Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls • Hacker News Board

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

#611

Post by friendlyHornet » Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 9:11 AM UTC

qorrect wrote: post #374

friendlyHornet wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I was the WORST when I was in 9th grade. I really don't envy my parents for having to deal with that version of me, and I did so much stuff I regret. My self-esteem back then was hair-thin; I use to obsess about EVERYTHING, from what I say, to how I talk, to how I smell, to how I walk, to the music I listen to, etc

Thanks for obsessing about your smell though, I just stood in a room full of smelly people.

I don't think you should be thanking me; I much prefer the smell of body odour to what I was doing back then, which is douse myself with unhealthy amounts of Axe Dark Temptation bodyspray, lol! I am sure my teachers suffered especially since all the boys in the class were doing that, especially after we played sports, so the whole classroom smelled like a chemical spill mixed with sweat.

The smokers in my class (thankfully I never smoked), use to use even more Axe to cover the smell of cigarettes after they smoke, but the funny thing is that we could still smell the cigarettes on them, but now it's mixed in with headache inducing levels of body spray

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

#612

Post by catiopatio » Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 9:41 AM UTC

gallopingcomp wrote: post #600

catiopatio wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men and women are not identical; inescapably, the mean value contributed by each will material differ in at least some contexts. If a society equally values the contributions of men and women in all contexts, then, by definition, it must be using an inequitable metric to ascribe value to their contributions.

No, it would mean not attributing innate value to maleness or femaleness, so to speak,, but to the relevant metrics. One can still compute a mean afterward and potentially find that it differs, but that is no judgment of inherent value / not a causative factor for the value judgment being made. And even then, there might sometimes be benefit to treating people more equally than they are on some metrics. Maximizing ef…

Given that there is clearly a difference in relative value produced across a non-trivial number of (often incomparable!) contexts, men and women cannot be equal, and the fiction that they are would not survive an afternoon spent watching the Olympics, or a brief visit to a maternity ward.

In my opinion, the only thing we should do with that information is accept that (1) men and women are different, (2) disparity of outcome may be the result of those differences, as opposed to systemic bias, and (3) insisting on equality of outcome will, invariably, produce grossly inequitable results in some contexts.

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

#613

Post by wizofaus » Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 10:09 AM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #601

wizofaus wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Deep down we all know it's bad" Really? I have never felt that way about social media (esp. Fb), it's only the studies demonstrating the harmful effects that have convinced me that, at least in their current incarnations, at a population level the cons of social media outweigh the pros. That there's still no good alternative to FB for taking advantage of its "pros" is my biggest concern.

You didn't think the facebook feed was weird? Not sure how old you are, but my first experience with facebook was probably back in 2009, when it had just expanded to other colleges and had added some features like the "like" button. And it became very very obvious that "liking" things made it more prominent in the "feed". To me and my friends it was obvious that this would be manipulated on both ends of the equation,…

Never paid much attention to the feed and almost never "liked" things, but found it a helpful way to connect with certain people, organize/advertise events, etc. etc. Still do, though far less than I used to.

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

#614

Post by cauliflower99 » Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 10:13 AM UTC

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…

A friend of mine has two girls in their teenage years. They have a ban on certain websites and have to get permission to add new social media apps to their phone. They regularly discuss these topics which is an important point I think.

My friend reports that they laugh at their friends who are obsessed with their phones and do not have any of the anxiety problems that are rampant in their classrooms.

As a father of a young girl, this gives me hope for her future. I think parents need to step up here. The excuse of "everyone else does it so I'm not going to introduce any discipline" is an irresponsible decision on the parent's behalf. I little more thought, effort and discipline could go a long way.

Our job is to prepare our kids for the real world and maximise their opportunities (which anxiety and depression destroys). We are not here to be their friends.

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

#615

Post by d1sxeyes » Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 11:04 AM UTC

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 have to agree with you that it's terrifying. I have a young son (under a year), and likely by the time I need to handle this myself, the challenges I will face will be very different. That said, there's some good news buried in the footnotes which gives me quite a lot of hope.

"We found that controlling for [psychological variables such as negative attitudes about school and closeness with parents] heavily suppressed the relationship between social media use and poor mental health."

Although it's almost a throwaway comment, my reading of it is that parents are not helpless. The effect is 'heavily suppressed', meaning that these variations have a significant impact. It is not a huge jump to conclude that there are steps that we as parents can do to mitigate the negative impact of social media, especially by being involved, engaged, emotionally available and supportive (and whatever else might be hiding behind this other 'psychological variables' mentionedsorr).

It's also important to consider that we don't know why the mental health outcomes are so negative (as others have highlighted).

However, there are some obvious likely causes of mental health issues caused by social media:

  - 'Andrew Tate'-like personalities, who intentionally use controversy and creating feelings of inadequacy to drive engagement
  - 'Dream body' type posters, who are not necessarily intentionally creating feelings of inadequacy, but nevertheless, they do by deliberately showing off parts of themselves or their lives that others cannot reasonably or easily attain (designer clothes/bags/shoes, expensive holidays, etc.)
  - 'The Joneses' type posters (which actually I think most people end up being themselves), whose posts are innocent in motivation, but create feelings of inadequacy by only showing one facet of their lives. For example, photos of the family laughing together, dogs playing in fields, beers in a pub garden in the sunshine.

