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Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

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Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#401

Post by cauch »

illiac786 wrote: post #391
bhk wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or also.... C) X -> depression AND X -> smartphone First example, X could be "strongly needs to feel included"

Why then is there an uptick since 2012, for example? Your theory doesn't explain this, while the author's does. We can't just consider all theories equal because they are all in the realm of the possible. Some evidence, while not proof, strongly points toward social media being the cause or at least a very strong factor. I agree with multiple other commenters here, that banning phones in school would be a high reward…

There are TONS of things that changed in the society around 2012. (for example, a specific and brand new phase in globalisation, in climate change crisis, in global loss of trust in the media, in disillusion in the capacity of changing elements that matters, in faster access of overwhelming communication, a more open communication about personal issues (gender, ...), ...)

The "smartphone change" is the "what people who don't know sociology think a sociology change looks like". It is still a sociology change, but it's the "nose in the middle of the face".

> I agree with multiple other commenters here, that banning phones in school would be a high reward chances / low risk decision.

And, surprise, I'm 100% for the ban in school too. But we need to solve the problem, not hide it. The problem can be, for example, social media. Banning smartphone at school will not solve the depression crisis, because people will still have their fix on their laptop after school, and will just maintain the toxic social media relationship dynamic in "real life" in school.

If you really care about the kids, you should understand why some people are so unhappy about having a conclusion as naive and simplistic as "let's just ban the smartphone and change nothing in the fundamental ways we are building a society, and I promise you, everything will magically be fine".

(and again, it does not mean smartphones are not part of the equation. But we need to find the real cause, and this is why correlation != causality is important. Nobody cares about the theory, people raise this argument because they know this mistake will have bad consequences)

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#402

Post by Aerbil313 »

afavour wrote: post #100
alexb_ wrote: post #45

There is so much instant dismissal of this entire idea that smartphones are harmful in this thread, most of which is just "correlation is not causation". Yes, correlation does not equal causation. But when it makes logical sense why there would be correlation, there is no way to actually measure causation (we can't exactly give kids placebo phones), we keep seeing the same correlation over and over again, why is it b…

> Smartphones give children the ability to bully eachother at a scale unlike any other. No, social media does. I think it's important to be specific about that because a smartphone is just a tool, same as a laptop or a desktop computer is (when I was a kid there was plenty of bullying that went on via AIM!) Having access to e.g. Wikipedia is of enormous benefit to young people. Having the means to easily call your pa…

> a smartphone is just a tool, same as a laptop or a desktop computer is

I can no longer believe any modern technology is just a neutral tool. They are neutral if you think about them in isolation, but not when they're used commonly. See https://archive.org/download/tk-Technological-Slavery/tk-Tec...

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#403

Post by Aerbil313 »

meragrin_ wrote: post #301
alexb_ wrote: post #45

There is so much instant dismissal of this entire idea that smartphones are harmful in this thread, most of which is just "correlation is not causation". Yes, correlation does not equal causation. But when it makes logical sense why there would be correlation, there is no way to actually measure causation (we can't exactly give kids placebo phones), we keep seeing the same correlation over and over again, why is it b…

> Smartphones give children the ability to bully each other at a scale unlike any other. People problem. > Smartphones give children the ability to see everyone who is smarter than they are, prettier than they are, and so on. People problem. > Smartphones give children a new avenue for social exclusion. People problem. > Smartphones make every single child afraid that what they are doing is being recorded by someone…

All those people problems are enabled by smartphones. Now which of those two can you do: Ban smartphones (or most of their functionality) or tell people to please not be ?

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#404

Post by Aerbil313 »

newsclues wrote: post #189
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent, I’m seeing a very clear division in parenting style among my peers. Some parents allow screen time with moderation and caution because they know what excessive use leads to. The other group sees nothing wrong and screens are everywhere all the time. My friend circles are exclusively in the first group, from daycare to schools to friends. So much so that at first I thought everyone was like this. Then I s…

Smartphones and social media are tools. Drugs are tools. Both can be used or abused.

Tools tend to manifest certain use cases when they encounter that thing called human nature.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#405

Post by caf »

rcme wrote: post #5

This is only tangentially related to the main point of this piece, but it's a bit concerning that the average 18-24 yo of both genders has a mental health quotient somewhere between struggling, managing, and enduring, as opposed to succeeding and thriving.

