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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

#121

Post by Aurornis »

spxneo wrote: post #82

When we was teenagers we had unrestricted broadband access to the internet but what was missing was the constant comparison hellhole like Instagram that is causing mental illness. WaReZ, KaZaA, Ogrish, CD-Keys, drugs, weapon making tutorials, Mail-order-drugs. This was the wild west days of the internet. You could literally put up anything you could sell anything and everything. Classmates were downloading roms, porn…

> the constant comparison hellhole like Instagram that is causing mental illness.

Anecdotally, Instagram ranks much lower than Reddit for causing problems among the young kids I’ve worked with.

Reddit is an absolutely cesspool of misinformation, fake stories, propaganda, and rampant doomerism. Scrolling Instagram can’t hold a candle to the militant doomerism that seethes from sites like Reddit.

I think it’s an uncomfortable truth for techies who grew up with Reddit while sneering at photo sharing social media, but the content on Reddit is extraordinarily cynical and depressing.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#122

Post by slily »

kypro wrote: post #54

I'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'm inclined to disagree based on my personal experience. I was never subjected to the kind of pressure you're talking about with regards to mental health and medication, but I spent too much time on social media and not enough in real life since I was a teenager and I am almost certain that it negatively impacted my mental health. The only thing is that I wasn't really aware of it and so I didn't dwell on it too much. I could see the fixation on mental health exacerbating the issue.

On the Internet it's easy to feel surrounded with people even though you're not really socializing. Low-res text-based interactions that characterize most social media today don't provide enough signal for people to develop their social skills adequately, and the asynchronicity doesn't help either. Most people won't just tell you how they feel about what you're saying, but in real life that's what body language and other indirect signals are for. We've all heard stories of zoomers being less socially capable than previous generations. Now consider that the social awkwardness is not only curious from an outside perspective, but is also a perpetual source of anxiety to the people affected with it and can lead to self-isolation and other unhealthy coping behaviors.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#123

Post by bowsamic »

Glyptodon wrote: post #105
miki123211 wrote: post #95

This author is seriously suggesting that governments ban children's use of social media, and that can't really be done without completely destroying internet anonymity. Any policy that actually achieved this, without being trivial to circumvent, would basically need to replicate the great firewall of China. Doing this in a half-assed way is even worse than not doing anything at all. If you just require ID checks for…

I don't think you have to destroy internet anonymity. Just fine parents like $25 or $50 bucks every time anyone can link their kid to social media use. Give people rewards for reporting it or something. Even as little as driving kids towards platforms that incentivize anonymous interaction over real name and face stuff is probably enough move the needle. That said, I think social media use has a very overlapping rela…

But then they will contest the claim, it will then have to be investigated, and that will cause huge amounts of pointless busywork that will amount to no clear evidence. Not worth it for such a small fine

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#124

Post by hollerith »

mptest wrote: post #114
hollerith wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that can't really be done without completely destroying internet anonymity I am skeptical of this push to elevate internet anonymity to a new fundamental principle for organizing society.

>elevate internet anonymity to a new fundamental principle for organizing society You mean privacy? Internet anonymity is a downstream byproduct of our right to privacy, not some new concept devised in the internet age. We've had the fourth amendment for quite some time.

There's no right to privacy in the 4th Amendment.

But more importantly, there are huge differences between internet anonymity and the older comceptualization of a right to privacy, which has mostly to do with shielding conversations between people who know each other's identities (real names and addresses) from prying government eyes. Shielding such conversations from prying government eyes is not incompatible with preventing teenagers from using social media.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#125

Post by heavyset_go »

lloeki wrote: post #48
andrepd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My child is not there yet, so I'm experimenting ahead of time with Jellyfin + downloading select content instead. The idea is to have sizeable content in there to explore in autonomy but no way out. Not particularly doing this happily WRT the content creators but I just can't get myself to trust platforms such as Youtube to not have unsuspected ways around.

My library system offers streaming services that are high quality, might be something to look into. Same platform with videos offers e-books and whatnot, as well.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#126

Post by jackbravo »

Aurornis wrote: post #113
mixmastamyk wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t have to be a technical ban. Just make it the law and let companies, schools, parents, and kids take their punishment when found to happen. This should be enough for the risk averse to take open devices away from children and bolster parents. It’s not important to stop every possible access, simply that adults have the authority to say no and be supported by society instead of undermined.

> It doesn’t have to be a technical ban. Just make it the law and let companies, schools, parents, and kids take their punishment when found to happen You’re describing a ban.

It doesn’t have to be a technological ban. It can be a social ban

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#127

Post by drkleiner »

idle_zealot wrote: post #96
spxneo wrote: post #82

When we was teenagers we had unrestricted broadband access to the internet but what was missing was the constant comparison hellhole like Instagram that is causing mental illness. WaReZ, KaZaA, Ogrish, CD-Keys, drugs, weapon making tutorials, Mail-order-drugs. This was the wild west days of the internet. You could literally put up anything you could sell anything and everything. Classmates were downloading roms, porn…

What you're describing sounds more socially healthy than modern usage. It was kids exploring the world digitally. Now that's been captured by digital fiefdoms actively manipulating their users into unhealthy levels of engagement by any means necessary.

Internet used to be a village, with nice cozy places and communities but also shady weird individuals and houses you're not supposed to enter

Now it is a shopping mall, sanitized, organized, brands and ads plastered all around, not really for socializing and community but more for products and marketing, you can still find a bookstore or a cafe but in the end, shopping mall is there to make you shop

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#128

Post by bufio »

miki123211 wrote: post #95

This author is seriously suggesting that governments ban children's use of social media, and that can't really be done without completely destroying internet anonymity. Any policy that actually achieved this, without being trivial to circumvent, would basically need to replicate the great firewall of China. Doing this in a half-assed way is even worse than not doing anything at all. If you just require ID checks for…

Just shut down Meta and something like 75% of the problem goes away. One neat trick, etc.

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#129

Post by [deleted] »

jackbravo wrote: post #126
Aurornis wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn’t have to be a technical ban. Just make it the law and let companies, schools, parents, and kids take their punishment when found to happen You’re describing a ban.

It doesn’t have to be a technological ban. It can be a social ban

[deleted]

Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness

#130

Post by seattle_spring »

_heimdall wrote: post #120
WalterBright wrote: post #78

I find sadly amusing the argument that kids need their phones in school in case of emergency. If the kid has an emergency, the teacher can call the parents. If the parents are having an emergency, the can call the school.

From what I've seen, parents have been made extremely fearful of a mass shooter type of incident. The "need" for smartphones in school is seen as a way to get in touch with a child when the absolute worst has happened. Ironically, the same logic often isn't appreciated for those who choose to legally carry a gun.

Give the kid a LifeAlert. If it works for gram grams falling down the front stoop, it'll work for little Billy when he's dodging lead from the bullied kid who couldn't take it anymore.
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