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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

#651

Post by mixmastamyk »

mulmen wrote: post #583
mixmastamyk wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think kids are “planning lunch” over social media, when they sit at the same tables every day? And the cafeteria is providing it? Sounds like you’re grasping at straws to make it seem relevant. The kids here communicate via imessage and rarely during class.

I absolutely believe that lunch seating is a manifestation of social hierarchy and that positions are determined in advance, yes.

Those things are chosen via looks, athleticism, and charisma in person. Not planned each morning via internet points, right?

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

#652

Post by mulmen »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #651
mulmen wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely believe that lunch seating is a manifestation of social hierarchy and that positions are determined in advance, yes.

Those things are chosen via looks, athleticism, and charisma in person. Not planned each morning via internet points, right?

No? If the communication can happen in person it can happen online. There was no shortage of gossip on MSN Messenger when I was in school.

If social media is as important to these kids as it sounds then follower count or posting style may be as important as athleticism and charisma.

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

#653

Post by marcellus23 »

Zetice wrote: post #390
marcellus23 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit disappointing seeing the implicit bias in that article. The thrust seems to basically be "women are fine, men are failing and need to do better". Some choice quotes: > Women are tiring of their stereotypical role as full-time therapist for emotionally distant men > “Today in America, women expect more from men,” Levant said, “and unfortunately, so many men don’t have more to give.” > The same emotional deficits…

Of course it's on the men to adjust, and that's what we see in most men overall. The ones who struggle to find relationships are the men who aren't adjusting. We should figure out why they're not adjusting, not ask the women to give back some of their hard-earned freedoms because some men can't handle it. The inversion would be if the claim was that a trait of men is causing this maladjustment, but the claim is inste…

> We should figure out why they're not adjusting, not ask the women to give back some of their hard-earned freedoms because some men can't handle it.

No one is asking women to stop having careers, or stop going to college. Rather, my point is that the article treats the women's perspective unquestioningly as reality — men aren't emotionally available enough, and aren't successful enough, and those are facts, not merely biased perspectives of a single gender.

I don't know how to fix this problem. Undoing a century of feminism is a non-starter. But you can't fix this by telling men to be better. They need the same kind of societal consideration and institutional support that women get.

> it's firmly discussing actions women are taking that impact these single men

Sure, it's stating that these are things women do. But the phrasing is neutral at worst. There's no implication that women wanting to "marry up" in a world where most men are now "lower" than them is an unreasonable desire.

> Of course it's on the men to adjust

Why? How? Even if men can somehow just become more emotionally available (assuming that the problem is on the mens' side and not womens' for expecting men to act like women), how do you suggest men fix issues like not being more academically successful as women, or not earning more than them?

Boiling all this down to a single question (I'm curious how you would answer): How can you possibly reconcile a world where men and women are equal, but women still only want to marry men that are older and more successful than them?

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

#654

Post by cubefox »

ggfhvt6yyghvhuf wrote: post #580
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…

I am saying this as a now married man with a kid. Don't rush it ( unless you really, really want to ). Enjoy yourself. It is the best time of your life and we just can't tell when we are in it for some reason. Things will happen on their own. No reason to force it.

I can confirm for me (n=1) that things will not happen on their own when you are not trying to "force it". For sufficiently high attractiveness men, things probably do happen on their own, but for others they definitely don't.

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

#655

Post by wizofaus »

paledot wrote: post #637
wizofaus wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Facebook has since been observed as having deleterious effects on mental health even before it was available to the public, and you'd be hard pressed to describe the Facebook of that period as a malicious company hijacking our emotions for profit. Nor is it clear that they reasonably could have known the effects it was having for quite some years (to be clear, they most certainly qualify as malicious now)

I mean, Facebook orginated as a platform for Zuckerberg and his frat bros to rate the attractiveness of female classmates without their knowledge or consent. It has always been toxic.