For me, my approach today would be:

  - Small groups of 2-5 people are fine.
  - For larger groups, create limited 'societies'. Class groups, church groups, scout groups, etc. Only allow my kids to be part of groups that they *really* belong to, and which are moderated to ensure that only people who really belong to those groups are able to join. 
  - No 'reposts' or content which is not original. Only share photos which you've taken yourself (or which have been taken by someone within the group). Links to external services like YouTube, Spotify, etc. should be possible but limited to those where parental controls can be implemented.
  - Community moderators. Either parents or trusted community members should in place as moderators to manage harmful discussions.

It seems as though there is an absolute minefield to navigate going forward, and I wish you (and myself!) the best of luck with it.

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

#616

Post by Mentlo » Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 11:20 AM UTC

Disclaimer: I work in social media, and am convinced it has negative effects on mental health, which is why I limit usage.

This review is a lot less than a smoking gun though. The author goes into large detail on the quantification of associations and correlations in the first section (association review) - and limits towards communicating only qualitatively that there was an effect when getting into the longitudinal and experimental reviews (the causation-proving ones).

Reading through the actual google review doc, this is present in the review as well. Very little quantification, and when quantification is given it's the wrong type of quantification. Even in an experimental study, showing mean comparisons rather than distribution comparisons is misleading, even when statistically significant.

This is a bit of a problem, as it doesn't go into the effect size of the causation. The author is quite cleary rooting for causation to be there. This is not uncommon in science (a strong conviction into an unproven hypothesis) - but when this happens, we have to be extra vigilant in looking at the results.

EDIT: Also, for sth to be a major cause we would need to demonstrate that the effect of social media is in the top quantiles of all known effects. The most we can get out of this review (and I'd even challenge that) is that there is enough proof that social media is a causally proven contributor to mental health deterioration. Nothing presented indicates anything to say that it's a large contributor or that it's a major contributor, it just isn't discussed at all.

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

#617

Post by Alex3917 » Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 11:32 AM UTC

sibeliuss wrote: post #561

Alex3917 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a father to four little girls, though, it makes me feel really defeated. As a father of two girls who also runs a social network, this article is bullshit. They’re only considering social media that fundamentally looks and feels like Facebook. That’s like saying all outdoor activities are extremely dangerous, when only looking at wingsuit base jumpers.

You clearly didn't read the article, because what they wrote mostly about was... Instagram.

Which looks and feels like Facebook.

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

#618

Post by tpxl » Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 11:56 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #305

anigbrowl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're looking at it in isolation because you are not privy to the kids' social circle. What the gp is describing is a social cost imposed on the non-participant kid. If repeated often, this will lower their status within their social circle and (much like chickens) the least popular kids become the default target for emotional abuse and bullying. If they withdraw form their social circle to cut their losses, then th…

I'm a parent, and I was what you call a "non-participant" kid who was bullied when I was in junior high and high school. Here's the thing: School ends. It's a tiny part of one's life. I know, when you're in it, it feels like it takes forever, but once you graduate high school, nobody on earth gives a shit about where you were on the social totem pole. In the grand scheme of things, the cliques and social circles are…

When your kid leaves high school at 18, 2/3 of their life will have been hell to endure. Yeah, no thanks.

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

#619

Post by prepend » Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 12:27 PM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #119

prepend wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent to a 12 year old girl, I’ve been fighting the “no social media” fight since she requested at 9. Every single one of her friends have social media and I think it is negative to be isolated in that way. But I also notice that she seems to have positive benefits over her friends, but of course it’s tough to measure. It’s strange to me because I’ve talked about this literature and whatnot with other parents a…

This is really baffling to me, because social media sites have an age limit of 13 in most western countries. ...and this is by the companies themselves, if they are found out to be "marketing to children", they get hit with a whole another set of legal issues. Epic just got hit with this because of Fortnite and has to pay over $200M fines. The only issue is that there is zero oversight on the age limit, there is no w…

This is surprising to me too as Google and social media sites have methods for approximating age so they should be able to easily discern all the under 13s using their products.

I expect that at some point law firms will invest enough to do a class action suit to show these tech firms knowingly allowed and even marketed to under13 kids.

That and it seems like as fraud as advertisers are paying to show ads to 13+ and they are being shown to kids.

This seems like a large amount of tort given tens of millions of kids.

Or maybe once more damages studies come out, state attorneys general will sue like they did for tobacco and opioids.

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

#620

Post by prepend » Thu, Feb 23, 2023, 12:29 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #202

theshrike79 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really baffling to me, because social media sites have an age limit of 13 in most western countries. ...and this is by the companies themselves, if they are found out to be "marketing to children", they get hit with a whole another set of legal issues. Epic just got hit with this because of Fortnite and has to pay over $200M fines. The only issue is that there is zero oversight on the age limit, there is no w…

How are girls actually using social media? My impression is that the problem isn't so much obsessively posting as merely scrolling through content, thus a social media account for the purpose of infinite-scrolling isn't necessarily going to appear to be for someone underage or even be surfaced to anyone who would even care enough to report it.

Obsessively posting is really common. Kids’ friends post all the time, especially including Snapchat. It seems bizarre to me as there may be 10-20 posts per day per kid.