Why some researchers think I’m wrong about social media and mental illness • Hacker News Board

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

#501

Post by batch12 » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 1:34 AM UTC

asdff wrote: post #340

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 don't think this is unique to social media. Try dressing different from the norm in the 1990s before people even had cellphones in class and you'd definitely end up ostracized. It would be even worse because there's no way to find people who might be different like you, unlike today where there are forums and other websites.

This is true, but there were those of us who embraced being the ostracized. Being the 'weird' one (worse words used) made me who I am today.

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

#502

Post by whats_a_quasar » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 1:42 AM UTC

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…

This is just objectively not true. Population-level data has been used to establish all sorts of things about psychological disorders. You mention your experience of parental abuse causing depression: it absolutely does! And that relationship was established unequivocally decades ago by showing the correlation between adverse childhood events and the development of depression.

One of your specific complaints is that depressed people do not report the causes of their depression very accurately. This is also true! The unreliability of depressed people is emphasized in the diagnostic criteria, and a good psychologist will probe for other underlying issues. But researchers absolutely can identify causes of depression by supplementing self-reports with objective data.

> The problem with the psychology field is that it has an obsession with "data".

Yeah, that's how science works. By collecting evidence you can make descriptive statements about the world. If psychologists didn't present data, they would be instead be rightly criticized for presenting data.

It sort of seems like you jump from the poor accuracy of depressed people's self reports to dismissing the entire field of psychology. Humans are complicated and messy, but we do know a ton about psychological disorders.

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

#503

Post by whats_a_quasar » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 1:45 AM UTC

whats_a_quasar wrote: post #502

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…

This is just objectively not true. Population-level data has been used to establish all sorts of things about psychological disorders. You mention your experience of parental abuse causing depression: it absolutely does! And that relationship was established unequivocally decades ago by showing the correlation between adverse childhood events and the development of depression. One of your specific complaints is that…

For what it's worth, I was also reacting to this assertion:

> The first step to overcoming depression is to discover what is making you depressed. If someone is still depressed, they probably don't know what is making them depressed, and so their "data" is just noise.

This was not my experience, and hasn't been the experience of others I know who have been depressed. The condition is often caused by an acute stressor, but in my case it was caused by a lack of social interaction and exercise during the pandemic. Trying to identify the "cause" of my feelings wasn't helpful because they weren't rational - instead I had to get out of bed, exercise, eat, and socialize until the episode cleared.

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

#504

Post by rayiner » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 1:46 AM UTC

freejazz wrote: post #382

rayiner wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As opposed to in the name of what else? To conform their outward presentation to the gender they identify with, which is a fact rooted in biology. >No, sorry, standard brown immigrant socialization—which is why both DeSantis and Youngkin won on this issue. > What? The vast majority of the world does not embrace white American notions of individualistic self expression. We think norm enforcement and conformity are g…

>To conform their outward presentation to the gender they identify with, which is a fact rooted in biology. I'm sorry but how is that not also self expression? >The vast majority of the world does not embrace white American notions of individualistic self expression. We think norm enforcement and conformity are good things that help kids stay on track. Both Youngkin in VA and DeSantis in FL won majorities among Hispa…

> I'm sorry but how is that not also self expression?

Rachel Levine (a trans woman) dresses how she does for the same reason I (a cis man) do. Both our brains have a notion of our own sex, and we conform to society’s gender norms consistent with that internal understanding. It’s completely different than people who dress the way they do, or get tattoos or nose rings to make a statement, set themselves apart as individuals, or thumb their nose at society and it’s rules.

> This is completely non-responsive to what you offered it as a response to.

Not at all. You characterized my position as “incel” above, because the people having all the kids mostly share my viewpoint. It’s the dominant view in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, etc. Liberal Americans are the most pathologically individualistic people in the world.

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

#505

Post by pxoe » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 1:47 AM UTC

the whole insistence on going with what they believe in, 'social apps bad' (and kinda just that, not really going deeper into 'what are the interactions', etc.), just makes this seem kinda off (and gives a 'collaborative confirmation bias' vibe). sure, apps exist, but is it 'apps' or 'people being social'. and they kinda touch on that, but still fall back to 'social media bad' as a clickbait headline. 'it's kinda not about that, but let me engage in clickbait anyway'.

'being on a social app' is a high level / ambiguous enough of a thing, that trying to tie a rise in 'communication availability' and 'people being online' to rises in other things, kinda doesn't connect. (well, not as directly of a 'cause-effect', muddled with all the various ways that 'use'/'online' can be.) sure, it may be 'screen time', 'time spent online', but then just say that, not like it's 'social media being there, at all'

if they want to continue milking that headline, great. i just no longer see 'pointing at social apps and saying social app bad' as interesting, insightful, or valuable, at all. it's saying nothing.

