Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#261

Post by somenameforme » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:04 AM UTC

kabouseng wrote: post #199

paxys wrote: post #68

Social media definitely amplifies it, but consider the economic and social environment that teenagers have lived through their entire lives. Multiple major recessions, a global pandemic, rising inflation, housing and education getting more expensive by the day, prospect of a mountain of debt right after graduation, climate that will be unlivable in a few decades, political extremism becoming the norm, and massive gov…

Imagine you were born in 1900. When you're 14, World War I begins and ends when you're 18 with 22 million dead. Soon after a global pandemic, the Spanish Flu, appears, killing 50 million people. And you're alive and 20 years old. When you're 29 you survive the global economic crisis that started with the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange, causing inflation, unemployment and famine. When you're 33 years old the…

Just posted something quite similar to this. Something I would really add here is what those numbers mean in terms of global %, or scaled to modern times. The WW2 death toll is also understated, and closer to 80 million.

But that really hits home when you start to consider that in 1939 the world population was around 2.3 billion. So those 80 million deaths would be 275 million scaled to current population, primarily among the youth and those in the prime of their lives.

The thing that's exceptional in contemporary times is not how bad things are, but rather how unimaginably good things were during the bubble of time most of us grew up in. And we seemingly took that extreme outlier in the history of humanity for granted.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#262

Post by rolandog » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:04 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #68

Social media definitely amplifies it, but consider the economic and social environment that teenagers have lived through their entire lives. Multiple major recessions, a global pandemic, rising inflation, housing and education getting more expensive by the day, prospect of a mountain of debt right after graduation, climate that will be unlivable in a few decades, political extremism becoming the norm, and massive gov…

> political extremism

Completely agree. Also, there's the fact that we tell children to "act like adults", like it meant being civilized, educated, and kind to each other; but it's not hard to see that some significant segment of adults are rage-spouting, ear-covering person-children when it comes to discourse.

Maybe we need to train ourselves and the next generation on how maintain civility in engagement-driven platforms that reward incendiary interactions.

That may be the best long-term solution... but I'm not sure what can be done when some people with opposing views can't argue in good faith right now.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#263

Post by ptsneves » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:04 AM UTC

DSingularity wrote: post #253

betwixthewires wrote: post #252

Social media cannot be blamed. Parents are the only ones to blame. I grew up while MTV had music videos playing. There were mascara wearing men talking about slitting their wrists and there were tough looking black men talking about killing people in the street. Some people imitated that. Some parents turned it off. If you give your kid access to anything and everything the world has to offer, including every manner…

Oh. Turn the tv off? Please, do tell — how shall we turn off social media?

You install parental control. Does this seem unfeasible?

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#264

Post by jokethrowaway » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:05 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #68

Social media definitely amplifies it, but consider the economic and social environment that teenagers have lived through their entire lives. Multiple major recessions, a global pandemic, rising inflation, housing and education getting more expensive by the day, prospect of a mountain of debt right after graduation, climate that will be unlivable in a few decades, political extremism becoming the norm, and massive gov…

The view they'll inherit a terrible world is exactly the problem and it's completely false. The problem with social media is that it's a powerful tool of propaganda for views like yours. The hidden goal of this propaganda is of course just to gain political support and steal even more money from the people with increased taxes.

- The climate won't be un-livable in a few decades.

- Major recessions did impact work prospects but people in developed nations still had food on the table. Nothing too terrible. You can thank government intervention (see below) for fiddling with the market.

- The pandemic was concerning only because of government propaganda and because of how governments treated it (see below).

- Nobody force kids to graduate with debt.

- Political extremism is again a function of propaganda.

In general for any government related problem there is a solution - moving abroad and going where you're treated best.

There will always be countries in a different stage where things are cheaper and easier to fix compared to the Western world - and on that I agree with you, current governments and politicians make it impossible to fix the situation and we're doomed to increase spending and inequality until society collapse.

Sure, there are problems, but nothing you can escape from.

The main concern for the future I have is if China - or their socialist ideology which is seeping in the west at an alarming rate - end up owning the world and turn everyone into slaves of the Galactic Empire.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#265

Post by watwut » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:05 AM UTC

moistly wrote: post #236

mjevans wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A child born in the 80s is lucky to still have living parents today, and if they have living grandparents they were probably reluctant to speak to the child during the years both could understand the conversation. Also I don't think those dates quite line up. A better estimate is the range of 20 to 33 (ish) years for most families (I personally would like to hope some start later but kind of doubt this offhand...) Be…

> A child born in the 80s is lucky to still have living parents today Wut?! Born in 1966 here, still have living parents. Ditto for my wife. Where do you live that parents are lucky to make it past their sixties? And where grandparents shun their grandkiddies? Such bizarre claims!

