Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
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Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jonathan Haidt, the author of this article, was on Real Time w Bill Maher recently, and has some simple recommendations with respect to phones and social media: 1. No smartphones for kids before high school — give them only flip phones in middle school. 2. No social media before age 16. 3. Make schools phone-free, by putting devices in phone lockers or Yondr pouches. 4. Give kids far more free play and independence,…
Why 16 specifically? Apparently the brain doesn't stop developing until much later, around 25.
while it may be structurally true, that doesn't say anything about the development of impulse control
https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-ye...
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hard disagree. It’s algorithmic “engagement maximizing” systems, specifically. (Engagement is code for addiction.) If those pocket PCs had useful and creative apps only and maybe some non-addiction-optimized games they’d be fine. The problem is the apps, not the hardware. With kids the absolute worst seem to be YouTube, TikTok, and Roblox. All three are banned in our house. The kids have their own devices (with monit…
YouTube has a treasure trove of creative, stimulating, enlightening, entertaining, and didactic content. There is more interesting stuff there than you could watch in many lifetimes: science from Veritasium to lectures from Stanford on every topic imaginable, thousands of hours of high-quality content on every topic from WW2 to the most niche retro computer you can thing of, the best orchestras in the world playing a…
I generally agree, but as for the Youtube homepage in incognito mode: It’s now empty!
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#64I'm sceptical of the claim that social media is causing teen mental illness. I've thought about this quite a bit, but never wrote my thoughts anywhere so I guess here and now is as a good time as any. I think Haidt's assertion that social media is to blame for the rise in teen mental illness is likely indirectly true, but from what I've observed personally even kids that don't frequently use social networking apps st…
You might be interested in the book 'Bad Therapy' by Abigail Shrier. It's well worth a read.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/198332459
Also 'Free Range Parenting'
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6250260-free-range-kids-...
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#65[flagged]
Are Instagram reels really any better in terms of mental health?
Besides, Bitcoin miners don’t find anything noteworthy in that sense.
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#66If parents really want to set a good example, they ought to also quit their smartphones and Social Media--or at least hide it better. Kids are really good at identifying hypocrisy. When they see their parents glued to their phones and scrolling Instagram all day, after being told "Oh, don't do that, it's not good for you" they know their parents are full of shit. And, the trouble is: Most of these adults are addicted…
So much this. I notice it a lot since I only use a dumbphone, and haven't bothered setting up a new laptop since my old one died during the covid times. It means that in social situations, I'm actually on board to engage with real people, since I'm not carrying any other distractions.
I feel a distinct drain in the social energy when some of the people present have their eyes glued to their phones. It would actually be better if they weren't even there.
I think that feeling of draining comes from the fact that if you do want something from them, like asking what they're ordering for food, or if we should go to another venue, you have to put in more effort. They need to do a context switch in which they look at you blankly while you bring them up to speed on what is happening.
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#67I'm sceptical of the claim that social media is causing teen mental illness. I've thought about this quite a bit, but never wrote my thoughts anywhere so I guess here and now is as a good time as any. I think Haidt's assertion that social media is to blame for the rise in teen mental illness is likely indirectly true, but from what I've observed personally even kids that don't frequently use social networking apps st…
You might be interested in the book 'Bad Therapy' by Abigail Shrier. It's well worth a read. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/198332459 Also 'Free Range Parenting' https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6250260-free-range-kids-...
Isn't she the one that wrote that anti-trans moral panic book based on interviews with parents of trans people, but not actually any trans people?
Her other book was pure culture war opportunism, what's different about this one that makes it worth reading?
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#68I'm sceptical of the claim that social media is causing teen mental illness. I've thought about this quite a bit, but never wrote my thoughts anywhere so I guess here and now is as a good time as any. I think Haidt's assertion that social media is to blame for the rise in teen mental illness is likely indirectly true, but from what I've observed personally even kids that don't frequently use social networking apps st…
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I have to wonder if, at certain frequencies, normal emotions become harmful. Like it's normal to experience sadness, and our brains are built to process it. But I'm not sure our brains are able to cope with reading about (and seeing video of) industrial warfare, genocide, and serial killings all in the same afternoon. It's similar to how our physiological stress response remains constantly elevated in the modern world. Once adaptive, now harmful. We know that social media companies target normal emotions like fear of isolation and outrage because they are addictive. In our ancestral environment, those fears probably triggered from time to time and our minds could handle them. But can we stand having that button pushed all day every day?
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#69If parents really want to set a good example, they ought to also quit their smartphones and Social Media--or at least hide it better. Kids are really good at identifying hypocrisy. When they see their parents glued to their phones and scrolling Instagram all day, after being told "Oh, don't do that, it's not good for you" they know their parents are full of shit. And, the trouble is: Most of these adults are addicted…
> When they see their parents glued to their phones and scrolling Instagram all day, after being told "Oh, don't do that, it's not good for you" they know their parents are full of shit.
Watching your parents turn into smartphone zombies should be a warning sign, maybe even something to rebel against.
Unfortunately children do tend to pick up their parents' behaviors, bad and good.
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#70Phone-free schools seem like an obvious way to fight this, but supposedly modern parents need constant access to their kids and tend to oppose the idea.
You don't get phone-free schools in a post-Uvalde world.