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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

#61

Post by itake »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #33
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…

Anecdotal, but dating apps sure helped crush the self-esteem of my sister. She still gets on them occasionally, because there's no alternative now. Guys in the post-#metoo era just won't approach a girl at a bar the way they used to.

Guys also just don't want to go to bars. Even in my 20s, "going out" always felt like a chore that I had to do to find a partner.

Approaching girls in public has high social consequences. I've read enough reddit [0][1][2] or seen enough news articles about people banned from businesses because a guy was seen as creepy.

Men need to learn what is ok and not ok when communicating with women. This is already an challenge because what is ok with one woman is not ok with another. Add in the shifting society view of what is appropriate turns it into an impossible task.

It just seems safer to do nothing and wait for the girl to make the first move.

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

#62

Post by bavila »

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #41
flerchin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The Amish kinda slap, they didn't invent addictive social media, put a game show host in charge of nuclear weapons, or have a bunch of corporations change their icons to rainbow icons while still being shitty. They literally realized 300 years ago that they should opt out of the nonsense America descended into

> The Amish kinda slap

For anyone else who was confused by this: https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/slap/

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

#63

Post by TheGeminon »

IncRnd wrote: post #34
largepeepee wrote: post #23

"It also creates a trap—a collective action problem—for girls and for parents. Each girl might be worse off quitting Instagram even though all girls would be better off if everyone quit." I like this part, it is quite clear quitting social media alone is probably even worse and self-isolating than not taking part. The solution would be to address it on a societal level, but that requires pretty strong societal/politi…

No. It's not "quite clear" that "quitting social media alone is probably even worse and self-isolating than not taking part." It's clear from my experience as a parent, and from the experience of many others, that that isn't an issue. The child may whine and throw a tantrum, but that's not a reason to let the child be the parent.

If all of their friends are socializing mostly, or exclusively, on social media then it could definitely be worse. They could easily miss out on in-person social interactions that are planned on social media as well, or just feel out of the loop when interacting in person since their friend group is discussing something they shared online earlier.

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

#64

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

rootusrootus wrote: post #35
testTED wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I feel similarly to seeing parenting advice from people who clearly aren't parents.

Funny thing is, I'm not a parent and have no plans to be one. Just seems kinda obvious to me.

Edit: I guess I didn't word this very well. Please consider this comment in the context of my earlier one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34901931.

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

#65

Post by deafpolygon »

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #41
flerchin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The Amish kinda slap, they didn't invent addictive social media, put a game show host in charge of nuclear weapons, or have a bunch of corporations change their icons to rainbow icons while still being shitty. They literally realized 300 years ago that they should opt out of the nonsense America descended into

That's kind of glossing over the nonsense they did opt into.

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

#66

Post by ericlewis »

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…

I have witnessed the same with my wife, we only have one girl.. the only thing I have imagined could work is keeping her busy and teaching her how to be attracted to decent communities that may not necessarily be who she goes to school with.

edit: but I have literally no clue what I am going to do, I have like another 5 years or so.

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

#67

Post by Loughla »

SQueeeeeL wrote: post #41
flerchin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The Amish kinda slap, they didn't invent addictive social media, put a game show host in charge of nuclear weapons, or have a bunch of corporations change their icons to rainbow icons while still being shitty. They literally realized 300 years ago that they should opt out of the nonsense America descended into

I know that's meant to be funny, but the Amish community is a nightmare, from the outside looking in, very closely. I live in an area where there is a large Amish community; they outnumber "English" about 4:1.

Patriarchy in all decisions. The old men make choices for families based on what they know is best, and you follow that rule, regardless of your own views. Women are not allowed a voice in formal decisions. Children are a tradable commodity. If you upset an elder, your life is over.

You're raised speaking German first, so that you can "learn your heritage" (read: always feel the divide between yourself and the rest of the country). You get up to an 8th grade education and nothing more. Only if it doesn't interfere with your chores. If you are sent off to college for whatever reason (my neighbor was a college educated Amish; he was the legal representative for the community) they treat you like an outsider. You are not allowed a voice in community votes, if they have them. You get the scraps. If you start a business, and someone else wants to start the same thing, you give it over to them, no questions asked.

God forbid you disagree with the elders. Imagine being in your 30's, with just an 8th grade education, and your entire community, family, and support system turns their back on you and yours. You're screwed.

If the bishop believes another community could use your skills, or doesn't like your family, you have to move, possibly hundreds of miles. That's after selling everything you own, usually at a loss. But that doesn't matter, because the community itself and the church actually own everything, you are just renting your own business and/or home from the church.

Absolute rule by the male elders. Lies and buried secrets. That's the way of the Amish. But they get a pass, because their beards and hats look funny.

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

#68

Post by austinl »

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…

I once sat next to a dean of private school on a plane—she mentioned that the ~100 parents that sent their children to the school signed an agreement that they would restrict their children's access to social media until 9th grade.

I have no idea how well it was adhered to or enforced, but it surprised me that the parents of the school and the dean were trying to collectively organize action around this issue to prevent the problems described above. I had never heard of that before.

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

#69

Post by TheGeminon »

bavila wrote: post #62
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Amish kinda slap, they didn't invent addictive social media, put a game show host in charge of nuclear weapons, or have a bunch of corporations change their icons to rainbow icons while still being shitty. They literally realized 300 years ago that they should opt out of the nonsense America descended into

> The Amish kinda slap For anyone else who was confused by this: https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/slap/

Slap means really good in this context, e.g. "this song really slaps".

This makes me want to make a generational/chronological slang chart now

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

#70

Post by igel-hedgehog »

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.

See Hans-Georg Moeller's response to Jonathan Haidt Re: Social Media and Suicide https://youtu.be/QNEep8lgoiY ; https://wiki.ralfbarkow.ch/view/social-media/view/social-med...
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