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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

#151

Post by bart_spoon »

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…

We spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to pick up the pieces of the destruction being left in the wake by social media giants as they get absurdly rich. How about we instead simply make the giants liable for what gets posted on their platforms? Let the “move fast and break things” crowd that is so certain of their own genius spend their billions on figuring it out instead of on how to get you to click on another ad.

They will figure out a solution very quickly or they will simply cease to exist, and either way the problem will be solved.

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

#152

Post by logicchains »

Buttons840 wrote: post #149

The charts in this article are deceptive and cause me to not trust the author. Look at long term teen suicide rates and you will see that suicide rates were quite high around 1990, and then rates dropped until about 2005, and are now on the rise again but have not yet reached 1990 levels (I think). So, the author of this piece wants to make it look like suicides and self harm are on the rise because of social media ,…

They also don't compare with other countries. Social media use isn't unique to America; if it's responsible for teen suicide rates, we'd expect to see similar rises across the globe, but that's not the case.

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

#153

Post by bart_spoon »

_heimdall wrote: post #115
naasking wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Achieving 90% of not is simpler than you think: ban smartphones from schools during school bours. If the parents want the kid to have a phone, then the parents can get a flip phone.

Would this be a federal ban, a state-level ban managed by education boards, or something else? And how is it enforced exactly? Are parents held responsible, or are state education funds impacted somehow based on smartphone use? Would we need a federal mandate to require flip phone / feature phone support? The last time I tried to find a feature phone it wasn't easy, many depend on 2G/3G networks which are losing supp…

State bans are already occurring. Indiana just banned phones from schools a week or two ago.

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

#154

Post by willvarfar »

rgbrenner wrote: post #145

The author had it right in the first paragraph. In the 90s version of this hysteria, Congress passed a law that would have prevented access to education medical information, dirty curse words, and other filth from being published on the internet to protect the children. The federal government fought a case all the way to the Supreme Court to enforce it. If they had won that case, the internet would look very differen…

US citizens have the right to free speech.

US companies have a qualified right to free speech https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/freedom-of-speec...

How about AI? If it is an algorithm that is talking to you, does it have the right to do all the things that are protected by 'free speech'?

And does it matter if the AI is commercial, or a home hobby project effort?

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

#155

Post by concordDance »

oblio wrote: post #131
imgabe wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two avenues to deal with a hazard. You can try to manipulate the environment to eliminate the hazard, or you can try to strengthen people to make them immune to the hazard. I think we should prefer the latter over the former whenever possible. For one thing, it's more robust. The environment is messy and control is often illusory at best. Control limits freedoms and introduces centralized points of failure…

The brain has some flaws that are very hard to overcome. Addictions are some of them. There's a reason almost every country in the world regulates and restricts gambling.

Aside: The people who like prediction markets get quite annoyed at that.

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

#156

Post by doctorpangloss »

ryandrake wrote: post #39

If 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…

Well the author isn't doing a good job. He's complaining about social media on a thing we're only reading because of social media.

Media critics: the biggest hypocrites.

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

#157

Post by skybrian »

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…

Social media != the Internet. It would make it harder to sign up for an account with the large social media services covered by the law. They would need to check ids, or outsource to someone who does.

It would be like creating a bank account.

You could do plenty of other things. Anything you don't need an account for isn't covered. Depending on how the law is implemented, perhaps many forums wouldn't be covered?

I think it would result in kids going to websites that their parents haven't heard of yet and don't check ids.

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

#158

Post by logicchains »

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.

>If the kid has an emergency, the teacher can call the parents. If the parents are having an emergency, the can call the school.

What about if the kid's being bullied? Half the time the teacher will side with the bully, especially if the bully's a more popular kid.

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

#159

Post by logicchains »

oblio wrote: post #131
imgabe wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two avenues to deal with a hazard. You can try to manipulate the environment to eliminate the hazard, or you can try to strengthen people to make them immune to the hazard. I think we should prefer the latter over the former whenever possible. For one thing, it's more robust. The environment is messy and control is often illusory at best. Control limits freedoms and introduces centralized points of failure…

The brain has some flaws that are very hard to overcome. Addictions are some of them. There's a reason almost every country in the world regulates and restricts gambling.

>The brain has some flaws that are very hard to overcome. Addictions are some of them.

The majority of people don't feel victim to addiction, it's a minority of people who are prone to it. Everyone shouldn't have their freedoms restricted just to cater to the more weak-minded.

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

#160

Post by gitaarik »

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…

Of course people think of solving this problem again by constraining the consumer, instead of the producer.

What we should do is make rules for social media platforms to disallow them to develop algorithms that make people addicted. You might think how do you define that, but the companies have already made a whole science out of it so it's not that abstract anymore. It would sure be an elaborate task and will surely result in a cat and mouse game, but at least the issue would be taken seriously and people will understand better that engaging with these platforms that try to push the edges is playing with fire.

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