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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

#431

Post by taurath »

Comparison kills. Humans are not supposed to be competing with other humans for attractiveness across the entire planet. Putting numbers on things has warped the value that we give to people.

Will also note that the views of the author and their partners are pretty damn conservative having released a book entitled "The Coddling of the American Mind". The jist of the book is that american kids are too soft and too prone to victimhood, rather than having legitimate grievances about the capitalistic/individualistic social and emotional systems that exist. To me this completely ignores almost all of the positive advancements the younger generations have done especially in terms of stopping generational cycles of emotional, physical and sexual abuse - the current generation is the least abused generation in the history of the US.

Its with that lens that I view the opinion piece and still agree on some level that social media is harmful.

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

#432

Post by themantalope »

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 don’t have a link on hand, but what I recall regarding sex differences in suicide is that there is a higher incidence of suicide attempts among females but a lower success rate than males. This is what I know about adults, I don’t know if that includes adolescents.

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

#433

Post by anigbrowl »

ThalesX wrote: post #411
Spivak wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Every girl goes through that, they're called your formative years for a reason. The start of HS is basically a reset where you go from chasing whatever fancy catches your attention shamelessly-ish to consciously developing an identity filtered through the social pressures of wanting to fit in. It starts to wane around 17 when we start feeling confident enough to be ourselves, but o…

I like how people respond as if I haven't gone through high school, or am aware of the typical changes that are associated with that period, in boys and girls. I'm also not saying she's not going to be fine. I'm just shocked at the impact of social media on their experiences and have concluded that it's impossible to resist. They'll all fall in the bell curve so of course they'll be alright, but they'll be alright in…

Perhaps it'd have more impact if you supplied some additional context, like the gap in your ages or so.

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

#434

Post by bigger_cheese »

RetpolineDrama wrote: post #325
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had my 12 year old daughter read the article and after she argued a while I said: Ok, write up your rejoinder and I will post it and see what others think. For context we severely restrict access to social media in our house, but of course they find ways around this as expected (I don't pi-hole because I want them to learn to be hackers) ----------------------------------- *Why I think it’s reasonable for me to hav…

>and with the limit on my phone, I would be using it minimally, especially because I use a lot of my phone time daily to listen to music (like 5 [REDACTED], which I am listening to right now) and to text my friends, so I would only use it for 20 or so minutes a day, which is very low. This is a recipe for frustrating yourself. Social media is very addictive. You're currently unhappy and you're _not_ allowed to use it…

>This is a recipe for frustrating yourself. Social media is very addictive. You're currently unhappy and you're _not_ allowed to use it, imagine how much more unhappy you'll be after having only 20 minutes. You'll only want to use it more and more once you're allowed to use it. You'll be thinking about those 20 minutes and what you'll do all day, you'll get mad when the 20 minutes is up etc.

This rings pretty true for me. I grew up in the 90's and my parents heavily policed how much television I was allowed to watch. I was allowed 5 hours of TV a week. I'd borderline obsess over how I was going to spent those 5 hours each week. I would pour over the TV guide plan out exactly what I'd watch. I ended up angry and resenting my parents as a result.

I had a lot of the same complaints, "All my friends at school are going to be discussing what they watched, I'm going to be left out and excluded etc."

At the time a lot of the same arguments being levied against social media today were being made about television, it's addictive, it's bad for children's development etc.

I was the oldest child my parents had some very strict ideas on how they wanted to raise me, by the time my younger siblings were teenagers my parents had more or less given up or relaxed all of the restrictions I had.

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

#435

Post by nativeit »

antod wrote: post #56
barbazoo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It must be frustrating to see this problem approaching and not knowing what to do. I wonder if at some point the only way out is to radically change one's family's lifestyle. Maybe homeschooling, very limited technology at home, living in a community with like-minded people, something like that?

As a parent of a 13yr old girl, we've tried with mixed success during her preteens to find her interests/activities she liked where she could get good at something and have a source of self esteem that came from somewhere outside her peer group interactions. But yeah, the interest dies away a bit by 13 and we're not fully sure it worked. But we can see that her peers that didn't have earlier hobbies/skills had even l…

You might want to look into electronics/woodworking/rock climbing/astrophotography/playing an instrument/ice sculpture/welding/open-source research and investigation/archery/scuba diving/optics and lasers—insert any relevant option here that features history, creativity, technical skills, and mentorships—as a creative and intellectual activity. It's a nice combination of history, creativity, technical work, and learning from/with adults. Also, it wouldn’t be so immediately on-the-nose misogynistic as something like “sewing and fashion” to suggest for someone whose only known traits are that she’s a thirteen-year old girl.

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

#436

Post by keyme »

I think we're around the point in time where it would be reasonable to establish a kind of "nature preserve" for people who collectively want to reject most of the post 2005 (or so) technology.

I want my car to have no ECU with an always on LTE backdoor

I want my streets to be free of facial recognition CCTV cameras

I want it to be normal to use physical cash for payments again

Mostly I only want tech that people use as a tool, rather than tech that uses people...

IIRC this "nature preserve" concept appeared in Brave New World.

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

#437

Post by arijun »

As controversial as China’s “draconian” governmental bans on these things are, I really think that is the right direction. Unilaterally restricting your child from social media would just serve to isolate them. It’s like a reverse tragedy of the commons—-we’re at the stadium and everyone is already standing. Trying to reason everyone into sitting down won’t work, we need someone to come in and yell at everyone until they sit.

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

#438

Post by nitwit005 »

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…

This has always been true though. If everyone wears makeup, then no one has gained any advantage. An agreement not to would save a huge amount of effort.

Supposedly, about a quarter of South Korean women have had plastic surgery (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmetic_surgery_in_South_Ko...). They'd be much better off just agreeing not to do it. Surgery always comes with risks.

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

#439

Post by throw_pm23 »

weberer wrote: post #397
throw_pm23 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very well-argued response, congratulations. I will only take issue with the last sentence. I don't know the studies, but most of my friends from school who were smoking in moderation back then, ended up as heavy smokers as adults. Those who avoided it completely (partly due to stricter parenting) largely seem to stay smoking-free in later life.

To be fair, you're bringing in the element of physical addiction.

I think smartphones, social media, and video games are the smoking of the next generation.

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

#440

Post by catiopatio »

beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #410
hn92726819 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with either of you. However, it seems you say > You are wrong But also: > Many more people would find it offensive ... Is somehow a result of femaleness tout-court But the person you're replying to seems to be saying that if there is some ingrained female-related cause, it couldn't be discussed today. How does the second thing I quoted from you not directly agree with the comment you…

Because the implication of their argument is biological causation , which is pure conjecture on their part. On the other hand, the entire posted article goes at length to study the social impact of social media for young people and young girls in particular and routinely references the heightened effect of the hyper focus on bodies for young girls. Their comment is just a naked assertion. Would people find it offensi…

There’s a great deal of evidence for innate sex differences in average social behavior, and those differences would readily explain the disparate impact.

It’s hardly fair to call that a “leap”, especially given the comparatively limited body of evidence in support of your preferred hypothesis.

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