaction/use of course being the important part here. If you spend all day playing video games, your physical health might suffer, but it can be offset by playing games which keep you active or can be offset by doing physical activity. I believe the same can be true of social media, but is a much more complex subject. Managing mental health is a combination of many factors - for some it may simply be about framing how they interact with the platform. For others it may be about limiting screen time. Some individuals may find spending more time with friends off the platform to be enriching.

It's a complicated subject, as all of the other 'evils' have always been, but it is an interesting one because it is one of the first I've personally seen where even kids are self-recognizing the harm social media has brought to them. Not only did they invent slang to create social pressures against being constantly online, but they have also started to self-organize and interact with government and local authority (school boards, etc.) to tackle the problem. This kind of self-awareness combined with action being taken at such a young age on this kind of scale is unique to social media - the kids who were watching a bunch of TV and playing video games didn't start organizing about the harms of it, the harms were a narrative created solely by concerned parents.

probably not, in the same way that your grandma calls a video chat a facetime or your representative might call the internet a series of tubes

AI is the default word for any kind of machine magic now

Absolutely, thank you!

The pronouns are right there, in the display name . I'm confused, do they not show up for you? You're on our instance so I'm guessing it's not a front-end difference, but maybe you're browsing on an app that doesn't show it appropriately? Although I would mention their username itself includes the words "IsTrans" and is sourced from lemmy.blahaj.zone so those should be other key indicators.

I was hardly about to ban you over a small mistake. The only reason I even replied to this, is that multiple people reported it and Emily herself came in and corrected you. The action was more about signaling to others that this is a safe space.

For those that are curious, here's the exact questions used and the %s by demographic

Generally speaking I'd also fall into the rather play games category, but it really depends on the context. Unfortunately there aren't too many couch co-op kind of games anymore so if the goal is to spend time with someone playing a video game doesn't often work great.

oof, big flaw there

Any information humanity has ever preserved in any format is worthless

It's like this person only just discovered science, lol. Has this person never realized that bias is a thing? There's a reason we learn to cite our sources, because people need the context of what bias is being shown. Entire civilizations have been erased by people who conquered them, do you really think they didn't re-write the history of who these people are? Has this person never followed scientific advancement, where people test and validate that results can be reproduced?

Humans are absolutely gonna human. The author is right to realize that a single source holds a lot less factual accuracy than many sources, but it's catastrophizing to call it worthless and it ignores how additional information can add to or detract from a particular claim- so long as we examine the biases present in the creation of said information resources.

I've personally found it's best to just directly ask questions when people say things that are cruel, come from a place of contempt or otherwise trying to start conflict. "Are you saying x?" but in much clearer words is a great way to get people to reveal their true nature. There is no need to be charitable if you've asked them and they don't back off or they agree with whatever terrible sentiment you just asked whether they held. Generally speaking people who aren't malicious will not only back off on what they're saying but they'll put in extra work to clear up any confusion - if someone doesn't bother to clear up any confusion around some perceived hate or negativity, it can be a more subtle signal they aren't acting in good faith.

If they do back off but only as a means to try and bait you (such as refusing to elaborate or by distracting), they'll invariably continue to push boundaries or make other masked statements. If you stick to that same strategy and you need to ask for clarification three times and they keep pushing in the same direction, I'd say it's safe to move on at that point.

As an aside - It's usually much more effective to feel sad for them than it is to be angry or direct. But honestly, it's better to simply not engage. Most of these folks are hurting in some way, and they're looking to offload the emotional labor to others, or to quickly feel good about themselves by putting others down. Engaging just reinforces the behavior and frankly just wastes your time, because it's not about the subject they're talking about... it's about managing their emotions.

Could you be a little bit more specific? Do you have an example or two of people/situations you struggled to navigate? Bad intentions can mean a lot of things and understanding how you respond and how you wish you were responding could both be really helpful to figuring out where the process is breaking down and what skills might be most useful.

Cheers for this, found two games that seem interesting that I never heard about before!

This isn't just about GPT, of note in the article, one example:

The AI assistant conducted a Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) assessment on each scan. Researchers knew beforehand which mammograms had cancer but set up the AI to provide an incorrect answer for a subset of the scans. When the AI provided an incorrect result, researchers found inexperienced and moderately experienced radiologists dropped their cancer-detecting accuracy from around 80% to about 22%. Very experienced radiologists’ accuracy dropped from nearly 80% to 45%.

In this case, researchers manually spoiled the results of a non-generative AI designed to highlight areas of interest. Being presented with incorrect information reduced the accuracy of the radiologist. This kind of bias/issue is important to highlight and is of critical importance when we talk about when and how to ethically introduce any form of computerized assistance in healthcare.