Ana and Mia: How Eating Disorders Evolved Online
09/03/14 • 23 min
Pro Ana. My friend Mia. Thinspiration. If you know these terms, you are familiar with one of the dark corners of the internet where vulnerable people go to find support in making bad life decisions.
These are pro-eating disorder communities that teach women how to be better at starving themselves. A language emerged to bypass bans and filters, replacing trigger words like anorexia and bulimia, with friendly phrases like: “my friends Ana and Mia.” Bone thin bodies, grim weight statistics, and frightening calorie counts are posted as goals and achievements, hashtagged #thinspiration.
"When you are starving you don't feel emotion. So I hadn’t felt a lot in a while."
These communities have existed as long as the internet, but 25 years after the start of the web, digital life has its tentacles around us in a different way. The threat has matured. Now, if you are trying to recover from an eating disorder, temptation is just a Tweet or Instagram away. And when a single picture of bony arm or a post about a celebrity who only weighs 100 pounds can mess with your recovery, it’s not just the internet that’s a dangerous place. It’s your whole world.
This week on the podcast, the story of how a lonely young girl used the internet to get better at starving herself for over a decade without even her family finding out. And then, the online moment that changed her course to recovery.
In this episode:- Joanna Kay opens up about growing up with anorexia alongside an ever evolving online threat. Sharon Hodgson remembers the dark days of running a Pro-Ana site for anorexics. danah boyd tells us why banning these sites -- as Italy has tried to do -- is a fools errand. Ideas for what could help girls like Joanna.
- Joanna Kay's wonderfully brave personal recovery blog: Middle Ground Musings. National Eating Disorder Association. You can call them at1–800–931–2237 or chat with them online. National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. Sharon Hodgson's recovery site, We Bite Back. Consider talking anonymously with a trained active listener at 7 Cups. If you are in a crisis, there are trained volunteers waiting to counsel you at www.imalive.org.
If you found this radio program helpful or intriguing why not share it with someone you know and subscribe to New Tech City on iTunes or via RSS. It just takes a second.
Pro Ana. My friend Mia. Thinspiration. If you know these terms, you are familiar with one of the dark corners of the internet where vulnerable people go to find support in making bad life decisions.
These are pro-eating disorder communities that teach women how to be better at starving themselves. A language emerged to bypass bans and filters, replacing trigger words like anorexia and bulimia, with friendly phrases like: “my friends Ana and Mia.” Bone thin bodies, grim weight statistics, and frightening calorie counts are posted as goals and achievements, hashtagged #thinspiration.
"When you are starving you don't feel emotion. So I hadn’t felt a lot in a while."
These communities have existed as long as the internet, but 25 years after the start of the web, digital life has its tentacles around us in a different way. The threat has matured. Now, if you are trying to recover from an eating disorder, temptation is just a Tweet or Instagram away. And when a single picture of bony arm or a post about a celebrity who only weighs 100 pounds can mess with your recovery, it’s not just the internet that’s a dangerous place. It’s your whole world.
This week on the podcast, the story of how a lonely young girl used the internet to get better at starving herself for over a decade without even her family finding out. And then, the online moment that changed her course to recovery.
In this episode:- Joanna Kay opens up about growing up with anorexia alongside an ever evolving online threat. Sharon Hodgson remembers the dark days of running a Pro-Ana site for anorexics. danah boyd tells us why banning these sites -- as Italy has tried to do -- is a fools errand. Ideas for what could help girls like Joanna.
- Joanna Kay's wonderfully brave personal recovery blog: Middle Ground Musings. National Eating Disorder Association. You can call them at1–800–931–2237 or chat with them online. National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. Sharon Hodgson's recovery site, We Bite Back. Consider talking anonymously with a trained active listener at 7 Cups. If you are in a crisis, there are trained volunteers waiting to counsel you at www.imalive.org.
If you found this radio program helpful or intriguing why not share it with someone you know and subscribe to New Tech City on iTunes or via RSS. It just takes a second.
Previous Episode
How to Be Smarter than Facebook
Habits are powerful. Tech companies know that. It's no accident we reach for our phones 150 times a day and spend more time scrolling through Facebook than caring for our pets.
"Our brain loves to latch on to rewards that arrive quickly and Facebook has taught us to expect novelty after novelty," says author Charles Duhigg. "Our brain becomes trained at the pace of rewards, and then begins to crave that pace."
But if you are wise to the tech companies' tactics, you can take control of your own habits. Charles Duhigg and New Tech City are here to help this week.
"These habits are powerful only when you are not aware of them. As soon as you make deliberate choices, the habit is delicate and falls apart."
Duhigg wrote The Power of Habit: How We Do What We Do in Life and Business in 2012. It explains how habits are formed and altered and often manipulated. But his bestseller doesn't include much about technology even though Duhigg knows the tech sector pretty well -- so much so he won a Pulitzer Prize reporting on it.
So in this episode of New Tech City, Duhigg updates his habit thesis to address the clever and devious advances in addictive tech that have come out in the past two years.
"If you decide you want to read something deep and meaningful, then your brain will actually begin assigning more reward salience to a New Yorker article and less to Facebook," Duhigg says. "But you have to make a deliberate choice."
In this episode:- Why Uber and Seamless are so satisfying. Why Facebook makes you scroll down and down. What the bevy of new fitness tracking apps are really offering as a reward. What needs to happen for society at large to get smarter about tech habits.
Next Episode
The View from Inside the Glass Cube
Intimate, exhausting, stressful, and satisfying... working in the Apple Store is far from an ordinary retail job. Especially this week. With Apple-mania sweeping the tech world following the announcement of the new iPhone 6 and a slick new Apple Watch, New Tech City is looking past the hot gadgets and straight at the people sweating away in the glass cube: Apple Store employees.
"We don't have to sell anything... We could put up a vending machine and it would sell itself."
Despite a strict Apple policy against talking to media, even after quitting, four former "specialists" tell us what they think of all the hype and of the people lining up for weeks outside the doors. We've got horror stories, confessions of Apple love, and tips for navigating a product release from the experts. Hint: you don't need to wait in line.
Quotes from this episode:
On the emotional toll: "I found myself counseling or consoling people twice my age in a way I never thought I would."
On how to be good at the job: “When someone comes to you in tears, you just have to be a human.”
On getting the job: "I had to do four interviews. By the 4th one I was ready to tell them to stick it."
On how customers treat them: "If you go to an Apple store, just be nice. Please. That’s it."
On the joys: "We couldn’t wait to help people... the most rewarding part of our job was getting to work one to one with people."
On the culture: "When you start working at Apple you are just immediately indoctrinated to Apple culture."
If you like this episode why not share it with someone you know & subscribe to New Tech City on iTunes or via RSS. It just takes a second.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/note-to-self-37333/ana-and-mia-how-eating-disorders-evolved-online-29558017"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to ana and mia: how eating disorders evolved online on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy