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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

#231

Post by lll-o-lll »

timst4 wrote: post #123
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…

Thanks a ton for this. As a father of a pre-teen daughter who begs for a smartphone every day, I’ve been anxious about how I’m going to deal with this situation. I’d only been thinking in terms of defence, and this article had me really worried. Planning for how to create the social opportunities is just as important. Defence and Offence. I really like it!

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

#232

Post by stuckinhell »

chmod775 wrote: post #224

> 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…

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

#233

Post by deely3 »

dustedcodes wrote: post #139

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

- During use of social media webcamera should be turned on and competent goverment agent should check video feed real time to ensure that there no underage kids near and to ensure that user that use social media is the same that registered.

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

#234

Post by somethoughts »

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)

I think free range parenting is great in theory and/or if you are writing a book on free range parenting and have dedicated your life to understanding how to do it properly.

For the rest of us - particularly for dual income parents with teenagers who no longer really "play" - there are organized after school activities.

Its really about odds. You won't get outlier results like Bill Gates or but on the flip side you won't get a teenager you have to bail out of jail or a teenager pranking people for Tiktok views. You'll get a decent young adult that can earn a decent living and live independently and confidently.

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

#235

Post by watwut »

mrpopo wrote: post #87

I don't necessarily disagree with the conclusion, but the dismissal of other factors is insufficient: > Why did a measure of loneliness at school go up around the world only after 2012, as the global economy got better and better? The economy didn't get better for everyone, in fact inequality rose starkly; this might be a correlating factor. > It’s not because of the 9/11 attacks, wars in the middle east, or school s…

Raising sexual harassment and rape rates can be contributing factor too. The boys commit more of those last years.

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

#236

Post by [deleted] »

autoexec wrote: post #164
samstave wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the Father of Three girls ; I propose a screen-age limit. Just like the drinking limit, and I think that certain sites should have a limit of 10 years old. Only educational sites and videos should be available to anyone under 10. I KNOW this is a horrendously hard problem to solve - but kids should EARN sceen time by 'playing outside time' or something. Kids born to cities are fucked. kids born to dense 'no-nature…

> Only educational sites and videos should be available to anyone under 10. I don't think you could enforce this anyway, but it's also a terrible idea. I can't imagine what my life would have been like if my local library or bookseller felt like you do about the internet and I was trapped reading fiction way below by level. The solution to the problem isn't censorship and holding inquisitive children back, it's paren…

[deleted]

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

#237

Post by Zetice »

stuckinhell wrote: post #227
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.

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

#238

Post by dilznoofus »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #169
mcbuilder wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And at 9th grade it's a free for all? Looking back the high school years would have been the worst for my own self esteem, angst, etc. Glad none of it was recorded. :)

Maybe, but middle school is often thought to be the worst. Kids are so young at that age but also smart enough to be exposed to all kinds of things.

As undeveloped mentally as highschoolers are, they have years more development more than middleschoolers

Middleschoolers are suddenly blasted with hormones, and are basically accelerating at breakneck speed. Everyone's body is changing wildly, you're thinking and feeling new things every day, and it's all a total mindfuck.

By highschool, the hypernovelty has worn off. Yes, they're still developing and figuring things out, but it's not quite as much of the surreal existential body-horror that middleschool is.

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

#239

Post by bcrl »

Adraghast wrote: post #210
mcbuilder wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And at 9th grade it's a free for all? Looking back the high school years would have been the worst for my own self esteem, angst, etc. Glad none of it was recorded. :)

Agreed, but what’s the alternative though? Just going full Amish on them until they’re 18? 25? Look at all the Baby Boomers and older Gen X’ers that got on the Internet in the past ten years and instantly had their brains rotted despite decades of life experience. Should there be some kind of emotional intelligence test everyone has to pass to earn their internet license? This is why I think that taking steps to keep…

Being a GenXer, my friends and I have regular contact outside of social media because we already had those habits ingrained in us before the current crop of social media platforms ever existed. I can't imagine being a teenager today having to deal with everyone in high school being on the same social media platforms and dealing with the pressure to fit in. We had cliques for good reason.

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

#240

Post by afavour »

chmod775 wrote: post #224

> 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…

I'm not writing off what you're saying (I agree that young men are suffering and less likely to admit as much) but you are equating mental illness and suicide. I think it's important to note that it is possible to be depressed and anxious without being suicidal.

It's quite possible that young men are less likely to be depressed but that those who are depressed are more likely to turn to suicide. If that were the case it would be a very important distinction to make.

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