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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

#221

Post by lumb63 »

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’m not a parent yet, but I worry the same thing. It’s also bigger than parenting. I know a lot of folks in their mid-late 20s who suffer from self esteem problems due to social media. In addition to the overt and obvious depression, there is a constant “not-good-enough”-ness and sense of nihilism that comes with having the best of the best in hobbies, the most social, most active, etc., people shoved down your throat day after day.

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

#222

Post by kornhole »

I assume the author is referring to the corporate social media full of advertising that makes people feel inferior so they buy what their selling to fill the hole in their sole that they created. There are very different kinds of social media that do not have advertising and dark patterns that do this to people of all ages. How can we encourage children to use these other than setting up firewalls that block them from the former?

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

#223

Post by autoexec »

oblio wrote: post #175
autoexec wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

You're assuming that the average Amish are great at school, which based on nost communities around the world, is most likely false. I.e. the average highschool graduate probably reads at 6th grade level but the average middle school graduate probably only reads at 5th or 4th grade level is a reasonable assumption.

You're right, it assumes that teaching to an 8th grade level means they've learned to read/write at an 8th grade level.

There's also an assumption that the Amish are more rigorousness in their teaching and that they would make sure kids learn to read at the level expected from them which may or may not actually be true.

Although a few minutes with Google didn't give me a lot of firm numbers, it did return results which suggest that the Amish may be more concerned with making sure their students are literate and that they care very much about ensuring their children are well educated as a matter of cultural identity. I didn't see anything to support the idea that they would perform worse than non-amish children at least. It also mentions that they're nearly all fluent in two languages which is a bonus.

> Yet illiteracy is virtually nonexistent in Amish settlements. Without television and computers, they read more than most Americans. They have a remarkable ability to learn new skills—even complicated ones—and value lifelong learning. Amish parents are heavily involved in their children’s education: they donate the land and building supplies for the school, visit regularly, attend school events, and take turns caring for the facilities.

> In the book Amish Society, John Hostetler wrote, “On several standardized tests, Amish children performed significantly higher in spelling, word usage, and arithmetic than a sample of pupils in rural public schools. They scored slightly above the national norm in these subjects in spite of small libraries, limited equipment, the absence of radio and television, and teachers who lacked college training.” (https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blo...)

> That is one thing that sets our culture apart from the Amish. The Amish grow up writing. And yes, I grew up writing too but in the Amish culture reading is one of the biggest things in their culture. And even as adults such as Eli and Anna in the article; they participate in circle letters with people that have the same background, interests, or anything else that the have in common.(https://edblogs.olemiss.edu/jmswartz/2020/09/04/literacy-and...)

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

#224

Post by chmod775 »

> Boys are doing badly too, but their rates of depression and anxiety are not as high, and their increases since 2011 are smaller.

Bullshit. These numbers are self reported and show exactly the opposite of reality. Boys aged 15-24 are about four times[0] more likely than girls to die by their own hands, so clearly relying on self reported cases of mental illness is not very helpful and is likely to shift focus away from those groups who most need help.

Everyone who asks for help should receive it, but don't forget to keep an eye on those who stay silent.

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/187496/death-rate-from-s...

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

#225

Post by welshwelsh »

shagie wrote: post #43
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…

While the generations are a bit dated - https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-... > Social media creates a world for Lucy where A) what everyone else is doing is very out in the open, B) most people present an inflated version of their own existence, and C) the people who chime in the most about their careers are usually those whose careers (or relationships) are going the best, while struggling…

I'm not convinced that any of that is bad.

>the people who chime in the most about their careers are those whose careers (and relationships) are going the best

As it should be. Only a very small minority of people have careers or relationships worth emulating, and they should be setting examples for everyone else to aspire to.

Lucy is upset because she knows that she can do better. She sees people who are no smarter and no better than her getting much more out of life, and she is rightfully disgusted with her mediocrity.

Personal anecdote- at one time I made 30k a year, and I actually thought that was good. I thought it was good because I made more than my friends.

Then I started hanging out on Blind and /r/cscareerquestions. I got a CS degree and a job paying $70k a year, but felt like a failure because everyone on Blind seems to make more. As soon as I could I hopped to a higher paying role, but still felt poor.

But I'm not complaining now. Peer pressure from social media pushed me to build a great career, even if it made me feel miserable and inadequate for a time.

Is it better to be happy and complacent? I don't think so.

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

#226

Post by NewEntryHN »

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…

And yet, this part is inconsistent with the part the headline comes from: they argue for causation because they asked individual random students to quit social media for 4 weeks, and saw an improvement of their mental health.

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

#227

Post by stuckinhell »

colinrand wrote: post #104

YMMV, but the thing that seems to work in my house (mid teen girl) is to actively be engaged with her social life and have the meta (not Meta) conversation about social media impact with her regularly. She will have to learn to deal with her reality and live with it on her own, but helping her have a set of tools to describe and analyze it is beneficial. Tools like being aware of how much time she spends on it, how o…

I have a daughter, I mostly agree. I like to remind people teenagers are not "little" adults, they lack full developed brains, and extremely susceptible to peer pressure.

I restrict my kids social media very tightly, and make sure they have lots of real world activities and real world influences.

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

#228

Post by ravenstine »

lsy wrote: post #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 fi…

Reflecting on that question means saying things that many people would find offensive. It's a lost cause to suggest that corporations implicitly understand something innate about female psychology and are taking advantage of it, and that's exactly why social media wins; the current politics you mentioned are a protective layer against taking meaningful action against the machine. If society was as concerned about the online activity of boys (news flash, your kid is likely watching hardcore porn every day), action would be more swift because there's no political manifold to dissuade elders from trying to save boys. This analogy is of course imperfect because parents are evidently not as concerned about boys.

> you would think one solution to this issue would be to advance a society in which women are valued equally to men.

There's no reason to believe such a society can exist any more than believing it's possible for a thing to be both dry and wet at the same time. It's dubious whether such a society is even desirable, and even if it is, it's been debated since time immemorial and isn't a practical way to address real world issues. You might as well ask why the world can't be more like Star Trek.

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

#229

Post by Zetice »

eastbound wrote: post #203
lsy wrote: post #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 fi…

> Boys have more capacity to transcend social media's focus on image and beauty by finding other ways to be valued as human beings. Before absconding boys from harm, maybe we should check twice on their health. They are often forgotten or their difficulties brushed off in studies. How are addictions progressing? Obesity maybe? Why are they all on 9Gag? Let’s check their level of racism and misogyny, it might be a pro…

Boys are for sure not exempt from harm, but the harm seems to be as a result of equity: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3868557-most-yo...

> “Today in America, women expect more from men,” Levant said, “and unfortunately, so many men don’t have more to give.”

Powerful stuff.

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

#230

Post by waboremo »

cassac wrote: post #121
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.

Or, instead of creating hyper rebellious kids who seek to go against your strong absolute rules - talk to them. Get them bored of social media. Explain what's really going on, what different forms of social media exist, how to talk to your friends directly in a safe way rather than go through the drudge of Instagram. What limits should exist when using any of these communication platforms. They'll understand.

Often we want to protect our family through rigid rules, but all that does is make them want to pull away more.

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