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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

#451

Post by caddemon »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #153
freework wrote: post #118

If you ask 10 different people why they are depressed, you'll get 10 different answers. This illustrated why I think the scientific method is the wrong way to go about understanding the human mind. Also, if you ask a depressed person why they are depressed, they may not know exactly why they are depressed. I spent my entire high school years depressed. It wasn't until a few years after I graduated college before I re…

I am willing to agree that it is still more art than science in its current state, but I personally think we are slowly moving towards a replicable mind after all -- a terrifying prospect, because it would truly prove 'free will' is an illusion. It currently seems impossible due to sheer number of factors with overlapping effects. I don't think it is impossible though.

Yeah I don't think we're getting there in our lifetimes, especially not with how neurobio/psych research has been progressing lately, but I agree it is theoretically possible. And along the way there are many imperfect models that could still be highly useful - I don't think replicable is a binary thing at this level of abstraction.

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

#452

Post by yodsanklai »

libraryatnight wrote: post #428
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…

I left facebook a long time ago because it just felt like low value interaction. None of my friends on there were people I actually spent time with, and the whole thing seemed to just bring out the worst sides of people. I never specifically experienced the peer surveillance you describe, but I believe it's real or that social media has made people believe it's real (to a degree worthy of concern) I think what I'm tr…

> the whole thing seemed to just bring out the worst sides of people

I wonder if it's still the case though. It's been years I haven't seen anyone arguing on my quiet feed. Maybe people have learned? or just deserted it?

Nowadays, the really toxic place is Twitter, orders of magnitude worse than FB has even been in my opinion.

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

#453

Post by yodsanklai »

I've been noticing that I'm much more likely to argue/fight with friends by text rather than in person. Not talking about social media, just plain old chat. Maybe because we miss real-life signals that help us adjusting the conversation.

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

#454

Post by caddemon »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #16

> girls who spend more than 4 hours a day on social media have two to three times the rate of depression as girls who spend an hour or less. Not that it proves anything, but the converse argument, that depressed girls spend more time on social media or online in general, should also be examined. If the data could support this thesis to a similar degree, there is no conclusive statement about social media really induc…

I agree the research doesn't conclusively show direction, but in my experience so many psychiatry correlates are chicken/egg. Depressed people tend to get less physical activity because of their depression symptoms, but too little activity can be quite bad for one's mood. Lots of bad cycles with positive (in a dynamical systems sense) feedback connections.

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

#455

Post by DoreenMichele »

Furthermore, when you zoom in on girls, the relationships are not small: girls who spend more than 4 hours a day on social media have two to three times the rate of depression as girls who spend an hour or less. The common refrain “correlation does not prove causation” is certainly relevant here, but I showed that when you bring in the three other kinds of studies, the case for causation gets quite strong.

I know from long experience that saying "I got this far in the article and I can't be bothered to read the rest" is a good way to get hated on, but give me a freaking break. You have to first ask why those girls are spending more than four hours a day on social media.

The obvious inference is that the girls who spend less than an hour a day on social media have full lives and the ones spending so much time there it's like an unpaid part-time job have vacuous lives and they are trying to fill the void with something that can't do it.

Social media no doubt exacerbates their issues but, no, it doesn't cause them. Their lives are screwed up and excessive use of social media is more like a symptom.

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

#456

Post by zdragnar »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #455

Furthermore, when you zoom in on girls, the relationships are not small: girls who spend more than 4 hours a day on social media have two to three times the rate of depression as girls who spend an hour or less. The common refrain “correlation does not prove causation” is certainly relevant here, but I showed that when you bring in the three other kinds of studies, the case for causation gets quite strong. I know fro…

Not everyone who smokes cigarettes gets cancer.

If you take young minds which are stressed and unfulfilled, and give them a device which provides short dopamine bursts at the expense of finding actual fulfillment, you get depression.

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

#457

Post by DoreenMichele »

zdragnar wrote: post #456
DoreenMichele wrote: post #455

Furthermore, when you zoom in on girls, the relationships are not small: girls who spend more than 4 hours a day on social media have two to three times the rate of depression as girls who spend an hour or less. The common refrain “correlation does not prove causation” is certainly relevant here, but I showed that when you bring in the three other kinds of studies, the case for causation gets quite strong. I know fro…

Not everyone who smokes cigarettes gets cancer. If you take young minds which are stressed and unfulfilled, and give them a device which provides short dopamine bursts at the expense of finding actual fulfillment, you get depression.