Fair point. That the company is still run by the guy who was sufficiently motivated to create a tool for that purpose initially explains a lot.

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

#656

Post by vlunkr »

sgath92 wrote: post #563
vlunkr wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they get to blame the parent. "I want to use social media but my lame parents won't let me." Then they're left out of some things, but they get to deflect that social stigma. I'm willing to accept being the lame parent. That ship sailed a long time ago.

> Then they're left out of some things, but they get to deflect that social stigma. I'm willing to accept being the lame parent. I know this is anecdotal, but my experience doesn't show that pans out. I am on the older edge of the millennial cohort age-wise and had a very strict parent growing up who would not allow me access to TV, most movies, and contemporary music. Which meant I never listened to what my classmat…

I can see that, but also being out of the loop on social media is incredibly fleeting. If you haven't seen Star Wars you'll feel left out of some conversations, if you don't know about the long nose dog meme or whatever, just wait a week until no one remembers it anymore.

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

#657

Post by juve1996 »

aidenn0 wrote: post #642
juve1996 wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School only covers part of the day. You don't always see all your friends (some share different class schedules). This doesn't cover the weekend. And it doesn't cover changing plans or adhoc after school plans. I just don't see how someone can be shocked that their daughter couldn't make plans after they took away the prominent communication device everyone uses. It isn't like when we grew up and you'd call the landl…

> It isn't like when we grew up and you'd call the landline or get on your bike and knock on your friend's door. Except for the fact that 3 out of 4 of our kids are willing to do that.

If all of them are close and regularly reach out with those methods normally maybe your child isn't as well liked as she thinks, then.

or they simply don't act the same as your sample size of 4.

I don't see how anyone can be shocked that taking away how people communicate leads to less communication. I really don't. Whether it's right or wrong or worth it is up to you and what you think is best.

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

#658

Post by cubefox »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #127

I'm not convinced how any of this shows causation. Probably the strongest point in this substack pointing to causation is the use of longitudinal studies. Haidt is using a meta-analysis of long-term specific (as opposed to short term studies which display no effect, there's merit here as a longer longitudinal study is probably better) longitudinal studies to make this point, so essentially saying that a meta-analysis…

Do you have an alternate hypothesis which could explain the results of all the studies the cites?

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

#659

Post by cubefox »

anigbrowl wrote: post #200
xbar wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am completely convinced that international violence does not now, nor has it ever, caused much depression in US-based 12-year-old girls. Further, I find the notion that it is was an increasing trend from 2010 to 2022 compared with 2001 to 2010 is maximally revisionist. Same for political polarization (sidebar: the notion that political polarization is an "other...factor" outside of social media seems poorly conside…

You seem bent on having an argument. I think the post-9/11 atmosphere of the US being at war and the polarization that semi-independently ramped up over the same period are both important background factors, which themselves were amplified by social media and network interconnectivity. Public discourse has become more violent and confrontational over that time vs 25 years ago, and I think there is some relationship b…

This seems all highly irrelevant for teen girls.

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

#660

Post by eastbound »

josephg wrote: post #466
faeriechangling wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>misogyny, it might be a proxy for self-esteem Seems to me misandry would be a better proxy for self-esteem. I do know men who are very much misandrist. I'm not just talking about them "going woke" I'm talking about kids whose fathers abandoned them or whatever and they feel a lot of resentment when they look around and see this is a common story. As men collectively become more productive, more empathetic, less toxi…

I saw a video the other day which pointed out a troubling statistic: Universities today have more gender bias than they had in the 70s. But the gender bias has reversed - instead of men differentials succeeding more than women, men are now much less likely to graduate from university than women are. I think it’s pretty awful having one gender succeed at the expense of another, whichever way around that goes. For soci…

Worse: Gender equilibrium in universities was reached in 1980, both in USA, France and probably other countries. Every effort we’ve made since then for women in a particular field, should have been met with an equal effort for men in another field.
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