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Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

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Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#281

Post by rqtwteye »

naravara wrote: post #193
DrThunder wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the 24/7 news cycle was definitely a precursor for this. There's not enough newsworthy things to cover in that time so they resort to sensationalism and drudging up anger wherever they can. Now, that 24/7 news cycle gets carried around in your pocket daily and you get to see other people commenting on it.

> There's not enough newsworthy things to cover in that time There is seriously no end to the number of newsworthy things to cover. The problem is that there are limited resources for coverage. It's expensive to staff a desk full of people who can find interesting topics and tell good stories about them for every subject area under the sun. It takes a lot of people with very variegated kinds of subject matter experti…

"There is seriously no end to the number of newsworthy things to cover."

Not when it also needs to be "entertaining". When you watch Fox, CNN and others they convey almost zero information about actual issues but only emotion and opinion.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#282

Post by rqtwteye »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #242
rqtwteye wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think social media amplified trends that were there before. I remember when I came to the US in 2000 it was pretty fashionable to say “I am angry” all the time. And the hatred at politicians was pretty pronounced too. And the cable news was already spreading fear and anger. Personally I think modern media starting with cable TV allowed hatemongers to easily reach large groups. The internet just made it much worse.…

I mean, there was anger at politicians, but it was mostly "all politicians are corrupt". I certainly don't remember people saying "I am angry" all the time. I wonder if this was a coastal thing (e.g., the 'Occupy' movement seemed angry in a way that I couldn't relate to having lived my whole life in the midwest) and social media amplified it and spread it across the country? I do recall online discourse being a lot a…

"I mean, there was anger at politicians, but it was mostly "all politicians are corrupt"."

I lived in VA at the time and I remember plenty of people who got instantly mad when they just heard the word "Clinton" or "Bush". Since then it just got worse with "Obama=Muslim" and even worse with "Trump".

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#283

Post by scythe »

woodruffw wrote: post #5

Just to levy a single criticism among several: I find Haidt’s rebuttal of the climate change hypothesis unconvincing: fears around climate change are not “energizing” in the way that prior crises are, in a significant part because public sentiment around climate change is that we’re already doomed in a way that isn’t really possible with social crises. Similarly: I don’t think most teenage girls were voraciously read…

To borrow a quote from one of your other posts:

> climate change (in the popular conception) feels fundamentally unresolvable.

For context, I have a graduate degree in physics. I am 31 and I have spent my entire adult life studying climate change and its management at a hobbyist level. I regularly get lost in academic papers about the phenomena or the technologies that may be used to address them.

So try not to write me off as incurious when I tell you it is obviously silly to blame a false perception — that climate change is unresolvable — on the real facts about climate change. Reality does not cause people to believe falsehoods. A far better explanation for this belief would in fact be social media itself, which has a miserable track record of amplifying both climate change denialism and doomerism. Someone who has absorbed misleading claims about impending collapse from social media could certainly believe that the cause of their anxiety is climate change itself and not the people who helped them down that road. Look at the graphs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics

>I can’t think of any real reason why he doesn’t (it makes his argument strictly stronger, and results in the same conclusions)

Reducing social media and smartphones to the status of an "accelerant" rather than a primary cause weakens the case for urgent government intervention, which is Haidt's major focus. It is also jargon creep, since "accelerant" is harder to interpret than "cause".

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#284

Post by TechBro8615 »

1827162 wrote: post #94

I think it's the total visibility that's causing mental illness. There is no space where you can be with your friends, screw up, and not have it become known to everyone in your peer group. There's little space to make mistakes. No space to be yourself. You are under the watchful gaze of your friends, i.e. peer surveillance, nearly all of the time. Which induces stifling conformity. Everything's under constant scruti…

You can always just delete your account. Granted, that's easier for me to say as an adult than it would be for your average peer-pressured teenager. But that's where parents can help.

I think eventually, teens will see social media as "uncool" in the same way as they see smoking cigarettes as "uncool" (in some countries). It takes a lot of social propagandizing to popularize that idea, but we did it with cigarettes and we can do it with social media.

We need to make being off the grid cooler than being on it. Privacy is cool!

