No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems • Hacker News Board

Re: No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems

#101

Post by mistermann » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 7:52 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #45

spondylosaurus wrote: post #28

Skepticism is warranted here (as is the reminder that lack of evidence isn't definitive evidence against ), but I think the specific takeaway is interesting: social media use does not predict mental health problems in youth Which could indicate any number of things: - Social media use by itself doesn't predict mental health problems because kids without mental health problems also use social media. - Social media use…

Why is skepticism warranted? It's not an extraordinary claim by any stretch. The claim that social media does harm your mental health is the one that needs strong evidence supporting it. This reads like copium, you've set your priors all the way to "it's obviously true you can't convince me otherwise." Which then of course everything refuting it has to be literally air-tight, there's no way you hold that standard for…

> This reads like copium, you've set your priors all the way to "it's obviously true you can't convince me otherwise." Which then of course everything refuting it has to be literally air-tight, there's no way you hold that standard for other things.

This phenomenon is part of the reason I'm skeptical of most any study, because I doubt the researchers don't have the same problem.

Re: No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems

#102

Post by huem0n » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 7:54 PM UTC

While, as an academic, I actually don't see glaring flaws in the paper. (For context, the author previously wrote about videogames not increasing violence. "Not correlated" might be his general approach)

As a normal human though; when overwhelming daily evidence disagrees with scientific findings, usually its a flaw or VERY deep misunderstanding of the science.

Re: No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems

#103

Post by mistermann » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 7:55 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #65

spondylosaurus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think skepticism is warranted since (1) This study is specifically NOT making the claim "social media is definitely fine and good for kids," so really more like skepticism at anyone trying to draw a conclusion of "...and therefore we should let Instagram off the hook :)" and (2) There is a reasonable case to be made that a lot of adults say that social media makes them miserable, and therefore that probably extends…

This is a very long way of saying "I already believe it's true from anecdotal evidence and so will viscously critique anything that doesn't agree with my position." This paper can be wrong, but you're clearly not open to even the possibility that it's not.

> This...

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism

Re: No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems

#104

Post by mistermann » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 7:59 PM UTC

gotoeleven wrote: post #70

oneepic wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a layperson who doesn't understand psychology but is interested in science and peace, I felt that Ferguson's article (this HN post) was much less directed at a person (as opposed to the person's work or theories put forward) and more professional, versus the linked blog post -- so I tend to believe the former. Even a simple sentence like, "Ferguson did both of these things and his findings thus do not “undermine”…

Why is this "scathing"? He's literally just positing simple facts, which may or may not be true. This tendency of people nowadays to focus on tone and other irrelevant characteristics of an argument (as it is made) is dumb.

Humans commonly engage in deceptive rhetoric, and tone is one of the methods they use. Often, the individual may not even be doing it with substantial intention.

Wordplay is another, and there is plenty of it in this HN thread.

Re: No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems

#105

Post by ahahahahah » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 8:12 PM UTC

ghusto wrote: post #95

ergonaught wrote: post #68

Anecdata isn't useful, but each of three children in our family experienced "externally observable" and self-reported improvements to their "mental health" each and every time they were banned from devices they used for "social media time", with immediate regressions/worsening once the bans were over. You could say maybe they needed better friends, and I wouldn't argue that, but that's three very different teenagers…

Every parent already knows this. I wonder why they're trying to disprove it so badly?

Every parent also already knows that sugar causes hyperactivity.

Re: No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems

#106

Post by pyuser583 » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 8:12 PM UTC

elmomle wrote: post #69

Plenty has already been written about how young people are caught in a Catch-22: being on social media sucks, but being off of social media has major social penalties. Given that this is already well known, this study seems intentionally, even maliciously, naive.

This is a really important point - we're stuck on social media, even if we hate. My career would suffer without it, and I like being able to support my family.

When you're that stuck with something, you kind of have to ignore the negative consequences. Does it matter how bad it is for my mental health? Or my kids mental health.

But this lets us go wild in our heads: "Maybe it's really bad, like tobacco bad! Or worse! Maybe we'll all be killed by apathy and a rouge AI trained on our social media feed!"

Re: No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems

#107

Post by jl6 » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 8:17 PM UTC

“No evidence of X” is a more impressive claim when X is itself an extraordinary claim - but in this case, I believe “not X” to be the extraordinary claim.

Based on my own observations, and on my experience of being a child and of raising one, and on what other parents tell me, and on what other teens tell me in their own words, and on what we know about how addiction works and how teen brains work… I consider the burden of proof to be on those who think social media is not correlated with teen mental health problems - and there is no evidence for this.

Re: No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems

#108

Post by altruios » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 8:25 PM UTC

beala wrote: post #17

Jimpulse wrote: post #10

Jonathan Haidt, who's been driving a lot of the work against social media for kids, directly refutes these findings in this post https://www.afterbabel.com/p/fundamental-flaws-part-3 .

Refutes is a strong word. This is an ongoing debate and it’s not clear to me Haidt is on the right side of it. The Studies Show did a great episode on this, but unfortunately it’s paywalled. However, the show notes are public and link to the relevant back and forth if folks want to make up their own minds. https://www.thestudiesshowpod.com/p/paid-only-episode-12-jon... Edit: And here’s a link to their earlier free ep…

Informally: it would seem that of course social media exacerbates the spread of any social contagion such as bulimia, anorexia, 'alpha'-ness, etc...

Maybe it also helps to immunize people to those same contagions as well: that seems less obvious that would happen, to me at least...

Re: No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems

#109

Post by Triphibian » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 8:26 PM UTC

Maybe coming at this from the standpoint of psychological health is the wrong approach. It is understood that the product social media companies are selling is not the interaction of users -- it is the personal data those users create while interacting. The users are being farmed for their data. They are livestock. Our reasons for our even cursory protections of livestock are largely moral ones. We don't like the idea of animals living in poor conditions. I think we, similarly, don't like the idea of our children being milked for data. Regardless of provable harm.

Re: No evidence social media time is correlated with teen mental health problems

#110

Post by pembrook » Fri, Oct 04, 2024, 8:31 PM UTC

ghusto wrote: post #96

pembrook wrote: post #79

Interesting how most comments are bending over backwards to argue against the findings and support the moral panic narrative (“social media is making kids commit suicide at dramatically higher rates”). It seems a majority of people really want this to be true. That’s what makes me most skeptical that it is. I’m fully open to the idea that social media is uniquely harmful to humans. But the burden of proof should be o…

I called 100% BS on the last one (video games desensitise children to violence), "but this time it's different" ;) Moral panics are usually baseless, but this doesn't fit the usual mould. This is rather coming from the other direction, where parents and teachers are observing children change for the worse in real time. They also observe how they get better when internet devices are taken away (usually as punishment f…

I think it's super interesting that the "violent videos games" moral panic is basically non-existent as a mainstream narrative these days.

Yet, both time spent playing videos games per young male and school shootings have risen dramatically over the last two decades.

So you would think that particular moral panic would be at its peak, given how much moral panickers claim to care about "the data" (basically correlation = causation fallacies, but still).

Which basically suggests these are just memetic hysterias that run their course. Once all the eyeballs and ad dollars have been squeezed out of the narrative, the narrative dies. Nobody actually cares about looking too closely at the supposed "data" or whether said correlation is actually true. I'd bet a large sum of money this is where the smartphones/social media/etc. panics will end up as well.