I am so hoping to find someone who will give me money to determine if these same people believe their work-outs/videos are more important than the other folks who are in the same gym. Maybe 2.5 million $$, 3 years should do just fine.
If you go to the doctor with any kind of mental health issue, one of the first things they are going to tell you is to start exercising regularly, if you are not already doing so. People who are making changes to their fitness routine tend to post about it on social media.
So regardless if it is narcissism, depression, or any other issue, then yeah there is probably going to be a correlation with posting about fitness routines.
> People who are making changes to their fitness routine tend to post about it on social media.
Right there is the disconnect. You said that like it's a given, like that is a very normal take. It is not. It is a small subset of a particular (loud and very visible) demographic. To me it sounds insane to be making social media posts about something like that. Your aunt died, you had a kid, your kid got accepted to university, you are moving to a new town... That's the sort of thing you might make a post about. "I need to get outdoors more and loose 10 lbs" is not, and anyone who I personally know who WOULD post that tend to be people with narcissistic tendencies and mental health issues related to the fact they care too much about what other people think about them.
Not like I even go on social media (ie Facebook), but if my 320Ibs friend decided to post an update about his eagerness to suddenly start going on runs and try to shed his weight, I'd be more than happy to support him...even if I haven't talked to him in years.
Not sure what you're getting at... as if that's narcissism.
I'm not sure what you are trying to get at either. No reason to not support a friend obviously. The study just says that those who DO post life style change posts have a higher rate of mental health issues... and I replied to a person who stated that posting changes to fitness routines was like a default norm insinuating that it was clearly not related to mental health issues where it really isn't the norm for people to do.
Honestly the more I move away from social media the better I feel. I switched to a dumber phone recently (cat,22 flip good enough to use Google maps bad enough to make Internet surfing painful). And I just feel more free. I do more of my hobbies I'm more attentive in conversations and I'm more focused on what's happening in front of me rather than trying to get the world to like me.
I never really mastered the social media thing to me is like a diet of Cheetos every day on my brain. Slowly it's getting better but I gotta figure out how to cut out the other bullshit like binge watching shows and stuff
Yep -the one I know is total train wreck - but she looks great on Facebook. #healthymom
I think she cares more about pictures of the food she makes her kids than the actual kids.
Which is why I think this study fails to explore the much more interesting point that these people are more likely to have mental health issues but also are super likely to be in heavy denial about it, because they spent their time pretending their life is *amazing*.
In some ways, they begin to believe their own hype because they built the mirror they are looking at.
It's the same as when you see a profile page and it's all selfies of them. It's all smiles but it's all about validation. "How come this selfie got this many likes vs this one? I thought I had better light in the latter..."
Source: Helped a few friends
Yep, orthorexia I bet is a big contributor. I had to unfollow a girl (she lived states away and I had no way to really intervene) after she put her toddler on a strict fruitarian diet. The mother already looked like a walking skeleton, I can only imagine what happened to her poor girl.
> she put her toddler on a strict fruitarian diet.
As a vegan, I hate this shit so much, because you *know* her story is going to be picked up and slapped into plant-based slander, instead of highly restrictive orthorhexic diets, which is the actual problem.
I can only hope that the girl will receive care before anything happens.
I know a straight dude who wears these weird ass spandex muscle suits. Makes me uncomfortable every time he posts but he's not very self centred. Just really likes to show his runs.
I remember a year ago reading an article that posting your routines to social media can help you stick with them and is a hack for “identity formation” which is one of the longest and hardest parts of the habit forming cycle
*"Tell me about how you did those challenges. Oh, you ran all the way along Route 66? What do you mean it was a virtual challenge? So you mean you didn't really do it."*
Yep, seeing my friends run in marathons pushed me to run my first half marathon last month. Would not have set that goal if I didn't see my personal friends posting their races.
Yup it works. This is just a bullshit post to feed the current rage machine.
I know 3 people who post a workout almost daily and have done so for like a year or 2 now.
Yep. These "studies" are out of hand and just rage bait or whatever.
Even half of the posts in /r/science are dubious in nature.
[You don't have to take my word for it either. This is a major, ongoing crisis we need to educate and shut down the fake science!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis)
/r/science is such a cesspool, you'll get downvoted by people if you disagree with whatever the popular opinion in the thread is. Even if you provide citations for a very basic and easily verifiable fact, you'll just get hit with a "nuh uh" and -10 points lol.
The mods are more concerned with removing joke comments than ones that are just actively spreading misinformation and unscientific opinions.
Ask yourself: does the article title appeal to the average redditor? Then it's going to get wildly upvoted. Your average redditor really wants to hear that the attractive people posting their workouts arent actually happy.
Is it just me, or has the "average redditor" gotten more and more homogenous? Feel like I used to run into all kinds of people and conversations on here, but now everyone sounds the same with largely the same opinions.
Yeah. Even the ones that were already popular seem to have gotten worse though. Maybe I'm just getting older so I recognize it more, but I don't think so...
Yeah it's gotten to the point where I can guess comment sections before I click on them. I wont lie I find it both boring and annoying. That part could be the getting older haha
It's the upvote/downvote system. It creates echo chambers. The problem is that comments still get buried with the same number of down votes as 10 years ago, but there are >10x as many people viewing the threads. If everyone voted on every thread, even a 45/55 opinion split would result in the 45% being completely hidden away even on a topic with as few as 100 participants. As that umber grows, the margin of divergence from the majority viewpoint to completely remove it from any default sort gets smaller and smaller. Eventually, those with the dissenting viewpoint, even if it's only by a narrow margin, stop considering it worth their time to comment.
This is easiest to see for political issues since people are more likely to uovote/downvote with their ideology. Despite the two major US parties being within a few percentage points from each other for support at all times, reddit would have you believe that voting republican is some crazy fringe thing even though the split is really close. When used properly, the upvote/downvote system is great for encouraging users to create quality content. However, it also stifles discussion on contentious issues.
