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Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

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Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#11

Post by barbazoo »

warner25 wrote: post #2

I'm still reading it, but this is great so far. As a father to four little girls, though, it makes me feel really defeated. I can already see that social media has eroded my wife's mental health. I just don't know what to do in the next few years when our girls approach the age when everyone else will get an iPhone and have an Instagram account. I want to say no, but that leads to many other issues, including what th…

It must be frustrating to see this problem approaching and not knowing what to do. I wonder if at some point the only way out is to radically change one's family's lifestyle. Maybe homeschooling, very limited technology at home, living in a community with like-minded people, something like that?

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#12

Post by [deleted] »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #9

I wonder if online dating tends to lead to similar impacts to mental health for some groups of people as social media does to teen girls. Just like in Haidt's examples, it's impersonal, phone-based, leading to constant social comparison, feelings of rejection, ostracism and ghosting. I wouldn't be shocked if a few years from now research came out showing that it has similar effects to adults, but they're just better…

[deleted]

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#13

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #5
warner25 wrote: post #2

I'm still reading it, but this is great so far. As a father to four little girls, though, it makes me feel really defeated. I can already see that social media has eroded my wife's mental health. I just don't know what to do in the next few years when our girls approach the age when everyone else will get an iPhone and have an Instagram account. I want to say no, but that leads to many other issues, including what th…

It’s ok for a 12yo to be out of the loop for a few hours. They see their friends every day at school.

"Oh my god, did you see what Stacy posted last night!"

But your daughter missed it because "you didn't let her have an Instagram account!" It seems to me that such worries are well-founded. At best, she made the decision herself and still feels the pain of it.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#14

Post by acedTrex »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #5
warner25 wrote: post #2

I'm still reading it, but this is great so far. As a father to four little girls, though, it makes me feel really defeated. I can already see that social media has eroded my wife's mental health. I just don't know what to do in the next few years when our girls approach the age when everyone else will get an iPhone and have an Instagram account. I want to say no, but that leads to many other issues, including what th…

It’s ok for a 12yo to be out of the loop for a few hours. They see their friends every day at school.

But then they are out of loop in the in person discussions that are predominantly focused on the happenings of whatever is on instagram at that time

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#15

Post by mulmen »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #5
warner25 wrote: post #2

I'm still reading it, but this is great so far. As a father to four little girls, though, it makes me feel really defeated. I can already see that social media has eroded my wife's mental health. I just don't know what to do in the next few years when our girls approach the age when everyone else will get an iPhone and have an Instagram account. I want to say no, but that leads to many other issues, including what th…

It’s ok for a 12yo to be out of the loop for a few hours. They see their friends every day at school.

Do they? Is social media being used in morning classes to plan lunch? Will a socially isolated student even have friends? I haven't been in school for many years so I don't know the social dynamic but it isn't hard to imagine.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#16

Post by IncRnd »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #13
mixmastamyk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s ok for a 12yo to be out of the loop for a few hours. They see their friends every day at school.

"Oh my god, did you see what Stacy posted last night!" But your daughter missed it because " you didn't let her have an Instagram account!" It seems to me that such worries are well-founded. At best, she made the decision herself and still feels the pain of it.

That's letting kids parent themselves.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#17

Post by testTED »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #13
mixmastamyk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s ok for a 12yo to be out of the loop for a few hours. They see their friends every day at school.

"Oh my god, did you see what Stacy posted last night!" But your daughter missed it because " you didn't let her have an Instagram account!" It seems to me that such worries are well-founded. At best, she made the decision herself and still feels the pain of it.

[flagged]

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#18

Post by api »

rco8786 wrote: post #4
DevKoala wrote: post #3

I wasn’t aware that there is a media campaign to discredit this finding. Teen suicides exploded in growth YoY the moment smartphones became cheap enough around 2009.

Remember the pro-cigarette media campaigning of the 90s and 00s?

I've been calling social media companies "the tobacco companies of the mind" for quite a while.

The effects are most obvious with teens but I see this stuff as bad all around. Social media algorithms have really driven today's insane political polarization, and there's lots of examples of adults having their brains sucked out by social media rabbit holes.

Here's one pile of examples:

https://www.reddit.com/r/QAnonCasualties/

It seems pretty obvious to me at this point that if you connect a bunch of people together and then artificially prioritize content to maximize engagement, the result is unbelievably toxic.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#19

Post by flerchin »

barbazoo wrote: post #11
warner25 wrote: post #2

I'm still reading it, but this is great so far. As a father to four little girls, though, it makes me feel really defeated. I can already see that social media has eroded my wife's mental health. I just don't know what to do in the next few years when our girls approach the age when everyone else will get an iPhone and have an Instagram account. I want to say no, but that leads to many other issues, including what th…

It must be frustrating to see this problem approaching and not knowing what to do. I wonder if at some point the only way out is to radically change one's family's lifestyle. Maybe homeschooling, very limited technology at home, living in a community with like-minded people, something like that?

Let's find a solution that does not involve expanding the Amish model.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#20

Post by Aloha »

I have a generalized view of social media - Humanity has not yet evolved adequate social and cultural defenses for the ability for every Tom, Dick and Harry sitting on their sofa to reach an audience of millions in real time.

One the rumor mill went from days or weeks to real time, once the ability to present a.. diorama of life to a large online audience became commonplace - it in my opinion breaks a bunch of cultural and social factors in human life.

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