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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

#531

Post by at_a_remove »

pixl97 wrote: post #513
at_a_remove wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women can't all "marry up" unless you systematically disadvantage all women, such that for F1, there is a M1 who is of higher whatever (status, income, looks), and so on for F2 and M2, F3 and M3, and so on. Given the stats on enrollment in colleges, on who is preferred for tenure track in academia, and so on and so forth, well ... that's just not gonna work out.

This is not a binary decision, there is a third choice of not marrying at all.

Correct! Which is in itself an interesting bit that also serves to make the "dating scene" (that feels too small to encapsulate the whole problem) fraught: men are, for want of a better term, thirstier than women are, on average, only extend that slang to far more than just sex. If this is true, and I think it is, this will only leave more men milling about, unmatched, which can lead to a better fulfillment of "marrying up" for women, at the cost of more men remaining unmarried.

Of course, nobody cares about men in and of themselves, so that's not really a problem.

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

#532

Post by prawn »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #492
lll-o-lll wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

iOS has excellent parental control tools, down to time allowance on per app level. Of course a decision to use restriction would ideally be one made together with the child so that they can truly consent.

My oldest is 10 and oldest daughter is 8, so we're approaching this challenge. We've talked to them in a broad sense about the issue, but your post made me realise that tackling it together is worth a shot. e.g., lots of talk about what the issue is, and what opportunities there are to address it. And then work together to devise a strategy. Not just them saying to peers "My parents say I'm not allowed to do x."

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

#533

Post by IncRnd »

anigbrowl wrote: post #511
fleddr wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're saying but we shouldn't escalate this into a type of prison gang situation, there's significant middle ground. When the research is becoming clear that these dynamics and these years of a teen life cause so much harm, we can't be so fatalistic to say that giving in is mandatory.

Oh, I'm certainly not suggesting just giving in to it. But in contrast to the person I replied to, I think we should take teens' perspectives on their social cliques seriously, because even though the cliques don't have importance in society, they have impacts on those within, and our understanding of how cliques operate is surprisingly under-appreciated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary's_karate_club Now combin…

> But in contrast to the person I replied to, I think we should take teens' perspectives on their social cliques seriously

Of course I take teens' perspectives seriously. There really is no reason for you to personalize things in that way. You have talked about being accepting, yet you have consistently 100% dismissed the lived experiences of parents who disagree with your opinions.

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

#534

Post by toss1 »

If someone proves this in court, it'll be the end of Fbook and others; they'll get sued into oblivion.

And Rightly So.

Their entire business model is to poison the well of society to improve their quarterly profits; strip-mining goodwill and trust, leaving anger and ashes.

A long damn way from 'just trying to connect people'.

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

#535

Post by westurner »

westurner wrote: post #510
westurner wrote: post #507

Perhaps Facebook should again require an email address at an approving college or university for sign up. But what about supporting the NCMEC National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, without biometrics due to new laws? Can you teach your daughters to be considerate of others on the internet? They used to tell us not to put any personal information online as kids; no real names, etc. Perhaps social media is a…

StopBullying.gov: https://www.stopbullying.gov/ "How to Make a Family Media Use Plan" (HealthyChildten.org (AAP)) https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/Media/Pa... Internet safety: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_safety

[after school] emotional restraint collapse: https://www.google.com/search?q=emotional+restraint+collapse :

; It's exhausting for many of us to withhold nonverbal emotions all day; and so after school a minute to just chill without typical questioning may or may not help prevent bullying on the internet

TIL Iceland provides vouchers for whatever after school activities: taxes pay for sports and other programs.

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

#536

Post by trieste92 »

josephg wrote: post #427
trieste92 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 finding other ways to be valued as human beings. Sounds like one of those truisms that people love to repeat. Like all other instances, this one likel…

I just think the gender norms for men are different. Traditionally, women are valued more for their beauty and (later) their capacity to raise children. Men are traditionally valued for their capacity to be bread winners. “Women are valued for what they are. Men are valued for what they do.” I think both ideas can be pretty toxic to their respective genders. The problems just show up differently. Social media, online…

> The problems just show up differently. Social media, online bullying and body shaming hurt girls more than boys. And video game addiction, desperation due to purposelessness and suicide seem to hurt men more than women.

Idk. I feel like this is just culture trying to make up stories for each gender to define what deviance is supposed to look like

It reminds me of how some people gravitate towards mbti types or enneagram even though they're obviously pseudoscience

Are gender norms different though? Yes. But I don't think they should be. And the first step to overcoming them is disregarding the stupid stories that sound true

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

#537

Post by devindotcom »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #360
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…

[flagged]

Don't be an asshole.

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

#538

Post by UncleEntity »

autoexec wrote: post #223
oblio wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 whi…

> On several standardized tests, Amish children performed significantly higher in spelling, word usage, and arithmetic than a sample of pupils in rural public schools.

I was watching this show on African-American troops during WWI and The Powers That Be were really[0] concerned that the ones from the cities were consistently performing better on the standardized tests than the rural white folks.

Think the rural schools aren’t the best at educating the youths.

[0] They were also concerned about the French treating them like real people too so, yeah…

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

#539

Post by prawn »

_blz2 wrote: post #496
timst4 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe become a full time father? Dual income is to blame here since parents started thinking schools are day care for kids until they can be kicked out of home for college. Men shouldn't shy from stepping up if traditional roles of mothers are eroding. Edit: should -> shouldn't

I think this is orthogonal to the issue.

By early teens, peers are the largest influence on a child and they have more than enough opportunities to pressure for or use a phone at school or after school, regardless of the work status of either parent.

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

#540

Post by rayiner »

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…

As Haidt points out, the problem isn’t social media per se but how social media amplifies toxic culture that already exists: https://www.thecoddling.com/

You can’t realistically ban phones, but you can control the culture they’re exposed to by where you live and send your kids to school.

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