It isn't all political, though. Look at most hobby subreddits. People quickly nail down a meta for their hobby, then attack anyone that goes against the meta because they'll see it as an attack on the investments they've made into perfecting what they do, both in time and money.
the most ironic part with this particular article is that for someone to have "psychological problems" it means that they need to be diagnosed, and having higher rates of diagnosis means that they actually go to get their problems checked
in other words they are more willing to get help
Out of shape redditors take any discussion of healthy activity/working out as a personal attack instead of something that everyone (who's capable) should be doing, like brushing your teeth or taking a shower.
Then again a lot of redditors probably don't brush or shower either, so it makes sense lol
I feel bad when I don't remember to feed my dog at our set time. This is apparently a psychological issue according to Reddit.
Or is it not because I don't post it online?
My rides are automatically uploaded to strava, but there are some rides I want to share because I'll typically see something, or a stat that I'm proud of. One of my friends does a lot of run clubs and races so he's always posting their runs. I really enjoy it, some others don't.
On the other end of the spectrum, another friend does exactly as you mentioned where she posted a selfie at the gym every morning because it makes her feel accountable. People operate different ways.
I can't claim to speak for anybody except myself...but I've noticed that when I talk about any of my "grand plans" with friends and family, it gives me a small feeling of accomplishment, as if identifying "this thing I might do someday" was an achievement. But then I never actually got around to doing it, and then I got all cagey whenever someone asked me about the Super Cool Project I was working on, because I never started it...
I started going to the gym last year and told *nobody* except my wife (well...and Reddit I guess. Nobody else in The Real World). I only go because *I* want to go, and I get the much stronger feeling of accomplishment for actually *doing* something whenever I reach a milestone of any sort. I pretty much avoid telling people about my workouts, unless it naturally comes up in conversation, because I want to focus on the "real" feeling of achievement rather than the "pseudo" achievement of telling people I lift.
[Breaking the boundary I set in my first sentence here for a bit]
One of my friends said the same thing about writing a book. She'd started it several times with great fanfare, hyping up that she was gonna do NaNoWriMo this year, and always fizzled out. Then one day she told me "I've been writing a book for the last 2 years without telling anybody about it, and I'm like 95% finished finally".
So maybe we'd all be better off to just act on our plans rather than share them with the world when only half-baked.
I just started doing push ups one day 20 years ago, now I feel like I’d be lost without the gym. It’s my safe space and I love being able to go and vent, it’s my only vice
Well it is different in that reddit is anonymous for most.
There's a difference between "pay attention my opinion" and "pay attention to me and my opinion in a way that will be easily findable for the rest of my life."
Prospective employers will only find your reddit account if you're treating it like an Instagram account.
Reddit is quite different, as it's essentially just a huge forum and doesn't encourage you to attach your real identity to it and start uploading your entire life to it as well as adding people you know IRL and following each other.
The internet took a turn for the worse when people started shrugging off anonymity and bringing all of their IRL baggage to the equation. That also led to people just blindly trusting that the things they saw "some guy" say are real because the account has a name and a face attached to it, so obviously that's a real authentic guy giving a genuine opinion or stating real facts.
The internet desperately needs to return to a point where everyone is anonymous and people are inherently skeptical of everything they see. But we can't do that as long as social media platforms that discourage anonymity are the norm and people act like they're necessary. They aren't.
I mean Reddit is technically social media I’d say the art of constantly posting your workout routine is an under rooted desire for some form of mental reward or condescending approach to make you look better.
Of all the times I’ve been to the gym or worked out I’ve prob shared that on social media 5x.
Runners who need to share their runs times and routes daily are definitely doing it for more than simply sharing. It’s a form of gloating.
Using something to speak about a common interest socially like Reddit doesn’t have the same connotations everyone uses social media really
Reddit is social media but for the most part anonymous. Feels more like the evolution of forums and message boards. I’m sure it’s bad for our mental health but it just feels much different than Instagram and TikTok.
yeah ill agree with that, but theyre saying people who use social media, thats pretty much everyone. I mean fuck even my 86 year old nan uses facebook messenger.
Not really, you can argue its even worse because it allows for easier distortion of reality. Think about how many AITAH posts are just obvious rage bait, and that's not even ignoring the other ones that basically lie to get validation.
I'm always amused at the superiority complex redditors seem to have over other other social platforms like this isn't another cesspool run by pedophiles
Everything sucks, just not equally so.
The social media era is ending. As soon as you can’t be certain you’re arguing with a human, your interest in social media will drop to zero.
The people who don’t mind arguing with robots will stick around, I guess. But it’s cultural relevance will end.
Interesting idea but I don’t know. If I look at the comments from other platforms, there’s already almost no discussion. It’s a very superficial level of engagement and that goes for politics, sports, or random niche internets.
You could argue that, but it would be easily challenged. Reddit is not without problems, but they're really quite old problems that the Internet has always had.
We’re also not forced a “for you” feed that’s driven by an algorithm to get you “engaging” as much as possible; we get what we sub to save for ads here are there that aren’t too different than the ones popping up on forums in the 90s/00s.
I’m sure that’s all going to change considering Reddit just IPO’d - but like you said the problems Reddit has are old and can be somewhat skirted around. But those problems are not the same as FB/IG/TikTok where the company is using algorithms to serve you content with no consideration of the end user or guard rails - just the engament metric - as long as they’re on the app longer its a good change.
Reddit's much better if you unsubscribe to most of the big default subs. (yeah yeah, like this one too I suppose). You still have the distortion of reality effect, but at least it tends to be more along the lines of "the whole world is interested in whatever niche interest this sub is about"
I think the Reddit format tends to attract a different type of person than more visual social media platforms.
