If they are specific about what "social media" they are talking about, I didn't see it. I feel like without naming names, the report and conclusion are frustratingly vague. All social media is not the same. YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and reddit are very different platforms with, I'm guessing, very different effects on teenage ( and adult ) psyches.
Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents
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Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents
#92Social media (and the attention economy) are worse for young brains than drugs. If you came up with a substance that caused young people by the millions to become totally addicted, cost them multiple hours per day, pushed them into depression and suicide, and contributed to inactivity, obesity, loss of attention span, and overall ennui, it would be banned almost immediately. Heck, if you proposed a tracking system th…
I recently saw a tweet that for once seemed insightful: "the internet did to boomers what boomers thought it would do to us", presumably posted by someone under the age of 25. Young people are vulnerable to social media, and your point still stands, but I am also under the impression that it has impacted previous generations to a far greater extent, breaking their link to reality altogether.
I'm 40, and grew up programming in my early teens, so I've seen the Web's entire arc. This social media stuff was fun for a time but it turned very dark, almost exactly in proportion to the money involved, like everything else on the Web, IMHO.
Also, the gamification of many things. Even HN karma. The thrill of watching the upvotes roll in! (even now...)
Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents
#93Is this similar to the damage done by video games? I suspect this is full of shit.
Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents
#94I’m immune to most social media but for me the saddest thing is losing respect for 70% of the people I know. Just seeing the ignorance they post and comments they make.
Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't order it by the type of interaction. "I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone." What makes social media so bad is that hundreds, thousands and more from all over the world can attack you. In-person thats seldom the case. On the other hand, you can more easily ignore online comments than real life…
Where did that quote come from? Excellent point. Someone once commented on how we can't go for a drive in the car without having some music on to distract us from thinking. I wonder if we don't want to be alone with our thoughts.
The quote is often attributed to Robin Williams but it's from his role as Lance in the 2009 film “World’s Greatest Dad” written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait.
Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents
#96Response from a person with actual expertise in the topic:
https://twitter.com/OrbenAmy/status/1354397497750335488
(tl;dr it's science by press release, has various methodological weaknesses and does not account for a likely bidirectional relationship of causation, i.e. a classic correlation/causation confusion)
Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
that's what I thought when I read the article. > One in three girls was unhappy with their personal appearance by the age of 14, compared with one in seven at the end of primary school. That comparison doesn't support the hypothesis. It should have been compared to teenagers from 10 years ago. Otherwise, you can't rule out the effect of growing up on the mental health if these girls.
I'm surprised its only one in three. In the 80s I would have guessed that at least half of 14 year old girls ( I was one ) were unhappy with their appearance.
I was a 14 year old girl in the 90s and I share your surprise its only one in three. I would guess the majority of my peers were unhappy with their appearance at that time based on my experience and observations.
I was one too. I (objectively) looked just fine but I thought I was a disfigured ghoul.
Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents
#98Imagine you are the chairman of Phillip Morris in 1995. You control one of the biggest companies in the world, absolutely full of cash. You also know that your product is just bad all around for everybody whether they use it or not. One of your corporate lawyers tells you that you need to immediately break yourself up, sell off all the components to foreign buyers, cease all operations in the United States, and cash out the company to the shareholders. You pass; this will be no big deal. The next three years are living hell, morning to night sitting in a courthouse listening to your customers detail how you destroyed their lives. At the end you get a $200B settlement against you, your company is dead, everybody hates you, and you are no longer welcome in any of your social circles. Was it worth it? If a company is required to do the best thing for the shareholders, then shouldn’t it require them to cash out at the zenith of their value? Otherwise if they are going to ride all the way down, how is the stock ever worth anything?
Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've always been a bit extreme on this but I more than ever believe that it's insane that we consider that leaving teenagers with unsupervised internet access is reasonable. Maybe I'm prude or naive but I remember vividly when I first saw a pornographic movie at like around 17. It really shook me at the time. I wasn't traumatized or anything but it made a strong impact on me. These days I expect that most teens exper…
Just wondering, how old are you? I'm 30, so myspace and Facebook showed up only once I was in high school, but everything you describe was still available on the web before social media. Shock sites were huge (goatse, tubgirl, etc), and I remember watching a beheading with a chainsaw by a Mexican cartel. And of course porn was around too. The difference with social media is the "keeping up with the Joneses" except no…
There's a difference between something being available somewhere on the Internet (when Internet access was 56K from a desktop computer featuring prominently in your family room) and having it shared with you specifically to your smartphone.
Re: Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents
#100Not a teen, but it's certainly damaged mine plenty. Granted, this is n=1 and I'm writing this ON a social media platform, of sorts.