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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

#131

Post by autoexec »

Loughla wrote: post #67
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

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…

> You get up to an 8th grade education and nothing more...Imagine being in your 30's, with just an 8th grade education

This at least would be a massive improvement for most people in the US who only read at a 6th grade level and have a comparable level of skill in math and science.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/

https://people.com/parents/most-parents-math-and-science-kno...

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

#132

Post by oblio »

andrewflnr wrote: post #118
somethoughts wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One strategy that should help is to load them up on extracurriculars. Keep them busy with extra math tutoring (russian school of math, kumon, etc.) and physically active in a healthy way with enough sleep (swimming, track, soccer). That way there is not a lot of dwell time to be depressed about missing out on stuff. Also taking away privileges due to not passing grades, not keeping up with math tutoring, etc. is a gr…

So much for the "play based childhood", then. (And no, of course assigned sports don't count)

Is he wrong though? If the other kids aren't really playing, what's the point?

Play for the sake of playing toxic social media social games?

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

#133

Post by danielheath »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #64
rootusrootus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

"For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong."

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

#134

Post by cm2012 »

I am really doubtful. Everyone forgets that suicide and mental health issues are up the most for boomers, and they use social media the least as a cohort (yes, they use it less, even with FB boomer memes).

I'm at -3 right now but look at the data yourself: https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/, scroll down to suicide rates by age range.

And yes I think suicide deaths is the best measure of mental illness since it has the most life impact and is the least prone to measurement/diagnosis error and changes,

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

#137

Post by [deleted] »

somethoughts wrote: post #112
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…

One strategy that should help is to load them up on extracurriculars. Keep them busy with extra math tutoring (russian school of math, kumon, etc.) and physically active in a healthy way with enough sleep (swimming, track, soccer). That way there is not a lot of dwell time to be depressed about missing out on stuff. Also taking away privileges due to not passing grades, not keeping up with math tutoring, etc. is a gr…

[deleted]

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

#138

Post by xbar »

anigbrowl wrote: post #26
BulgarianIdiot wrote: post #8

The article promises evidence, but it starts by repeating the premise half a dozen times, then offering correlations and loose theories. If there was evidence in there, I missed it. Maybe there was. But even if there was this was a badly formatted article. Why can't people succinctly describe their thesis and then have a nice outline for the fine details on the proof? Is this not something we learn at uni, or even hi…

I think he's trying to simplify it for a general audience, vs putting out an academic paper that might be discussed and nodded over, only to be misrepresented or over-simplified in health/science reporting and largely ignored. I don't fully agree with his argument and have said so before (briefly, I think it overlooks other major contextual factors like increasing international violence and political polarization tha…

I am completely convinced that international violence does not now, nor has it ever, caused much depression in US-based 12-year-old girls. Further, I find the notion that it is was an increasing trend from 2010 to 2022 compared with 2001 to 2010 is maximally revisionist.

Same for political polarization (sidebar: the notion that political polarization is an "other...factor" outside of social media seems poorly considered.)

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

#139

Post by dustedcodes »

I keep saying it every time and there are no good faith arguments to not do it, what we need is:

- Make social media illegal to underage kids, just like tobacco or alcohol

- Enforcement through ID verification of every user (would solve the bot problem as well)

- Jail terms for executives of social media companies who fail to enforce these rules and protect children from harmful content

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

#140

Post by e40 »

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…

You've hit on the conundrum. Damned if you do join the social network (for the known reasons) and damned if you don't (isolation from friends).

Until a major of parents remove access, this will always be the problem.

Btw, I had the same issue with games and my son. I could not let him play, but then he wouldn't have had access to the sole socialization his peer group had. Both decisions were bad, but one was worse. Letting him play video games was the least bad choice. Interestingly, we've had discussions about this, now that he's an adult and (I believe) he agrees with this analysis.

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