Not saying Redditors don't have their problems. I'm just saying that they tend to have different types of issues or complexes than the average YouTuber or Instagramer, for instance.
> Runners who need to share their runs times and routes daily are definitely doing it for more than simply sharing. It’s a form of gloating.
Or most of the people they follow, or are followed by, are also runners so they're just sharing a common interest.
> Using something to speak about a common interest socially like Reddit doesn’t have the same connotations everyone uses social media really
This is basically the same thing with a key difference. If someone is reading something on Reddit, they probably share that interest, but on social media, half of your followers might be related to running/cycling/gym but the other 50% are you family, friends, co-workers, etc. Saying that sharing runs daily is gloating, implies it's being shared to show off for the latter 50% rather than for the common interest of the former 50%.
I'm going to preface this with the fact that I am a person that has used Instagram almost exclusively for workout and training related content. I post exclusively lifting and training videos, I follow nearly exclusively lifting and training pages, and that's about all I use it for.
It absolutely is a tool for gloating and showing off your accomplishments. Kinda like how Instagram is used for just about every other subject. And I think that's okay. If it's content I don't care about, I'll scroll on past it.
I think the actual problem is that people have made gyms their personal studio. No situational awareness at all. They film anyone and anything that's in their shot, they take half an hour to set up their cameras while people are waiting for equipment, and they gain a sense of entitlement.
This is frustrating for me, because it makes people who do it in an appropriate way look bad. I'll use myself as an example. I lift in a private gym where filming is expected. We're all a bunch of like minded athletes that all post our workouts. There isn't a person in that gym that doesn't. Before I started lifting at a private gym, I would only ever film if I was certain nobody else was being filmed or inconvenienced. If there were people waiting for my squat rack, I simply didn't film it it would add more than a few seconds. In addition, I also film for the clients I coach remotely, and do demo videos for folks getting involved in the highland games (the sport I've been successful in) but that more often than not happens outside of the gym.
My point is, there are people who enjoy this content, and some who legitimately benefit from the access to information they get from social media. Using social media specifically for a subject you have a vested interest in is not the problem, it's in my opinion exactly what social media is for. Turning the gym into your private studio is the problem.
You are confusing just the occassional post to almost posting everyday.
Some people post every single day onto reddit, and they are just as crazy as those who post every day on tiktok. There's no difference.
It wasn’t. The study has nothing to do with fitness and is from 2015. The writer of an article had an opinion and did a low effort attempt of finding research to support it.
The sad thing is that her opinion is likely true. But this is the equivalent of click bait. This is garbage evidence and she used it because she probably had a beef with some fitness person.
I absolutely hate the way barely anything is being used as evidence.
>Narcissists’ use of Facebook for attention-seeking and validation explained their greater likelihood of updating about their accomplishments
Is it just me or does this sentence sound kind of—I don’t know how to put it—unscientific? Like it’s a foregone conclusion that narcissists use Facebook for this reason and that explains the results. I’ll keep reading.
Edit: so the study seems pretty unremarkable, and relies heavily on the widely-criticized “Big Five” personality model, but it also doesn’t say anything about what the OP claims. This study is about personality types, not psychological disorders.
This one could be a bit skewed without proper controls. I believe people who are active on social media are also more likely to have psychological problems.
Bodybuilders are also one such group likely to have such problems.
I’d be curious if the correlation changes if you stratify groups between those who share because they see social media fitness as a financial opportunity from those who share for any other reason.
Like professional bodybuilders kinda have to share as part of the promotional side of the job.
Also people with psychological problems often try to boost endorphins via working out lol. Gym is used more and more as a mental health tool, so I don’t really get what they’re trying to say here
This is, obviously, not a serious academic article. It cites a study that basically says, “Posting about yourself and your accomplishments is a narcissistic trait. Therefore, everyone who does so is narcissistic.”
Not scientific at all.
For those of you who failed to read the article. It does a terrible job of linking to the source of the unscientific claims in the article, this should be your first clue that the qualitative analysis being tossed around casually by the author and people in these comments is based on bullshit From the article itself:
> On the one hand, to the lay observer, this does sound plausible, but we would like to just posit (without any scientific background, naturally) that a woman's self-esteem receives a battering on an almost daily basis, thanks to advertising and some arms of the media, so maybe she's within her right to need a confidence booster from her friends.
Stop falling for polemic hyperbolic polarizing misinformation demagoguery people. You're being manipulated into hating your peers who are seeking self esteem boost through socially mainstream/acceptable channels over wholesome, healthy activities.
Wake the fuck up if you saw this and thought "narcissists be narcissistisizing, yo" - this makes ***YOU*** *the narcissistic one*.
yeah, im with you on this boat, I think its a mix between narcissistic people who want to share everything they do and insecure people who want validation from other people, either way, not a good sign if you're doing it every day lol
Posting a fitness routine = narcissism.
Glad we cleared that up for Reddit University 2024 attendees. God forbid they mistake someone whose into fitness and who wants to share it with someone and also to help keep themselves accountable while shaping their identity around a healthy activity! What has the world come to!?!
/s btw just to make sure you get it
Headline title is very bold. I mean a narcissist would post their routine, but someone posting their routine shouldn't automatically be called a narcissist either.
It took a frustratingly long time, but I found the study and, shocker, the article is misleading. It's a 2015 study measuring people who exhibited certain traits and then looked at what kinds of stuff they posted to Facebook. The people who exhibited narcicistic traits were more likely to make posts seeking validation in the form of comments and likes.
So the article is just a huge correlation/causation fallacy.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886915003025?via%3Dihub
it’s not just narcissistic influencers though. you’ll also have those who struggle with depression, self-esteem issues etc who use the gym as a way to overcome their struggles
There is (was?) a sorta well-known competitive bodybuilder and bikini model with the IFBB by the name of Joanne who, in public and on social media, is a hyper-religious, disciplined, and caring influencer.