If you drink extreme, excessive amounts of water, you die of water poisoning though water is essential for life.

Too much of anything can be bad for you.

Edit: Let me add:

If you take young minds which are stressed and unfulfilled, and (do anything other than fix the problems causing their stress and lack of fulfillment), you get depression.

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

#458

Post by kaibee »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #375
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am willing to agree that it is still more art than science in its current state, but I personally think we are slowly moving towards a replicable mind after all -- a terrifying prospect, because it would truly prove 'free will' is an illusion. It currently seems impossible due to sheer number of factors with overlapping effects. I don't think it is impossible though.

I suspect it is improbable, because an honest, undeniable belief that you lack free will would drive someone stark raving mad. It would represent a fundamental phase change in the way an individual interacts with the world, which I would wager would be antithetical to effective transmission of the belief. Far more dangerous would be the 90% mark, where understanding of psychological determinism advances to a point wh…

> I suspect it is improbable, because an honest, undeniable belief that you lack free will would drive someone stark raving mad.

This presumes that humans are some kind of ultra-rational uber-mensch that is incapable of ignoring inconvenient facts.

Truth of the matter is that an illusion of free-will is just as good as the real thing from the perspective of an individual human's mind.

Also I think you're confusing free-will and predictability, everyone kind of seems to do this for whatever reason, but they aren't mutually exclusive at all.

All of your actions can be the result of quantum mechanical effects, eg. "true randomness", but still be completely unpredictable beyond a certain time/noise horizon even with a 'perfect' simulation. But unless you want to suggest that the free-will arises from the quantum-foam (which I mean, is as unfalsifiable a claim as any other religion, so go for it), you kinda run out of room to fit the free-will.

As for my experience of not believing in free-will? Its been pretty much fine.

I suspect that belief in something free-will-like is pretty evolutionary adaptive, so I think we'd expect it to arise in most simulated minds subject to similar evolutionary pressures.

The only thing I haven't really figured out is why we aren't just p-zombies, but what is life without some mysteries, right? (And given this, I wholeheartedly agree with u/mikeschurman about the need for a justice system that isn't unnecessarily cruel)

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

#459

Post by Aunche »

Paul-Craft wrote: post #161
donkeyd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the social plaza belongs to cooperate and the state I think it's too easy to just blame corporations and governments for this. They are definitely part in this, but a large part of lack of activism around climate change is also the people themselves who don't want to change. The Netherlands is a great example where, in recent elections, nearly half of votes went to political parties that want to reduce response to…

> Even the most environmentally aware people around me pretty much just eat less meat, but they haven't actually changed their ways. So I don't expect the average F150 driving steak eater to suddenly start changing their ways. What do you expect people in general to do? Granted, driving an F150 is not an environmentally friendly activity, but suppose they all cut their "carbon footprint" [0] by 50%. How much would th…

>The answer is actually "not much." It turns out that 70% of greenhouse emissions have come from ~100 corporations

Read the source carefully. This is not what the BBC or the original paper [1] said. This is a meme that came from tabloids and Reddit. What it does say is that top 100 fossil fuel producers, produce fossil fuels that cause 70% of greenhouse gasses. Obviously, you aren't going to dig for and refine oil in your backyard, so a corporate entity is going to do it for you. Despite the anti-capitalist slant of this meme, the largest producers are all state-owned: "China Coal" (which isn't even a single entity), Gazprom, Aramco, etc. The implication that global warming is the fault of these "corporations" is especially nonsensical because it implies that all fossil fuel producers should conspire to limit their production. Basically, this is describing OPEC on steroids and would make even John Rockefeller blush.

[1] https://www.cdp.net/en/articles/media/new-report-shows-just-...

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

#460

Post by MichaelZuo »

Nextgrid wrote: post #424
jimbob45 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that but it's a bit tough to care if you don't see it happen. It's possible for everyone here to be the subject of a meme somewhere of a picture taken without consent. However, it just feels tough to care unless you actually see the meme and the reactions of people to it.

The difference between some completely random person taking a picture and your circle of friends is that it's very unlikely for the former to reach anyone you know, where as with the latter it's a guarantee.

But then it would be brought to their attention? And they can respond?

If it's never brought to their attention, it's pointless to worry about.

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