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

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

#281

Post by ben_w »

nivenkos wrote: post #194
tgv wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Situation wrt to teen mental health is similar in Europe, but there's a much smaller graduation debt. But Europe has far lower professional salaries than the US. Also economic conditions definitely have a big impact, I could finally buy a small flat after years of renting and it's such a great change to be able to make changes in your own home and buy your own things. My father did that at 23, not 30.

Both for you and the person you are replying to, I would caution that “Europe” isn’t one country like the USA, even just the EU is 27 smaller countries in a trenchcoat — the average may be lower, but bits are higher.

University tuition is wildly variable and not directly proportional to income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_payments

(Housing costs are also wildly variable, but I don’t know where to get enough data to tell if that’s proportional to incomes or not).

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

#282

Post by fercircularbuf »

crate_barre wrote: post #111
germinalphrase wrote: post #22

My entirely anecdotal impression as a high school teacher is that media (in general, often but not always “social” media) is doing an exceptional job of sucking up teenagers’ every waking moment that is not actively demanded to be focused on something else. It’s pleasure without joy. Ennui without boredom. Their social skills (and social interest) appear markedly reduced even compared to even five years ago. So many…

How do you differentiate what you are saying versus what people have always said about reading comic books all day, or playing video games all day, watching tv, listening to certain music, spending all your time on the internet, etc? Life is boring as fuck. It really is. It takes a lot to keep a human captivated.

Life is what you make of it. Personally, since I've become an adult, I couldn't tell you the last time I remember experiencing boredom. And I have deliberately disconnected myself as much as I can. My phone is always on silent mode, and I've turned off notifications for every app except text messaging and calling. I deleted my last social media account a few years ago, and I try to the best of my ability to use my computer and my phone for things that are not mind-numbing, e.g. I don't play mobile games, I don't mindlessly watch youtube videos, etc. I limit my consumption. Even if you spent the entire day sitting in front of a blank wall, there are literally endless things you could think about and explore. You could think about the things in your immediate environment, how they work, how they came to be, how you could improve on them. You could run any number of thought experiments like if we made contact with an alien civilization how would we come to understand each other? You could think about your goals in life and steps to achieving them, explore why you are experiencing problems with certain people and how to resolve them, or just reminisce and be grateful for things you have.

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

#283

Post by refurb »

rejectfinite wrote: post #213

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…

Pretty much. I remember my wife's great-grandfather talking about leaving the farm at 16 during the Great Depression, jumping on the roof of a train and looking for random work at every stop. Today, plenty of parents won't let their kids walk home alone at night at 16.

Of course the social media experts would say he "unfairly" benefited from the post-WW2 economy, plenty of jobs, a nice house but hell, I wouldn't trade places with him.

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

#284

Post by burntoutfire »

moooo99 wrote: post #239
moonchrome wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s should be concerned about. People in this thread need to stop projecting their problems and worldviews as universal social issues.

> You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s should be concerned about. This is happening, based on my own experience. I am 22, I have a safe job with an above average salary but I still cannot find an apartment with my partner. I can’t imagine affording my own place with the current prices, especially not…

> I have a safe job with an above average salary but I still cannot find an apartment with my partner.

Do you have an above average salary for the region you're looking for the apartment in? If so, then who's getting those apartments, if the majority of people cannot afford them? Is this a special case like SF where there's just not enough apartments being built for the size of population?

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

#285

Post by cloutchaser »

sofixa wrote: post #256
rendall wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teens are aware that they are going to inherit a pretty terrible world With respect, I truly mean no insult when I say this is a naive and ignorant position. By every measure, the world is generally better than it has ever been. Far better than any decade in the past you could care to name. Despite media doom-and-glooming, there is every reason to expect that teens will inherit an overall materially better world th…

Climate change drastically changes that equation. Not only will life expectancy go down, but life itself will probably become harder for many people in many places - droughts, heat waves, floodings, hunger and famine, mass migration, etc.

Have you actually read the IPCC report, or only read what the media says about it?

There’s a huge difference. The IPCC, the consensus of scientists says that the rate of growth in the world will slow. That’s it. And that’s turned into an “earth will become a fireball” narrative by the media.

Therefore the actual scientific consensus is the world will get better more slowly, not that it will get worse.

Stop listening to the media who make money off your fear.

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

#286

Post by brianmcc »

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…

Individual parenting styles and quality obviously have a huge part to play. But when there's a huge toxic elephant rampaging around the room, saying "avoid the elephant" is a less systemic fix that helps way fewer people than "just shoot the bloody elephant".

And no sadly I don't know what shooting the bloody elephant equates to in this metaphor :-(

Also - I'm not sure if you're a parent or what your experiences have been, but I am and my opinion is 100% that stopping my kids doing the stuff that all their peer group does will be far worse in terms of ending up ostracised and alone and probably bullied than the harms social media itself very likely does bring.

Damned if you do...

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

#288

Post by bamboozled »

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 being a young person faced with climate change, it’s not cool.

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

#289

Post by watwut »

twayt wrote: post #246
watwut wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Table 8.1B is "Any Mental Illness in Past Year" Edited to add: the note under graph says "These mental illness estimates are based on a predictive model and are not direct measures of diagnostic status."

8.36B if you want a direct comparison for major depression. I still think that "Any Mental Illness in Past Year" is a lot more interesting because it includes other mental illnesses like anxiety.

That table shows "Serious Mental Illness" and does not show 1 in 4 girls being diagnozed in any age range.

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

#290

Post by LewisVerstappen »

erddfre3423 wrote: post #219

Social media is bad. What is even worse is that smartphones allow people to use it anywhere, whenever they feel bored. The impact isn't massive just on mental health, but also on general productivity and people's social lives. It's just way too addicting. I work in tech and constantly feel like moving into a forest without internet connection for these reasons.

> The impact isn't massive just on mental health, but also on general productivity and people's social lives. It's just way too addicting.

My main app of choice is YouTube and it's just astonishing how much amazing educational content there is on the app.

MIT OpenCourseware, 3Blue1Brown, PBS Eons, SmarterEveryDay, ... and I could go on and on....

DESPITE THIS, their recommendations and the YouTube search has gotten so unbelievably terrible over the past few years that it's just becoming unusable.

Their recommendations have nothing to do with the channels I'm subscribed to, instead it's so much goddamn crap with click-bait titles/thumbnails (because one of the biggest factors for the YouTube Rec. Algorithm is thumbnail click-through-rate).

For YouTube search, if you search for "schlieffen plan", then sure the first 3-4 recommendations will be based on what you searched. BUT after that, the fucking recommendations have nothing to do with your search query... instead it'll just be completely random stuff that the YouTube algorithm thinks you might click on.

It's gotten completely unusable with YouTube shorts now because they're trying to shove that shit down the throat of their users (99% of the YouTube shorts are complete fucking garbage).

It's really a shame because there's so much amazing content that's been uploaded to the YouTube platform, but the idiots in charge of the company are completely ruining the app... especially over the past few years.

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