Earlier quoted context omitted.
One could make that exact argument of cigarettes too. And see why it doesn't work in the real world.
Are you making the argument that restricting cigarette sales by age does not work?
Quite the opposite
Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
341–350 of 1001 posts
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if you don't like these products and feel they are negative, then don't use them. Relevant bit from the essay: "But much of my book is about the collective action traps that entire communities of adolescents fall into when they move their social lives onto these platforms, such that it becomes costly to abstain. It is at that point that collective mental health declines most sharply, and the individuals who try to…
An excellent point. Abstention = social isolation, which for young people is far worse than exposure. Restricting your children's access is not an option (lets' be real, they'll find a way to circumvent your efforts anyway) and moving the burden of restriction from society to individuals is not fair. So as a society do we let unrestrained exposure or do we take collective action? I lean on the second option, but I'm…
Same feeling here, I loved the early internet, it played a huge part in who i am actually! This said, this is not the early internet anymore, where content was mechanically regulated by a sort of egalitarian rule. Social Media applies a power law to content, so that 80% of the viewers are aware of the 20% that's available and human nature being what it is, lowest common denominator content gets pushed to the forefront.
Hence all the attention seekers on FacebInstaTok...
This is further compounded by the pervert effects generated by these platforms one of them being the mimetism and the general wolfpack behaviour that can surge out of the madness of crowds. Online Bullying is real.
My kids (11 and 14) are stuck on feature phones for now and i'd like, as much as possible to keep them off smartphones and their constant Notifications for the foreseeable future, until they are not kids.
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny .. earlier today there was a front page HN post about the federal government mandating safer circular saws. It seemed like the majority of users in the thread were in favor of the federal government mandating technology changes to prevent harm from being done to the population. Now for this issue, there's harm being done to children, and the majority of users in the thread seem to be against government int…
The reason I am against government intervention is the fact that governments seem to not be competent enough to solve problems like this and they would use content controls for their own purposes. It is vastly different and more complex than regulating saws. The comparison falls short by a huge margin and a false conclusion that any federal legislation would be desirable just because it is the case for saws. Some sug…
The government is never a passive actor. So non-intervention is also active policy. You can only choose what the policy is. The active policy for the last 15 years has been to consolidate a social media oligopoly with very few restrictions. Users are being tracked, advertisement laws are being skirted and are less restrictive than in other mediums, data is being sold, dark patterns are used to keep people from making their own choices. The algorithms are actively promoting bad content because the social media companies are not held liable for their part in promoting false content.
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it is the parents responsibility to set boundaries for their children. It can be complicated at times, granted. But that doesn't make it less of their job. Heck, I got my first CD player with 14. Yes, I felt left out at school, but... guess what, I didn't die. Children need to learn that there are rules, and someone else dictates them. Throwing tantrums is a typical reaction that needs to be weeded out as a p…
You can say it should be on the parents here and reason why, but for a lot of things it is not just on the parents (children are not allowed to vote, drive a car, buy guns, go to bar and drink alcohol, gamble, ... - it is a long list).
Such bans are not clear and are contentious, and often leave room for parental discretion.
In most countries whether children drink alcohol at home is up to their parents. In some countries an adult can buy teenagers a drink (in the UK they increased the required age from 14 to 16 - and I think its a bad thing).
There are people who think 16 year olds should be allowed to vote.
Kids cannot buy guns, but can use them. I did a bit of rife shooting at school.
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny .. earlier today there was a front page HN post about the federal government mandating safer circular saws. It seemed like the majority of users in the thread were in favor of the federal government mandating technology changes to prevent harm from being done to the population. Now for this issue, there's harm being done to children, and the majority of users in the thread seem to be against government int…
This is a silly comparison. The table saw was not designed to be addictive, turn its users into a highly lucrative commodity, or push algorithmically driven agendas. Social media was. The dangers being compared here are very different.
That seems to reinforce GP's argument, though?