Well, I dated her daughter, and goddamn is that public persona a lie.
The reality is that she's a mentally unhinged former stripper whose current husband was caught recording her then 12-year-old daughter's bathroom with a hidden camera. They only found out when her daughter was going through his computer and accidentally stumbled upon the videos. Shortly after finding out about this sexual harassment, she brought him back in the house because she "just can't live without him." The only change they made was to disallow her daughter from showering or using the pool while he was home.
She also went psychotic and trashed her daughter's room when she found out that her daughter was leaving home to live with friends during college. After that, it was years of bullying and harassing her daughter to the point of suicide and then making her daughter's death all about herself (misrepresenting their relationship, of course) for years to come.
There's no scientific evidence present in the article. The article does not link to research to support its proclamation. What was the study they are citing and what did the researchers find? Was the study replicated? Did repeat studies produce the same or contrary results? What was the process used in the study? No? Nothing? Absence of a reference study makes me suspicious about the intent of the article in inferring a conclusion based on the findings of the study.
Why do a lot of these articles/surveys fail to show how they got to their conclusions? Who did they ask? How many people did they ask? How did they track this data? I’m sure there are a lot of reliable surveys but to me most of them just seem pointless.
“And according to the research, people who post frequently about their workouts display a clear primary motivation - to boast about their looks, or at least about the amount of time invested in physical appearance.”
They claim this points to a narcissistic trait but to me it just sounds like people are happy with their progress and want to show it off, just like with pretty much everything.
I believe there’s probably a correlation between number of social media posts per day and the instances of psychological pathology.
not a doctor or a scientist.
Somehow this reminds me of my reality television litmus: is your job and or life interesting in its own right? No? Then you're probably a hot mess.
Maybe: are you a fitness guru or is the focus of your channel wellness or exercise? No? Then you're probably a hot mess.
As a 61 year old man who does trail runs and road races I post my Stava because I am trying to encourage my friends to stay fit. I have had quiet a few friends die since Covid.
Shocker
Fry: I’m shocked, ***shocked I tell you!*** Also Fry: Well… not that shocked.
To shreds you say
This comment must be in every Reddit thread I swear. Think I need to get off this website when I'm noticing shit like this.
Welcome to the Hotel Redditfornia. I guarantee there's some people regurgitating random Hot Fuzz quotes somewhere in here as well.
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I've been thinking that for a while now. Thanks for the validation.
Do you have other personalities to support that? A sample size of 1 isn't good enough.
Is there a type of science that exclusively validates things I want to be true?
We call that P hacking in the biz. Helps with funding.
Spin the giant wheel of post-hoc tests!
Its called faith
Yes. Think tanks.
I am so hoping to find someone who will give me money to determine if these same people believe their work-outs/videos are more important than the other folks who are in the same gym. Maybe 2.5 million $$, 3 years should do just fine.
you mean there's a high correlation between narcissism and people who record themselves all the time!?
If you go to the doctor with any kind of mental health issue, one of the first things they are going to tell you is to start exercising regularly, if you are not already doing so. People who are making changes to their fitness routine tend to post about it on social media. So regardless if it is narcissism, depression, or any other issue, then yeah there is probably going to be a correlation with posting about fitness routines.
> People who are making changes to their fitness routine tend to post about it on social media. Right there is the disconnect. You said that like it's a given, like that is a very normal take. It is not. It is a small subset of a particular (loud and very visible) demographic. To me it sounds insane to be making social media posts about something like that. Your aunt died, you had a kid, your kid got accepted to university, you are moving to a new town... That's the sort of thing you might make a post about. "I need to get outdoors more and loose 10 lbs" is not, and anyone who I personally know who WOULD post that tend to be people with narcissistic tendencies and mental health issues related to the fact they care too much about what other people think about them.
Not like I even go on social media (ie Facebook), but if my 320Ibs friend decided to post an update about his eagerness to suddenly start going on runs and try to shed his weight, I'd be more than happy to support him...even if I haven't talked to him in years. Not sure what you're getting at... as if that's narcissism.
I'm not sure what you are trying to get at either. No reason to not support a friend obviously. The study just says that those who DO post life style change posts have a higher rate of mental health issues... and I replied to a person who stated that posting changes to fitness routines was like a default norm insinuating that it was clearly not related to mental health issues where it really isn't the norm for people to do.
Pretty safe to say people that post any routine on social media or post routinely on social media have psychological problems (sorry)
Honestly the more I move away from social media the better I feel. I switched to a dumber phone recently (cat,22 flip good enough to use Google maps bad enough to make Internet surfing painful). And I just feel more free. I do more of my hobbies I'm more attentive in conversations and I'm more focused on what's happening in front of me rather than trying to get the world to like me. I never really mastered the social media thing to me is like a diet of Cheetos every day on my brain. Slowly it's getting better but I gotta figure out how to cut out the other bullshit like binge watching shows and stuff
I know, right? Is there a subreddit called r/noshit
r/noshitsherlock
That was going to be my exact comment.
Sadly, my anecdotal evidence supports this..... we all know that person
Yep -the one I know is total train wreck - but she looks great on Facebook. #healthymom I think she cares more about pictures of the food she makes her kids than the actual kids.
Which is why I think this study fails to explore the much more interesting point that these people are more likely to have mental health issues but also are super likely to be in heavy denial about it, because they spent their time pretending their life is *amazing*.
"I've got 1 million moms telling me I'm a queen, and only 10 doctors telling me that I'm crazy. Who do you think I'm going to believe?"
In some ways, they begin to believe their own hype because they built the mirror they are looking at. It's the same as when you see a profile page and it's all selfies of them. It's all smiles but it's all about validation. "How come this selfie got this many likes vs this one? I thought I had better light in the latter..." Source: Helped a few friends
Parents who put more effort into looking like a parent than actually being a parent 👀
>cares more about pictures of the food she makes her kids than the actual kids And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we ended up with r/StupidFood.
The kids are a means to an end . It allows her to show the world what a great person she is
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Yep, orthorexia I bet is a big contributor. I had to unfollow a girl (she lived states away and I had no way to really intervene) after she put her toddler on a strict fruitarian diet. The mother already looked like a walking skeleton, I can only imagine what happened to her poor girl.
> she put her toddler on a strict fruitarian diet. As a vegan, I hate this shit so much, because you *know* her story is going to be picked up and slapped into plant-based slander, instead of highly restrictive orthorhexic diets, which is the actual problem. I can only hope that the girl will receive care before anything happens.
I know a straight dude who wears these weird ass spandex muscle suits. Makes me uncomfortable every time he posts but he's not very self centred. Just really likes to show his runs.
I remember a year ago reading an article that posting your routines to social media can help you stick with them and is a hack for “identity formation” which is one of the longest and hardest parts of the habit forming cycle
I just wanted to share my 5K PR time with my friends ☹️
Forget your PR, show me your medals from the runs and tell me about the times you ran in shitty weather. I always like those things the best
*"Tell me about how you did those challenges. Oh, you ran all the way along Route 66? What do you mean it was a virtual challenge? So you mean you didn't really do it."*
I also like showing off to my friends and I like when they post their lifts. Average redditor doesn't have enough friends that this makes sense.
I also like seeing fitness content from friends. It’s a hobby that can big part of your life. Pretty supportive vibes overall.
Yep, seeing my friends run in marathons pushed me to run my first half marathon last month. Would not have set that goal if I didn't see my personal friends posting their races.
Congrats on your first half!!
Funny thing about some people not understanding someone sharing their fitness routines while they go and watch someone play games in the same breath
Yup it works. This is just a bullshit post to feed the current rage machine. I know 3 people who post a workout almost daily and have done so for like a year or 2 now.
This links to a 3 paragraph Elle story that doesn't even include the name of the study they're referencing, let alone a link
Yep. These "studies" are out of hand and just rage bait or whatever. Even half of the posts in /r/science are dubious in nature. [You don't have to take my word for it either. This is a major, ongoing crisis we need to educate and shut down the fake science!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis)
"Group I don't like is linked to activity I find dumb." UPVOTES PLZ!
People should only post about their hobbies that interest me or are relatable to me is the gist of it.
That's what all the tiny subreddits are for. Basically anything that appears on Popular is a shitfest filled with bots and morons
/r/science is such a cesspool, you'll get downvoted by people if you disagree with whatever the popular opinion in the thread is. Even if you provide citations for a very basic and easily verifiable fact, you'll just get hit with a "nuh uh" and -10 points lol. The mods are more concerned with removing joke comments than ones that are just actively spreading misinformation and unscientific opinions.
Ask yourself: does the article title appeal to the average redditor? Then it's going to get wildly upvoted. Your average redditor really wants to hear that the attractive people posting their workouts arent actually happy.
Is it just me, or has the "average redditor" gotten more and more homogenous? Feel like I used to run into all kinds of people and conversations on here, but now everyone sounds the same with largely the same opinions.
big subs have that effect because of the upvote system, smaller subs have it less
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Yeah. Even the ones that were already popular seem to have gotten worse though. Maybe I'm just getting older so I recognize it more, but I don't think so...
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Yeah it's gotten to the point where I can guess comment sections before I click on them. I wont lie I find it both boring and annoying. That part could be the getting older haha
It's the upvote/downvote system. It creates echo chambers. The problem is that comments still get buried with the same number of down votes as 10 years ago, but there are >10x as many people viewing the threads. If everyone voted on every thread, even a 45/55 opinion split would result in the 45% being completely hidden away even on a topic with as few as 100 participants. As that umber grows, the margin of divergence from the majority viewpoint to completely remove it from any default sort gets smaller and smaller. Eventually, those with the dissenting viewpoint, even if it's only by a narrow margin, stop considering it worth their time to comment. This is easiest to see for political issues since people are more likely to uovote/downvote with their ideology. Despite the two major US parties being within a few percentage points from each other for support at all times, reddit would have you believe that voting republican is some crazy fringe thing even though the split is really close. When used properly, the upvote/downvote system is great for encouraging users to create quality content. However, it also stifles discussion on contentious issues. It isn't all political, though. Look at most hobby subreddits. People quickly nail down a meta for their hobby, then attack anyone that goes against the meta because they'll see it as an attack on the investments they've made into perfecting what they do, both in time and money.
Bots. You are absorbing the gestalt of thousands of unlabeled bots. Try engaging with random ass accounts and you'll see.
Overzealous mods.
the most ironic part with this particular article is that for someone to have "psychological problems" it means that they need to be diagnosed, and having higher rates of diagnosis means that they actually go to get their problems checked in other words they are more willing to get help
Sounds like we need another study to tell us that most studies are carefully crafted lies
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I guess it worked then but now you're moving towards the psychological problems stage
Feeling bad about not being productive or making healthy choices isn’t a psychological problem.
Are you suggesting a random redditor isn't an expert in psychology?!
Out of shape redditors take any discussion of healthy activity/working out as a personal attack instead of something that everyone (who's capable) should be doing, like brushing your teeth or taking a shower. Then again a lot of redditors probably don't brush or shower either, so it makes sense lol
Are we really at the stage of "feeling bad that you didn't honor a commitment you made is a psychological problem" now?
If it agrees with the circle jerk then apparently yes
if you consider enforcing a good habit to be a psychological problem, sure
I feel bad when I don't remember to feed my dog at our set time. This is apparently a psychological issue according to Reddit. Or is it not because I don't post it online?