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

#506

Post by whats_a_quasar » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 1:53 AM UTC

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #405

amluto wrote: post #230

One of cited objections is absurd: > I don't trust any area of research where the odds ratios are below 3. Then what’s the point of researching even slightly more subtle effects? This person might as well start smoking: they wouldn’t trust any amount of evidence that smoking causes cardiovascular disease — the odds ratio seems to be 2.

Haidt's quote leaves out the following explanation: > That doesn't mean I only believe in 3–1 or greater effects. If you can show any 3–1 effect, then I'm prepared to consider lower odds ratios. If teenage girls with heavy social media use are three times as likely to be in the experimental group for depression 12 months later than otherwise similar teenage girls that don't use social media, then I'm prepared to look…

I don't think that that explanation makes sense, or actually rebuts the point. If the true odds ratio of the effect being studied is 1.8, I don't know why Brown expects that a study of a 1.8 would ever produce an odds ratio of 3. That would mean the study was terrible - it got the answer badly wrong!

Even with this explanation, Brown is effectively saying that any effect with an odds ratio of less than 3 cannot be studied. I don't think that position makes any sense.

And also, an odds ratio of 1.4 means social media makes it 40% more likely one will be depressed. That is a massive effect. I don't understand why people are saying these effects are small.

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

#507

Post by rayiner » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 1:57 AM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #445

rayiner wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously comparing non-passing trans people to drag performers?

You do realize in the subcontinent that transpeople interact with kids all the time in the street? I remember meeting them in my family’s neighborhood in Karachi when I was 7 or 8. You might want to ask your dad about this if you don’t believe me.

And you do realize that Hijra are trans people, who suffer exile and segregation into separate communities? They’re not cisgender men dressing like women to make a statement, like most drag performers.

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

#508

Post by jeremyjh » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:03 AM UTC

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #499

jeremyjh wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of this rings true but is this a theory that explains a sharp bend in 2012?

There is no sharp bend in 2012. I can easily interpret it as an gradual increase more from 2010 or so. Eyeballing charts is not science.

Call it whatever you like, it still has to be explained for a potential cause to be viable.

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

#509

Post by DoreenMichele » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:06 AM UTC

burnished wrote: post #488

DoreenMichele wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've skimmed his argument and it boils down to "I have a hypothesis explaining this phenomenon and you don't." It doesn't address anything I've asserted. I can think of several possibilities off the cuff but that's not likely to go good places. Everything I know about human psychology says "Contrary to popular opinion, family life is much more formative and influential for legal minors than their peer group." Edit: I…

More like "and no one does, we've been searching, by the by if you have a theory drop us a line". If you've got good theories maybe drop them a line? I don't see how your edit meaningfully moves the dialogue - lets say I agree with you and it is a matter of lucid law that poor parenting is a necessary component for subsequent harm to occur w.r.t social media use - whats your point? Does that mean that no harm is occu…

More like "and no one does, we've been searching, by the by if you have a theory drop us a line".

I honestly do not see where it says that. More like "We don't like it that you are dismissing our ideas and we want to argue that it costs little to act on our ideas and we don't like it that you are trying to hold us to such a high level of proof. It's like a criminal trial here, come on, that's not fair. We should be allowed to get policy passed impacting your children with less evidence than that, geez."

No, you shouldn't.

If you've got good theories maybe drop them a line?

That's a complete and total waste of my time for a long list of reasons, starting with I am a former homemaker and people are very comfortable being extremely dismissive of me no matter how much evidence I can point to, no matter how well I argue it, etc. and furthermore my experience has been that lots of people are happy to both blow me off and at the same time steal my ideas and take credit for them.

I will write up something on my low traffic, completely ignored, largely unmonetized blog Raising Future Adults, a phrase that began proliferating in articles and podcast titles and the like after I created the blog and hit the front page of Hacker News* with it and, yet, I still cannot get traction nor engagement etc. And he can then do what all the other jerks on planet Earth do and read it and pretend it was HIS idea and not mention he got it from me -- or, alternately, read it and marshal his arguments why he is still right and kooks like me are wrong and stupid.

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18842009

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

#510

Post by rocketbop » Thu, Apr 20, 2023, 2:07 AM UTC

MichaelZuo wrote: post #492

rocketbop wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen year old girl.

So?

It might be simply putting a book quote as a response came across as passive aggressive.

The reference is to the Virgin Suicides. The doctor can’t believe that Cecilia would slash her wrists because he can’t comprehend that she would have experienced real or perceived distress at her age. To which she responds with the quote above.

I’m suggesting that it’s very easy to be dismissive of teenage problems as trivial or easily solved when we’ve already long recovered from that particular malady.