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#285

Post by [deleted] »

molotovh wrote: post #267
taeric wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly, I used to have the same view of sports. Growing up where I did, it was common for folks to be fanatical on their local college sports team. Such that they get mean to folks from their "rival" schools and are generally trash talking to everyone else. It was so bad, that I certainly thought that was how you were supposed to be. Pick a side and be aggressive to the opponents when watching the game. Goal was to ma…

Note that in your example, it's not the athletes that are being toxic (usually), it's the spectators. It's common for sports fans to say things like, "we're playing Los Angeles next week" or "we picked up so-and-so in the draft" when there's really no "we" about it. The speaker is not involved in the action in any way other than as one observing it. But using that language makes them feel included in something bigger…

[deleted]

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#286

Post by plorg »

rayiner wrote: post #266
dtauzell wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reaction became a chain reaction and now the details don't matter and the "dogma" could be anything. For example, singing the sone "Rainbowland" at an elementary school concert is now considered pushing some dogma of shaming on kids.

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What about drag shows is inappropriate, for what ages, and what intervention would you consider reasonable to prevent the harm of children? Plenty of drag shows are designed to be family-friendly, and generally parents can just not bring their kids to things that they don't think are appropriate for them.

In any case, the way you write about self expression (and the Matt Walsh-level unseriousness of describing drag shows as a mockery to trans women) suggest you're not really looking to find a common ground that would allow non-conformity in public.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#287

Post by windowsrookie »

throwaway9191aa wrote: post #126
mensetmanusman wrote: post #45

Starting to get to the age where my oldest daughter is demanding access to social media because all her friends are using it. Surprised more parents aren’t aware of the harms.

I'm just moving into this phase as well. The same parents that said it was ridiculous kids have phones, are now getting their kids phones. I've heard that not having a phone is essentially like knowing the whole school is invited to party, except you. I'm really not sure what to do.

My little cousins first started with an LTE Apple Watch. This allowed them to use iMessage to call/text friends and family, but prevented the use of any web browsing/social media. The downside is Apple Watches only last a few hours on LTE.

They are now ~12 years old and just received their first iPhones. Parental controls/screen time is used to limit their access to social media.

I personally refuse to use TikTok. But I know that is the main App children use today. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to handle that situation. A teenager without access to TikTok today is absolutely going to be mocked by others.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#288

Post by scythe »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #3

Does he ever address the inconsistency of warning for years about "coddling" young people too much then suddenly pivoting into "social media is making our kids mentally unwell". Shouldn't it toughen them up? How does his proposed coddling differ from the bad coddling?

Being exposed to adversity at 1 PM in the classroom is fundamentally different from being exposed to adversity at 11:30 PM laying in bed. One of those is much closer to the ancestral environment the human mind is naturally equipped to deal with.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#289

Post by kelseyfrog »

kloch wrote: post #145

I just want to say this was one of the most enjoyable articles I have read in a long time. It's informative, respectful to critics, and exudes a "confident but restrained" tone that is so rare in public discourse these days.

We must have read different articles. What I read amount to special pleading where the author confuses scientific and judicial epistemology, doesn't do a literature review, and comes cross as hopelessly naive.

Re: Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness

#290

Post by ModernMech »

rayiner wrote: post #272
ModernMech wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some major headlines in Florida recently: "Florida Republicans Take Aim at Gender-Affirming Care, Drag Shows... [The bill] would treat parents as abusers for allowing medical care to children, and cracks down on parenting harder even than Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s notorious anti-trans child executive order." [1] "Florida lawmakers approve death penalty in child rapes, sending bill to governor... The Florida Senate on…

[flagged]

It's not paranoid to listen to a guy dehumanize and label LGBTQ people as child abusers every chance he gets, and then wonder what he has in mind when he signs a law lowering the threshold for the death penalty the same week they approve the death penalty for child abusers.

Yeah sure, let's put child rapists to death, who could disagree with that? Until all of a sudden what you do in your private or with your friends or with your family is considered "child abuse". Until your lifestyle is considered "child abuse". Until your existence is considered "child abuse". The way fascists work your religion will be considered "child abuse" eventually. You've heard of the 9 most terrifying words, well the 4 most terrifying words in English are "think of the children!" There's no limit to the atrocities people will commit in the name of God and in the name of protecting children.

Do you ever wonder how a society can go from civil to erecting industrial scale human-death factories. It's little steps like these, and people rationalizing them along the way. We can make our children safe from rape and abuse without putting anyone to death. 0 people have to be put to death to keep children safe. And yet, here we are, the state is making it easier to put human beings to death as a matter of law. There should be no higher red flag raised than that.

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