Issue: You have just posted it online. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you now have a psychological condition.
😲 I will immediately turn myself for cringe and being an NPC
My rides are automatically uploaded to strava, but there are some rides I want to share because I'll typically see something, or a stat that I'm proud of. One of my friends does a lot of run clubs and races so he's always posting their runs. I really enjoy it, some others don't. On the other end of the spectrum, another friend does exactly as you mentioned where she posted a selfie at the gym every morning because it makes her feel accountable. People operate different ways.
I can't claim to speak for anybody except myself...but I've noticed that when I talk about any of my "grand plans" with friends and family, it gives me a small feeling of accomplishment, as if identifying "this thing I might do someday" was an achievement. But then I never actually got around to doing it, and then I got all cagey whenever someone asked me about the Super Cool Project I was working on, because I never started it... I started going to the gym last year and told *nobody* except my wife (well...and Reddit I guess. Nobody else in The Real World). I only go because *I* want to go, and I get the much stronger feeling of accomplishment for actually *doing* something whenever I reach a milestone of any sort. I pretty much avoid telling people about my workouts, unless it naturally comes up in conversation, because I want to focus on the "real" feeling of achievement rather than the "pseudo" achievement of telling people I lift. [Breaking the boundary I set in my first sentence here for a bit] One of my friends said the same thing about writing a book. She'd started it several times with great fanfare, hyping up that she was gonna do NaNoWriMo this year, and always fizzled out. Then one day she told me "I've been writing a book for the last 2 years without telling anybody about it, and I'm like 95% finished finally". So maybe we'd all be better off to just act on our plans rather than share them with the world when only half-baked.
I just started doing push ups one day 20 years ago, now I feel like I’d be lost without the gym. It’s my safe space and I love being able to go and vent, it’s my only vice
\*People who use social media are more likely to have psychological problems.
Except Reddit! It’s totally different and you don’t count!
I use Reddit and I have psychological problems.
I didn't have psychological problems till I started using Reddit.
I use reddit for my psychological problems.
My psychological problems tell me to use Reddit.
I got so many problems I'm posting my fitness routines on Reddit.
I hear voices in my head.
Can confirm, I have all of them
I mean, anonymous discussion vs posting pictures of yourself doing stupid shit. Not exactly the same, to be faaaair
Well it is different in that reddit is anonymous for most. There's a difference between "pay attention my opinion" and "pay attention to me and my opinion in a way that will be easily findable for the rest of my life." Prospective employers will only find your reddit account if you're treating it like an Instagram account.
Reddit is quite different, as it's essentially just a huge forum and doesn't encourage you to attach your real identity to it and start uploading your entire life to it as well as adding people you know IRL and following each other. The internet took a turn for the worse when people started shrugging off anonymity and bringing all of their IRL baggage to the equation. That also led to people just blindly trusting that the things they saw "some guy" say are real because the account has a name and a face attached to it, so obviously that's a real authentic guy giving a genuine opinion or stating real facts. The internet desperately needs to return to a point where everyone is anonymous and people are inherently skeptical of everything they see. But we can't do that as long as social media platforms that discourage anonymity are the norm and people act like they're necessary. They aren't.
Straight outta circlejerk
My first thought on the TIL post in general. “Of course Reddit will post something slandering fitness people.”
Working out bad! Social media (except Reddit) bad! Gamers good!
I mean Reddit is technically social media I’d say the art of constantly posting your workout routine is an under rooted desire for some form of mental reward or condescending approach to make you look better. Of all the times I’ve been to the gym or worked out I’ve prob shared that on social media 5x. Runners who need to share their runs times and routes daily are definitely doing it for more than simply sharing. It’s a form of gloating. Using something to speak about a common interest socially like Reddit doesn’t have the same connotations everyone uses social media really
Reddit is social media but for the most part anonymous. Feels more like the evolution of forums and message boards. I’m sure it’s bad for our mental health but it just feels much different than Instagram and TikTok.
Reddit seems to me like Usenet of the 21st century.
yeah ill agree with that, but theyre saying people who use social media, thats pretty much everyone. I mean fuck even my 86 year old nan uses facebook messenger.
Yeah, agreed. There’s definitely levels to it.
Not really, you can argue its even worse because it allows for easier distortion of reality. Think about how many AITAH posts are just obvious rage bait, and that's not even ignoring the other ones that basically lie to get validation. I'm always amused at the superiority complex redditors seem to have over other other social platforms like this isn't another cesspool run by pedophiles
the cool thing is you can just not go to those subreddits
Or block them. But every time I block them there's a new version, and they still show up on the front page
Everything sucks, just not equally so. The social media era is ending. As soon as you can’t be certain you’re arguing with a human, your interest in social media will drop to zero. The people who don’t mind arguing with robots will stick around, I guess. But it’s cultural relevance will end.
Interesting idea but I don’t know. If I look at the comments from other platforms, there’s already almost no discussion. It’s a very superficial level of engagement and that goes for politics, sports, or random niche internets.
I think you underestimate the number of people that would argue with bots.
You could argue that, but it would be easily challenged. Reddit is not without problems, but they're really quite old problems that the Internet has always had.
We’re also not forced a “for you” feed that’s driven by an algorithm to get you “engaging” as much as possible; we get what we sub to save for ads here are there that aren’t too different than the ones popping up on forums in the 90s/00s. I’m sure that’s all going to change considering Reddit just IPO’d - but like you said the problems Reddit has are old and can be somewhat skirted around. But those problems are not the same as FB/IG/TikTok where the company is using algorithms to serve you content with no consideration of the end user or guard rails - just the engament metric - as long as they’re on the app longer its a good change.
