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

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

181–190 of 689 posts

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

#181
post #141
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.

Teen suicides rose slower than every other cohort and had a lower base. https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/

The 15-24 range looks like it had the biggest increase compared to other cohorts in 2013-2017, and looks like it's in the top 3 overall from 2011-2020, at least from eyeballing this chart.

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

#182

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

Of course there are good faith arguments, you probably just don't agree with them.

The most convincing argument is that I don't want social media companies to have access to my ID. Remember, even websites like HN and Pornhub would need to verify your age with your ID.

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

#183
post #67

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…

The western model is built on patriarchy, they just continually import people from patriarchies to supply western work forces. Without patriarchy the western model would collapse because westerners aren't interested in creating a non-patriarchal model of society which might reduce their standards of living and force them to expend labour on things like childrearing.

It's an out of sight, out of mind patriarchy. The amish are so offensive partially because they genuinely are extreme, but also in part because they're self-sustaining so they can't hide and abstract away such cruelty. In any case, there's perhaps a middle path between the extremes of amish society and "Patriarchy for the poor" western society.

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

#184
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're looking at it in isolation because you are not privy to the kids' social circle. What the gp is describing is a social cost imposed on the non-participant kid. If repeated often, this will lower their status within their social circle and (much like chickens) the least popular kids become the default target for emotional abuse and bullying. If they withdraw form their social circle to cut their losses, then th…

It's easy to be dismissive of these ideas, but there is an extensive and rigorous literature on network topology and dynamics. Parenting through rigorous literature on network topology and dynamics? Arguing on the basis of your own developmental experience in which significantly different conditions obtained (eg the non-existence/availability of social media or the internet) is equivalent to just wishing the problem…

Ah, sarcasm.

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

#185
I think it's somewhat important to ask why this effect is more observable for girls than for boys, and Haidt does not seem to really reflect on that. Social media in and of itself is really just an accelerant for the particular set of social expectations we stack on girls and women around appearance and how that relates to self-worth. Boys have more capacity to transcend social media's focus on image and beauty by finding other ways to be valued as human beings. What does it say about our society that we are not equipping girls and women in the same way?

I'm a little confused about Haidt's pearl-clutching in this instance, when he has elsewhere argued against "coddling" and bugaboos like "intersectionality" and "identity politics". While there is certainly much to criticize in these areas, you would think one solution to this issue would be to advance a society in which women are valued equally to men. Reading between the lines of his body of work, it appears Haidt wants to return to a type of mid-century traditionalism, where children and young people are both protected and challenged by traditional adult authority figures (who are conveniently mostly people like him and his collaborators). I'm not so sure that's the direction we should be going in, but heavy-handedly cutting off the exploration at "social media as cause" certainly precludes any further analysis of an underlying dynamic.

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

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The ridiculous Amish model of being conservative with new technology and considering as a community if it has benefit to the society before introducing it? Inconceivable. If a new technology comes out, we need to adopt it in 0.1 seconds, or we'll be Stone Age caveman losers!

Are they just conservative though? Or paleoconservative? I.e. not 5-15 years behind current tech (okish), but more like a century (catastrophic)?

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

#187
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…

I think it's important to remember that high school is a critical time where a lot of people shift focus to their friend groups and their own reputation therein. Social Media changes the terrain, but the game is not that different. I remember back to my own high school experience and how my range of activities narrowed dramatically and there was a lot more focus on who's dating whom and what the cool kids are up to.

All of this is to say that most people outgrow this stage eventually. High school doesn't last forever.

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

#188
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…

[dead]

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

#189
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…

Some of this varies by the exact community and sect. But there are some good lessons in there too. Health-wise they are great, with some of the lowest costs, low chronic disease, and getting about double the recommended 10k steps per day. So we don't want to emulate them in every way, but we can take some lessons in certain areas. If you truly want resilient kids, that lifestyle will do it. Safety is another thing th…

> The parents weren't very concerned. I guess when you have 6 kids, it's like you have "spares".

As a parent of 4, having multiple children does tend to put things in perspective, but really what makes the biggest difference is probably that you can't physically helicopter all of them. So you have to give up that mindset. Not that you don't still need to keep an eye on them.

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

#190
post #61

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 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…

Creepy just means unattractive
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