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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

#121

Post by cassac »

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…

Part of it is never letting them start early in the first place. Stay strong and don’t give in. The old saying “If they were your real friends they wouldn’t care…” is more true than it is cliche. Try to make them understand that.

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

#122

Post by uoaei »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #108
AussieWog93 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in the post-#metoo era just won't approach a girl at a bar the way they used to. Bars were not a good place to find dates decades ago either. That’s more of a tired movie trope. The bigger issue is that people just don’t seem to get out and do things as much as they did in the time before we all had unlimited entertainment options at our fingertips from the comfort of home. As soon as you do break the cycle an…

Local meetups and hobbyist clubs of various sorts are full of interesting people who are already interested in some of the same things that you are. This brings down a huge barrier of getting to know someone: you've broken the ice merely by having an interest in a certain subject.

This is why people advocate to have hobbies (i.e., not-monetized ways to spend your time) outside of work, or at the very least a "third place" where you can meet new people in low-friction ways.

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

#123

Post by timst4 »

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…

Middle School educator here. I can assure you that your daughters will not be alone when it comes to a moratorium on social media. However, the girls they may very well want to be friends with may be very much into social media and group chats. My advice is to be firm but also take steps to create social opportunities for your daughters. I have a 12yo and I host board game nights with amazing snack trays. I help her to play video games socially using air console.

You have to play defense. These apps are deleterious to your daughters self worth. I’ve seen too many hospitalizations and suicides to believe otherwise. But you also have to play offense. They will need guidance on how to be social in a world coopted by manipulation and deceit. Parenting these days is challenging but it’s possible to raise girls who thrive without phones.

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

#124

Post by staticman2 »

return_to_monke wrote: post #82

my only nitpick is - if social media were truly a drug, as some suggest, studies asking participants to reduce time on it wouldn't work because of addiction. how do we counter this?

Not all drugs are addictive and some are more addictive than others.

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

#125

Post by fknorangesite »

prepend wrote: post #93
Loughla wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Chi…

How’s their teenage girl depression stats?

Given the rates of child sexual assault, probably not great.

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

#127

Post by Karrot_Kream »

I'm not convinced how any of this shows causation. Probably the strongest point in this substack pointing to causation is the use of longitudinal studies. Haidt is using a meta-analysis of long-term specific (as opposed to short term studies which display no effect, there's merit here as a longer longitudinal study is probably better) longitudinal studies to make this point, so essentially saying that a meta-analysis of long-term longitudinal studies is required to show that causation can be established; this is all indirect. I still think that to prove this point we need to make an experiment that actually attempts to show causation.

I'm also not sure if it's worth discussing this on HN because this topic tends to attract commenters of one opinion, but I also think it's worth making opposition known. I fully expect this opinion to be unpopular.

EDIT: Indeed, doing a shallow dive into the referenced longitudinal study links shows that none of them establish any form of control. One of the studies linked's abstract (I don't have access to the full paper) has an intervention model but doesn't split the initial cohort in order to establish the causal effect.

N.B. I am aware that in social science it's hard to find large enough cohort sizes to establish effects and that splitting a cohort to establish causality could destroy the statistical power of the study altogether.

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

#128

Post by ceedan »

ThalesX wrote: post #99

My little sister just started high school and in less than a semester is unrecognizable. There is no more her in her day to day life, everything is curated to perfection. There are no more hobbies, no more interestes, no more curiosities, there is just "me". I was so confident in her ability to withstand the impact of social media, due to her education, but ultimately I was just shocked at how fast the change was. I…

Damn that hurt to read. That's such a shame

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

#129

Post by Barrin92 »

The reality of it is that social media, and our use of technology in general, isn't actually governed by any value system. Be it truth, human flourishing, welfare, health, what have you. We're completely on autopilot and are conditioned to accept all of it as inevitable.

If we had an actual telos to our use of technology work like this by Haidt would be in the evening news and it'd inform decisions at every level. From parents keeping their kids away from harmful social media, to communities and institutions refusing to use these platforms for anything, to governments regulating the worst aspects of it.

We're terminally screwed if the trend of letting technology (and profit maximizing firms) control design of social media rather than the other way around.

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

#130

Post by asah »

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

lol, the Amish are not competitive on the world stage and if left to run the country, we'd have actually been invaded a dozen times already - or at the least, we'd be a vassal state.

opting out of "the nonsense" is fun to think about, but not when competing countries have robotic factories.

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