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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

#471

Post by waboremo »

cassac wrote: post #370
waboremo wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Having absolute rules doesn’t mean having rebellious kids. I have an absolute rule to look both ways before crossing the street and nobody had ever rebelled against that. But I 100% agree you do have to explain and you do have to eat your own dog food and try not to be too much of a hypocrite. They need to see you believe it yourself. And try not to lie with tall tales. I think every time a non life threatening absol…

Funny you should mention that, while we look both ways to preserve our survival due to understanding the dangers of cars, yet we will jaywalk at the same time.

A little rebellion is inevitable, just matters what it is. By acknowledging this inevitability, you have a much better chance of giving your family the tools to make smarter choices. Exactly like you said, demonstration is a fantastic tool to utilize.

It's the difference between rebelling against your friends peer pressure obsession with posting so much on social media because you knew how it made them miserable, as opposed to rebelling against your parents for banning social media when it looks like your friends are having so much fun without you.

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

#472

Post by wombatpm »

siquick wrote: post #457
biomcgary wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a father of a non-verbal autistic son. We have chosen a non-traditional path for him to avoid bullying and he is generally doing quite well (and slowly becoming a bit more verbal). It helps that he has siblings that love him as he is. Our kids have a mix of private schooling, tutoring, and homeschooling. They spend a lot of time outdoors and have very limited access to screens and no social media. We chose this p…

> We chose this path because the typical classroom has 25-30 barbarians and 1 civilized person, if you're lucky. If you ingrain this kind of superiority complex into your kid then they will have major problems when they enter the real world where they have to cooperate in a world of “barbarians”.

Have you spent time around high school and jr high students? Barbarians is putting it nicely.

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

#473

Post by ericmcer »

somethoughts wrote: post #112
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…

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…

Maybe you can ask their teachers to give them more homework? Then they will be too busy with homework to be depressed about being isolated from their peers.

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

#474

Post by fleddr »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #219
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 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…

"I believe that using social media could actually have greater benefits for me, such as being able to record Tiktok dances with my friends"

It was believable until the agenda was revealed :)

See, dinosaur me would insist that young girls should enjoy dancing together. Without a camera and without sharing this with the entire world. I do not even want to think about the legions of creepy old men watching that.

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

#475

Post by seizethecheese »

afavour wrote: post #240
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…

What do you think is the correlation between suicide and severe depression? If it’s greater than 1/3 the comment you’re replying to is correct.

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

#476

Post by wombatpm »

josephg wrote: post #414
giraffe_lady wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uhhhhh I don't think the video games are the reason but boys shooting up schools did turn out to be a big problem you know. So, idk, they were probably worried about the wrong thing but it seems they were right to be worried about that outcome.

Sure - and as an Australian I find America’s tolerance for school shootings utterly baffling. Here in Australia we play all the same video games as American kids do, and we don’t have school shootings. The problem isn’t the video games.

But you do have football, sunshine, beer and Australian women which probably goes along way to resolving problems with young men

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

#477

Post by fleddr »

lumb63 wrote: post #221
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 throa…

I would add that beyond the effects of it crushing one's self-image, it also messes with your world view. Social media presents the world as nothing but doom and gloom whilst in reality it's not that bad.

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

#478

Post by mihaic »

What I find so puzzling is how little talk there is about regulating social media, just like we do for instance with smoking and alcohol.

With enough coordination we can push some collective control over most social trends, but now every parent is fighting their own David vs Goliath. I'm amazed the US is the same country that passed prohibition.

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

#479

Post by monetus »

bigger_cheese wrote: post #434
RetpolineDrama wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 fo…

I've seen that pattern too. A kid at a birthday party I had had, spent the entire time playing grand theft auto vice city; sleep be damned. He had never watched a violent movie, so the quests were uninteresting. That ~22hr game session was dedicated to roaming free, and what that afforded (simulated violence, prostitution, etc). I didn't see that happen with drugs at least - adderall, xanax, klonopin abound, but the sheltered kids I knew never dove into them the same way.

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

#480

Post by OkayPhysicist »

orangecat wrote: post #336
colonCapitalDee wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Tinder (and Hinge) as an average looking guy and found it to be dehumanizing. I rarely got matches, the matches I got usually didn't respond to my messages, and even when they did I could tell they weren't invested in the interaction. I've got a great job, a decent face, I work out, I've got friends, family, hobbies, and passions. I genuinely like myself; I'm satisfied with my life and my personal development…

Maybe things will change as I get older (I'm in my early twenties) It will. Men in their 20s are disadvantaged for the same reason that women in their 40s are: there's a lot more younger women dating older men than the reverse. The numbers will gradually shift in your favor over time. And yeah, Tinder is usually a bad deal for everyone except the most attractive men, and women who prefer hookups to relationships.

Specifically, there are a lot more young women willing to date older men than there are young men willing to date older women. Those that are find absolutely no problem doing so.
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