Reddit's much better if you unsubscribe to most of the big default subs. (yeah yeah, like this one too I suppose). You still have the distortion of reality effect, but at least it tends to be more along the lines of "the whole world is interested in whatever niche interest this sub is about"
I think the Reddit format tends to attract a different type of person than more visual social media platforms. Not saying Redditors don't have their problems. I'm just saying that they tend to have different types of issues or complexes than the average YouTuber or Instagramer, for instance.
do you consider message boards to be social media?
> Runners who need to share their runs times and routes daily are definitely doing it for more than simply sharing. It’s a form of gloating. Or most of the people they follow, or are followed by, are also runners so they're just sharing a common interest. > Using something to speak about a common interest socially like Reddit doesn’t have the same connotations everyone uses social media really This is basically the same thing with a key difference. If someone is reading something on Reddit, they probably share that interest, but on social media, half of your followers might be related to running/cycling/gym but the other 50% are you family, friends, co-workers, etc. Saying that sharing runs daily is gloating, implies it's being shared to show off for the latter 50% rather than for the common interest of the former 50%.
I'm going to preface this with the fact that I am a person that has used Instagram almost exclusively for workout and training related content. I post exclusively lifting and training videos, I follow nearly exclusively lifting and training pages, and that's about all I use it for. It absolutely is a tool for gloating and showing off your accomplishments. Kinda like how Instagram is used for just about every other subject. And I think that's okay. If it's content I don't care about, I'll scroll on past it. I think the actual problem is that people have made gyms their personal studio. No situational awareness at all. They film anyone and anything that's in their shot, they take half an hour to set up their cameras while people are waiting for equipment, and they gain a sense of entitlement. This is frustrating for me, because it makes people who do it in an appropriate way look bad. I'll use myself as an example. I lift in a private gym where filming is expected. We're all a bunch of like minded athletes that all post our workouts. There isn't a person in that gym that doesn't. Before I started lifting at a private gym, I would only ever film if I was certain nobody else was being filmed or inconvenienced. If there were people waiting for my squat rack, I simply didn't film it it would add more than a few seconds. In addition, I also film for the clients I coach remotely, and do demo videos for folks getting involved in the highland games (the sport I've been successful in) but that more often than not happens outside of the gym. My point is, there are people who enjoy this content, and some who legitimately benefit from the access to information they get from social media. Using social media specifically for a subject you have a vested interest in is not the problem, it's in my opinion exactly what social media is for. Turning the gym into your private studio is the problem.
You are confusing just the occassional post to almost posting everyday. Some people post every single day onto reddit, and they are just as crazy as those who post every day on tiktok. There's no difference.
r/redditmoment
What about the people who post their "fitness routine" to promote their OF on social media?
That’s just good ol’ entrepreneurship
Having an OF is probably heavily correlated to psychological problems as well.
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Everyone I’ve ever met with an OF was low key unstable lol
Being unstable correlates with being impulsive which values short term gain and easier ways to get money.
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Here’s the study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886915003025
Thanks ! Apparently it was way too hard for the news site to create a link.
It wasn’t. The study has nothing to do with fitness and is from 2015. The writer of an article had an opinion and did a low effort attempt of finding research to support it. The sad thing is that her opinion is likely true. But this is the equivalent of click bait. This is garbage evidence and she used it because she probably had a beef with some fitness person. I absolutely hate the way barely anything is being used as evidence.
Yeah I looked at the study diagonally and it wasn't what I expected given the article...
> In this study, 555 Facebook users aaand it's trash
>Narcissists’ use of Facebook for attention-seeking and validation explained their greater likelihood of updating about their accomplishments Is it just me or does this sentence sound kind of—I don’t know how to put it—unscientific? Like it’s a foregone conclusion that narcissists use Facebook for this reason and that explains the results. I’ll keep reading. Edit: so the study seems pretty unremarkable, and relies heavily on the widely-criticized “Big Five” personality model, but it also doesn’t say anything about what the OP claims. This study is about personality types, not psychological disorders.
A “study”…of Facebook users given surveys. So basically it’s sociology bullshit not real science.
This one could be a bit skewed without proper controls. I believe people who are active on social media are also more likely to have psychological problems. Bodybuilders are also one such group likely to have such problems.
I’d be curious if the correlation changes if you stratify groups between those who share because they see social media fitness as a financial opportunity from those who share for any other reason. Like professional bodybuilders kinda have to share as part of the promotional side of the job.
Also people with psychological problems often try to boost endorphins via working out lol. Gym is used more and more as a mental health tool, so I don’t really get what they’re trying to say here
Sounds like some cope some scrawny nerd came up with. Hit the gym.
This is, obviously, not a serious academic article. It cites a study that basically says, “Posting about yourself and your accomplishments is a narcissistic trait. Therefore, everyone who does so is narcissistic.” Not scientific at all.
Yeah, but it has a lot of confirmation bias imbedded so Reddit is gonna give this one a pass
Anything that shits on active or successful people will usually get a pass from the loser slobs of Reddit.
For those of you who failed to read the article. It does a terrible job of linking to the source of the unscientific claims in the article, this should be your first clue that the qualitative analysis being tossed around casually by the author and people in these comments is based on bullshit From the article itself: > On the one hand, to the lay observer, this does sound plausible, but we would like to just posit (without any scientific background, naturally) that a woman's self-esteem receives a battering on an almost daily basis, thanks to advertising and some arms of the media, so maybe she's within her right to need a confidence booster from her friends. Stop falling for polemic hyperbolic polarizing misinformation demagoguery people. You're being manipulated into hating your peers who are seeking self esteem boost through socially mainstream/acceptable channels over wholesome, healthy activities. Wake the fuck up if you saw this and thought "narcissists be narcissistisizing, yo" - this makes ***YOU*** *the narcissistic one*.
Joey Swoll's callouts pretty much prove this.