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#346This 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…
Facebook already knows how old its users are with a great degree of accuracy. The block does not have to be perfect to be effective at a societal level. Some curious kids may circumvent it. But it would prevent the massive network effect whereby all teen social life is online on platforms that monetize them. Some very large fines for social media companies found providing services to minors would make it impossible t…
Even if Facebook implements these controls, what guarantee do we have that another social app won't come along without these controls? Do we regulate TikTok, Youtube, Snapchat, GroupMe or whatever the latest flavor of the month is as well? There are probably thousands of startups that would jump at the chance to monetize teenagers even if FB were to step aside.
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#347I still don't see any actual casual link. Nor do I see any evidence given that the situation would improve if social media was banned or restricted, the few he does give don't talk about mental illness, but rather general wellness and add in more variables like exercise. There were other problems like "fake" data or non-significant changes labeled as significant.
I haven't even seen enough evidence to show correlation, for example a few of the attempted suicide graphs would have peaks if they went back further, or show no reaction to social media like youtube and myspace, wouldn't you expect the same group of girls who use social media 5+ hours a day to have used myspace at it's peak, and for them to have some negative reaction if social media was inherently harmful? Maybe you could draw a correlation with smartphones or smartphone+social media? But the unspecificity of the claim is a red flag. There is also the general principle that social science simply isn't advanced enough to make these kinds of predictions yet, so the discussion really is moot.
In my opinion this is just the typical modern overreaction to regression to the mean.
He goes on to say "what is the harm" in restricting children's access to communication. Other than the mass economic, educational and social harm none. Just because you as an old man view the younger generations social interactions as trite, nonsensical and worthless doesn't mean it is. I guess if you view education as the top down passage of knowledge then the idea that students use their phone in class must be horrifying. "Children educating eachother over the internet? Do you want society to collapse? Society needs doctors, layers and computer scientists, not dancers and memes"
To me this seems like you are forcing your personal values onto students and their parents have already rejected them.
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
While both paternalism. Requiring safety features on a saw does not restrict free speech. It's more akin to seatbelt laws. It's also made to protect everyone who uses a table saw and not just children. Imo, I do think social media needs to be reeled in by policy. But I can see why it makes people uncomfortable and why there is a difference with the saw.
I wonder how many would be for seatbelt laws if the addition of seatbelts say doubled the price of car.
I think this confuses cause and effect.
Seatbelts are brought up so often precisely because they are an intervention with a huge benefit-to-cost ratio. Seatbelt laws were made long after the fact - seat belts for cars started to appear in the 1950s, with the common three-point variant in 1955; the first seatbelt law appeared in 1970 (in Australia). The US started introducing seatbelt laws for cars in the 1980s (though as far as I know, some organizations/insurers required them earlier for employees driving for business).
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not, some of your friends will still be more or less subtly influenced by its existence in your social interactions You could say the same thing about the Bible, or Harry Potter, or any number of things too
The Bible, I absolutely would, the negative impact of dogmatic Christianity has been pretty bad on society IMO. Harry Potter, not so much, but still some yes. I still have to argue with some of my friends that the books have some dubious morals that I wouldn't be comfortable ingraining in my children (if I had any). The scale, extent and addictiveness of these two things are nothing compared to algorithmic social med…
That’s an interesting thought. I wonder how detrimental Christianity’s impact on society has been compared to social media? It kind of makes the argument pointless when you frame it that way.
Re: Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not, some of your friends will still be more or less subtly influenced by its existence in your social interactions You could say the same thing about the Bible, or Harry Potter, or any number of things too
The Bible, I absolutely would, the negative impact of dogmatic Christianity has been pretty bad on society IMO. Harry Potter, not so much, but still some yes. I still have to argue with some of my friends that the books have some dubious morals that I wouldn't be comfortable ingraining in my children (if I had any). The scale, extent and addictiveness of these two things are nothing compared to algorithmic social med…
Tangent: Children's literacy (and that of some adults for that matter) skyrocketed under the HP phenomenon, in profound ways that activists/scholars are typically grateful for. I wish I could find the studies done, sorry that I don't have them on hand.
I guess I'm saying that it was worth it, dubious morals aside.