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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

#351

Post by oblib »

I have been telling friends and family that they need to focus on things close to home and not worry or get all red in the face about stuff they see on the internet and "News". That they need to compartmentalize that stuff and keep in context.

I learned this lesson back around the early 80s. When I got off work I'd stop and grab some food and then go home and watch the "News". The station I watched started off with local Los Angeles and State news for a 1/2 hour, then a 1/2 hour of National News, then another of World News.

The station was a predecessor to "FOX News" and was purchased by FOX just a few years later. They focused almost entirely on negative news, car crashes, murders, rapes, robberies, etc. So by the end of 1.5 hours I had consumed most all the major tragedies for the entire planet, and I was depressed AF.

I finally realized that it was consuming all that "bad news" was the cause of that because days when I didn't consume it I felt fine.

That was just 1.5 hours a day, 5 days a week, of my routine back then.

Nowadays I would offer you need to put your phone down and spend more time doing something you can learn from and enjoy, like friends and family, like people did before the internets.

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

#352

Post by maerF0x0 »

Social Contagion[1] is more prevalent in females. So is an affinity for people/relationships over objects. I suspect it's nearly as toxic for males if they were to consume on equal doses, but social media is naturally more tuned for relationship (and subjective) focus than object (and objective) focus.

Would be great if we could start doing properly controlled trials with folks who _never_ use these things we're widespread experimenting across the population. A few examples that might make sense: social media, pornography usage, and perhaps any fast tracked vaccines. Might make sense to have even just a few randomized folks be controls for research purposes. As of now you likely cannot find even a single person over ~15 who hasnt used social media/porn ever in their lifetime.

[1]:https://dictionary.apa.org/social-contagion

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

#353

Post by tristor »

hax0ron3 wrote: post #346
tristor wrote: post #315

Unfortunately, you can't just ban social media for teen girls. That has negative mental health impacts as well, including on your own mental health as you try to enforce said ban. Social media is integral to the lifestyle of teenagers now, and not having it socially isolates you. It makes you a "weirdo" in the same way that being homeschooled or being in a religious cult would 30 years ago, in fact if you try to do s…

Why "unfortunately"? I am quite happy that teenagers' access to information is not being banned.

Because I have a teenage stepdaughter, and I would like to make her life easier, not harder, and social media seems to be a net negative. It's unfortunately so integrated into the lives of teenagers they can't get away from it. I learned the hard way that social media was also bad for me, and I no longer use it (if you don't count HN and web-forums as social media).

I also don't like restricting access to information in the general sense, but social media isn't "information" in anything but the broadest sense of terms.

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

#355

Post by dustedcodes »

sidfthec wrote: post #182
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

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.

> I don't want social media companies to have access to my ID

You don't want them to know your real name and age? Then don't use them. Social media is harmful and so it needs more regulation and safety. You can't enter a casino right now without an ID. You either accept that the casino will know your name and age when you enter it or you don't go to the casino. It's so funny when tech folks think their little shitty thing is something special that should not have to follow any logical common sense laws like everything else in the world.

Besides, the whole point of social media is to connect with friends, family and other real people. Being anonymous is anti social. People who are scared of disclosing their real name are the ones who shouldn’t be on social media anyway. If we all had real identities on social media it would be so much less toxic than it is today.

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

#356

Post by hax0ron3 »

tristor wrote: post #353
hax0ron3 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why "unfortunately"? I am quite happy that teenagers' access to information is not being banned.

Because I have a teenage stepdaughter, and I would like to make her life easier, not harder, and social media seems to be a net negative. It's unfortunately so integrated into the lives of teenagers they can't get away from it. I learned the hard way that social media was also bad for me, and I no longer use it (if you don't count HN and web-forums as social media). I also don't like restricting access to information…

Social media absolutely is information. For example, I can tell you from experience that it is very hard to really learn about another country if you are not living there unless you go read what the people of that country are saying on social media. What journalists write about the country is usually a very narrow view in comparison to all the information that becomes available to you if you read what people who live there are writing on social media.

Do you think that maybe you could make your stepdaughter's life easier not by restricting her access to information, but by teaching her how to interact with that information in a way that is healthy?

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

#357

Post by Zetice »

eastbound wrote: post #342
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this might be whataboutism. It’s clear to me the original poster was speaking exclusively on the social media aspect and the fact that social media does not have a similar causal effect of mental illness specifically on boys, and so I don’t know how addiction/obesity/etc contribute here. I agree there may be other effects on men, but it seems very clear here that the original poster was talking about social m…

We should not accept topics which de facto exclude men.

Huh? The article is about how social media impacts the mental health of girls. They didn't study boys, why would we talk about boys without any data on them in the source?

It's overly inclusive to insist on talking about everything all the time, lest we leave someone out... We'll talk about the men, lots of people are talking about the men, but let's take a second to talk about how women are feeling, okay?

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

#358

Post by [deleted] »

zabzonk wrote: post #193
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…

this is satire, surely?

[deleted]

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

#359

Post by caput770 »

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…

I think part of it is that for every teenage girl spending 5 hours a day on social media, there's a teenage boy spending 5 hours a day playing video games, often with other teenage boys. I'd guess that video games are a more positive way to socialize, because teenagers are cooperating and competing rather than comparing themselves to others on social media.

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

#360

Post by ClassyJacket »

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…

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