> And where grandparents shun their grandkiddies?

Grandparents who went through wars dont talk much about ugly details of those with their small grandchildren. Instead, they try to protect kids from those. If they talk about those, they wait till kids are adult and even then they talk about it only if it is relevant to something.

In addition, generations that went through wars seem to generally not to talk about it much with others. That seems fairly universal - ex-solders tend to feel that non-soldiers dont understand their experience. They have hard time to put experience into words that non-soldiers do understand.

> Born in 1966 here, still have living parents.

That is cool. My dad is death and I am younger. Not everyone lives till 80.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#266

Post by evocatus » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:06 AM UTC

moistly wrote: post #242

mlindner wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just wrong. Teenagers don't know or care about recessions or inflation as it doesn't affect them. Nor do they know about the cost of housing and education. Teenagers don't care much about the government either. Social media blows up the fear about climate change (it definitely will not be "unlivable") and political extremisism. Being misinformed about things you can do nothing to change isn't good for mental…

> Teenagers don't know or care about recessions or inflation as it doesn't affect them. The hell it doesn’t! Did you even put a moment’s thought into that claim? Parents losing a job, or a house, or not being able to afford new clothes, or FFS the other hundreds of impacts recessions and inflation have on a family affect teenagers. Talk about misinformed, lordy lor’

Nothing to do with being misinformed, everything to do with starting life on easy mode as a privileged white free from socioeconomic pressures and - yes, what a foreign concept - a life of prolonged existential, primal fear around gaining and maintaining shelter and sustenance.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#267

Post by grapeskin » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:06 AM UTC

betwixthewires wrote: post #252

Social media cannot be blamed. Parents are the only ones to blame. I grew up while MTV had music videos playing. There were mascara wearing men talking about slitting their wrists and there were tough looking black men talking about killing people in the street. Some people imitated that. Some parents turned it off. If you give your kid access to anything and everything the world has to offer, including every manner…

Helicopter parenting messes kids up in a whole different way that’s often even worse.

Kids are going to like things parents try to keep away from them. They like things that are cool with their peers. They like doing things parents tell them not to do. They’ll find ways to do things their peers are all doing even if you try to block them entirely.

Kids who were banned from those alleged MTV videos simply watched them at a friend’s house and had the smarts to not let their parents know.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#268

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:06 AM UTC

betwixthewires wrote: post #252

Social media cannot be blamed. Parents are the only ones to blame. I grew up while MTV had music videos playing. There were mascara wearing men talking about slitting their wrists and there were tough looking black men talking about killing people in the street. Some people imitated that. Some parents turned it off. If you give your kid access to anything and everything the world has to offer, including every manner…

[deleted]

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#269

Post by idrios » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:06 AM UTC

tgv wrote: post #167

paxys wrote: post #68

Social media definitely amplifies it, but consider the economic and social environment that teenagers have lived through their entire lives. Multiple major recessions, a global pandemic, rising inflation, housing and education getting more expensive by the day, prospect of a mountain of debt right after graduation, climate that will be unlivable in a few decades, political extremism becoming the norm, and massive gov…

> Multiple major recessions One. They lived through one major recession, and here it wasn't really major, and is not something they lived through recently. They were younger than 6 when it started. I've lived through two. The 80s weren't a happy time, and there are no signs that that had such an impact on teen mental health. If it did, it would be proof that the impact of a major recession is temporary. > prospect of…

Also, it's really easy to see how social media is directly affecting kids' mental health. Instagram, TikTok, SnapChat, YouTube, Twitch, on these sites are an endless stream of people their who are better looking, smarter, more successful, funnier, more interesting than them. If you have insecurities, these sites will amplify them. And if you admire someone on one of these platforms, that person literally has no idea who you are and that admiration will not be reciprocated. But unlike the celebrities of yore, a kid can leave comments in a livestream or on a picture or a video and get a response, and they might end up developing a parasocial relationship.

It was bad enough when I was in high school when all we had was Facebook, because we were comparing the whole of ourselves to our peers in their best light. It is so much worse now.

Re: Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf]

#270

Post by burntoutfire » Thu, May 05, 2022, 7:07 AM UTC

DSingularity wrote: post #253

betwixthewires wrote: post #252

Social media cannot be blamed. Parents are the only ones to blame. I grew up while MTV had music videos playing. There were mascara wearing men talking about slitting their wrists and there were tough looking black men talking about killing people in the street. Some people imitated that. Some parents turned it off. If you give your kid access to anything and everything the world has to offer, including every manner…

Oh. Turn the tv off? Please, do tell — how shall we turn off social media?

You can not install social media apps on kids phone, and restrict them in the browser (facebook has that feature). Dunno how to do the same on the PC though.