Father of five with the last two in high school and middle school. We took away the phones after four years of mental health issues. After 4 months of the cutoff: were now backing down the meds and the kids are doing much better. Sorry, but I have to call bs on this study.
Social media does not cause depression in children
31–40 of 60 posts
Re: Social media does not cause depression in children
#32Study of children in a single town. Everything in here runs completely contradictory to the body of science from the past decade.
> Everything in here runs completely contradictory to the body of science from the past decade.
I'd say it doesn't so much contradict the existing science as it suggests the possibility that the population-level correlations we see are not explained by direct effects of social media use on individuals.
Just as an illustrative example, suppose Alice has an higher-than-average need for in-person social interaction in order to remain mentally healthy, and so has decided not to use social media. If the people around Alice start spending more than some critical percentage of time on social media instead of in-person socializing, then her mental health might decline even though she doesn't use social media.
Re: Social media does not cause depression in children
#33I’m sorry but this is absolute fucking bullshit. Almost everybody with preteen or teenage children can perceive this, unless they had the wisdom to protect them from it.
A general perception by someone isn't scientific evidence, though. There are plenty of ways in which this paper can be challenged, but "I don't feel like it's true" isn't one of them.
Re: Social media does not cause depression in children
#34How do people fairly evaluate the science behind social media? It seems like a topic that thoroughly infected by personal bias. It reminds me of arguments about violent video games and the rise of school violence; two events that are definitely correlated but have no direct evidence linking them to each other.
My answer is simply to ignore the science. Unless the experimenters have done a robust randomised clinical trial (or equivalent) the conclusions are no better than an editorial. Social media is confounded by human social factors: factors which are hard to measure, poorly understood, and every bit as complex as cell signalling pathways.
Never forget that scientists are under strong pressures to present results favourable to them getting future funding. This works out in the wash, but individual studies are inevitably biased.
I think what we can establish is that social media has some negative and positive effects but its hard to know if social media is just a conduit or if it is the root cause.
You may as well look to personal experience; if you have a bad time on social media then stop using it. If it helps you build community and joy, keep using it.
Re: Social media does not cause depression in children
#35https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aiEqINoa-I You now can create unrealistic standards via machine and earn hard cash doing so. Monetize all the things, everything has to go. PS: Psychology is mostly studies on pschology students or other students, which prefilters the result pretty hard. So ever study is basically: "And how does the local well-off elite feel about that?"
Why do people always complain about unrealistic standards? I can't see how that would be bad. The problem is repeated dopamine hits.
While dopamine hits almost certainly plays a role, We need to be more mindful of our uses of “The problem is…” when we’re discussing complex nuanced fractal-tier depth subjects.
There will almost never be one (or The) problem.
I know it’s semantic, but I think particular thing matters, even in casual discussions that don’t demand rigor. It’s lazy of us to delude ourselves that something like this is only one issue. Particularly when it’s used in response to tear down someone else’s hypothesis—this just needlessly stifles more conversation.
Re: Social media does not cause depression in children
#36Study of children in a single town. Everything in here runs completely contradictory to the body of science from the past decade.
> Everything in here runs completely contradictory to the body of science from the past decade. I'd say it doesn't so much contradict the existing science as it suggests the possibility that the population-level correlations we see are not explained by direct effects of social media use on individuals. Just as an illustrative example, suppose Alice has an higher-than-average need for in-person social interaction in o…
Great example! Its hard to think of a topic more complex and obtruse than social interactions. There are going to be no straightforward answers here because social media is a conduit. Its like arguing whether home telephones are bad; its not really the phone’s fault if some arsehole keeps calling you or if it helps you stay in touch with loved ones - its merely the tech facilitating social interaction.
Re: Social media does not cause depression in children
#37https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aiEqINoa-I You now can create unrealistic standards via machine and earn hard cash doing so. Monetize all the things, everything has to go. PS: Psychology is mostly studies on pschology students or other students, which prefilters the result pretty hard. So ever study is basically: "And how does the local well-off elite feel about that?"
When supply outweighs demand you don’t get much money. I would be really surprised if any of those generated influencer army get anything.
Re: Social media does not cause depression in children
#38One of the interesting things in this study is that the mean symptoms of depression kept increasing between the ages of 10 to 14, but then dropped dramatically at the age of 16.
That seems odd when compared to the American experience at least.
I wonder if Norwegian kids are provided with access to high quality mental health care around the ages of 14-16. Or if there is something about the culture that’s able to identify kids with depression in the teen years and provide ways to help reduce/eliminate it.
Re: Social media does not cause depression in children
#39Study of children in a single town. Everything in here runs completely contradictory to the body of science from the past decade.
> Everything in here runs completely contradictory to the body of science from the past decade. I'd say it doesn't so much contradict the existing science as it suggests the possibility that the population-level correlations we see are not explained by direct effects of social media use on individuals. Just as an illustrative example, suppose Alice has an higher-than-average need for in-person social interaction in o…
Yup, anecdotal evidence: I'm pretty much Alice. I avoid social media, but I can't avoid its effects - since everyone else doesn't, what social media does also indirectly affects me. It definitely affects me negatively how people around me have goldfish attention spans, it definitely affects me when they try to drag me into nonsensical trends, etc...
Re: Social media does not cause depression in children
#40When people say "believe the science", I think about issues like this, where you can pretty much pick the study that supports your position and call the matter settled.