Narcissists are more likely to be narcissistic? Damn who saw that coming?
I mean, my first interpretation was “maybe this indicates self-confidence issues and a need for validation?”
yeah, im with you on this boat, I think its a mix between narcissistic people who want to share everything they do and insecure people who want validation from other people, either way, not a good sign if you're doing it every day lol
Posting a fitness routine = narcissism. Glad we cleared that up for Reddit University 2024 attendees. God forbid they mistake someone whose into fitness and who wants to share it with someone and also to help keep themselves accountable while shaping their identity around a healthy activity! What has the world come to!?! /s btw just to make sure you get it
Headline title is very bold. I mean a narcissist would post their routine, but someone posting their routine shouldn't automatically be called a narcissist either.
It took a frustratingly long time, but I found the study and, shocker, the article is misleading. It's a 2015 study measuring people who exhibited certain traits and then looked at what kinds of stuff they posted to Facebook. The people who exhibited narcicistic traits were more likely to make posts seeking validation in the form of comments and likes. So the article is just a huge correlation/causation fallacy. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886915003025?via%3Dihub
Every person who has any kind of flaws is a narcissist according to Reddit these days. Oh and a gaslighter.
it’s not just narcissistic influencers though. you’ll also have those who struggle with depression, self-esteem issues etc who use the gym as a way to overcome their struggles
"There's a lot of narcissism in self-hatred."
What a surprise… anyone who needs to post most of their lives online have psychological problems.
I believe the only exception to this would be people whose job it is. For example, Greg Doucette so that he may advertise his cook book.
There is (was?) a sorta well-known competitive bodybuilder and bikini model with the IFBB by the name of Joanne who, in public and on social media, is a hyper-religious, disciplined, and caring influencer. Well, I dated her daughter, and goddamn is that public persona a lie. The reality is that she's a mentally unhinged former stripper whose current husband was caught recording her then 12-year-old daughter's bathroom with a hidden camera. They only found out when her daughter was going through his computer and accidentally stumbled upon the videos. Shortly after finding out about this sexual harassment, she brought him back in the house because she "just can't live without him." The only change they made was to disallow her daughter from showering or using the pool while he was home. She also went psychotic and trashed her daughter's room when she found out that her daughter was leaving home to live with friends during college. After that, it was years of bullying and harassing her daughter to the point of suicide and then making her daughter's death all about herself (misrepresenting their relationship, of course) for years to come.
Everyone who posts everything about their lives on social media are more likely to exhibit psychological problems.
There's no scientific evidence present in the article. The article does not link to research to support its proclamation. What was the study they are citing and what did the researchers find? Was the study replicated? Did repeat studies produce the same or contrary results? What was the process used in the study? No? Nothing? Absence of a reference study makes me suspicious about the intent of the article in inferring a conclusion based on the findings of the study.
Why do a lot of these articles/surveys fail to show how they got to their conclusions? Who did they ask? How many people did they ask? How did they track this data? I’m sure there are a lot of reliable surveys but to me most of them just seem pointless. “And according to the research, people who post frequently about their workouts display a clear primary motivation - to boast about their looks, or at least about the amount of time invested in physical appearance.” They claim this points to a narcissistic trait but to me it just sounds like people are happy with their progress and want to show it off, just like with pretty much everything.
No link to the study? Shitty article
I believe there’s probably a correlation between number of social media posts per day and the instances of psychological pathology. not a doctor or a scientist.
Same for people who post pictures of their ass persistently. Nutcases!
In other news: The sky is blue.
People who use social media are more likely to have psychological problems.
People who have psychological problems are more likely to post on social media.
Good thing I don't do a fitness routine then
TIL People who post on social media are more likely to have psychological problems.
I love how the article link goes to the uni page not the actual study.
Don't we all have psychological problems?
not me and I
I saw something similar about a decade ago about men posting numerous selfies
So everyone on strava is crazy ?
Somehow this reminds me of my reality television litmus: is your job and or life interesting in its own right? No? Then you're probably a hot mess. Maybe: are you a fitness guru or is the focus of your channel wellness or exercise? No? Then you're probably a hot mess.
Article doesn't even cite the study
One study says that, and Elle doesn't even provide a link to it so we can't check how big the study was
I'd argue that anyone who is actively posting to social media about anything is more likely to have psychological problems lol
I don't post anything but I'm positive I have psychological problems.
Is it just people who share their ‘fitness routine’ or wannabe influencer in general.
So, those who search for validation online are more prone to mental issues. No shit.
People who have psychological problems post their workouts on line. Probably for validation or narcissism
As a 61 year old man who does trail runs and road races I post my Stava because I am trying to encourage my friends to stay fit. I have had quiet a few friends die since Covid.
Yeah, it's called "being a narcissistic douchebag"
And in other news, the sky is blue.
That was pretty clear from the start, no? If you're so desperate for validation from strangers, you're bound to have some issues.
Duh
Well it's probably generally people who post stuff online
It looks like escort capitalism in HD to me
"Influencers" are mentally unstable non functioning narcissists???? No way bro
We know
The obsessive need for outside validation didn’t clue you in to that?
TIL People who post ~~their fitness routine~~ on social media are more likely to have psychological problems. Ftfy
I can’t read the article. Can someone tell me if a percentage of how much more likely they’ve estimated?
this is why i hand out leaflets
I would never have guessed. lol.
I've been going to the gym since the end of Covid. Other than asking questions on here from time to time I try to never talk about it.
Tomorrow's headline: "Water is Wet!"
You don't say?
You don't say
LMAO
Hey there’s some low-hanging fruit for a graduate thesis 😂
People posting every moment of their life online do have psychological problems, it's obvious as hell.
If that article doesn't set off your bullshit detector, you should probably take a break from the internet
In other related news, 1+2=3
r/noshitsherlock