They address this in the "Limitations" section (don't put a lot of stock in the absolute values - look at relative differences within the sample):

One issue to keep in mind with the Sapien Labs dataset is that the participants in each country are not a random or representative sample of the people in that country. Such studies would be extremely expensive to run, and now that so few people agree to phone solicitations or even answer their phones, it is unclear how representative such surveys can be. Those who agree to be interviewed, or who are motivated by money to participate, are not representative of the broader population. For this Sapien Labs report, participants came to the site on their own, or from online advertisements paid for by Sapien Labs, for the purpose of getting a detailed report on their wellbeing. So, the means reported for any country should not be treated like direct measures of the true means. However, samples such as these are still very useful for examining differences within the sample, such as those between men and women, or between those who got a smartphone early and those who got one late. And the much larger size of the Sapien Labs dataset, compared to Gallup and other survey organizations, allows for many additional analyses.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#406

Post by hardware2win »

makeitdouble wrote: post #281
maxdoop wrote: post #223

So many comments here are of the belief that "it's not the phones, it's the doom of the real world! Climate change, inflation, recession -- this is all bad for mental health of our kids." And I just want to ask if any of these people every met any real child. Imagine you are 14. You hear the climate isn't doing too hot, but then you pull out your phone and see your classmate getting tons of attention for some post he…

Teenagers actually ask their parents what it means for them that whole countries don't give a shit about the future of the planet. Of course they care about their social circle and how they're seen in the world. But people tend to forget that it's also the age where they try really hard to understand the world in general, what kind of like awaits them, what it means to grow up, etc. As a society we constantly ask tee…

I dont believe that it isnt tiny %

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#407

Post by stewartmcgown »

makeitdouble wrote: post #55
timmytokyo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have my doubts that it's about the phones. It seems more likely that their adult problems are the student loans, the cost of rent, the lack of jobs, the corporate greed, and on, and on. That wouldn't explain the sharp reductions in mental health among girls around 2012. Something definitely seemed to be going on between 2010 and 2014. Cell phone usage patterns could be a part of it, but I'd like to see error bars…

The global economy just tanked and advanced economies were barely recovering. I would see that as enough of a cause for children to feel a bleaker future and be impacted in direct and indeect ways. https://seekingalpha.com/article/184723-an-analysis-of-the-i...

Doubtless these effects were felt by children through increased hardship at home, but having witnessed first hand the vice grip that negative social media interactions had on the friends I had during high school (starting 2011) and the complete lack of awareness the social circles I ran in had of the wider economic situation, I'm more inclined to believe that the shock therapy exposure to social media and smartphones had a large part to play.

I, for one, was pretty adversely affected by what I saw and was subjected to on social media as a young teenager. It gave me and most other kids I knew additional stress outside of the in-person problems that would arise at school.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#408

Post by tssva »

tgv wrote: post #396
tssva wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can however easily imagine what's happening in this particular case, and the data support it. I have yet to see credible data regarding causation and I prefer that large societal decisions not be made based upon imagination. Comic books, pinball, rock n roll, violent video games at some point were all claimed to be destroying our youth and there was "data" presented to back it up. Teen drug, alcohol, nicotine an…

> Climate change has actual quality data and science behind it, so it is nothing alike. I don't disagree, but > I prefer that large societal decisions not be made based upon imagination with that attitude, no decision can ever be taken. Social sciences can't produce the evidence you need. It's correlations all the way. But also: * Not acting is also taking a decision, because social media isn't going to stop any time…

Those under 18 are people too and they have fundamental rights just as other people do. This includes free speech rights. This right is even specifically protected by Article 13 of the Convention on the Rights of Children. I recognize that free speech rights have limitations, but I consider any decision by the state to limit speech major and should require more than casual correlation based upon shady data. Individual parents can decide what they want for their children but the state should stay out of it.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#409

Post by CatWChainsaw »

illiac786 wrote: post #393
fatneckbeard wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN prob full of people who make their living off smartphones reminds me of Oil / coil industry people who dont want to talk abt climate change never easy to come to terms with your life work has to change or stop.

That is a bit far fetched and a lot of trolling no?

Which part is far-fetched? O&G did their best to muddy the waters on the climate "debate" for decades. If you watched the Social Dilemma, executives of social media companies often limit the way their children use smartphones for their own health and safety.

Re: Kids who get smartphones earlier become adults with worse mental health

#410

Post by CatWChainsaw »

meragrin_ wrote: post #301
alexb_ wrote: post #45

There is so much instant dismissal of this entire idea that smartphones are harmful in this thread, most of which is just "correlation is not causation". Yes, correlation does not equal causation. But when it makes logical sense why there would be correlation, there is no way to actually measure causation (we can't exactly give kids placebo phones), we keep seeing the same correlation over and over again, why is it b…

> Smartphones give children the ability to bully each other at a scale unlike any other. People problem. > Smartphones give children the ability to see everyone who is smarter than they are, prettier than they are, and so on. People problem. > Smartphones give children a new avenue for social exclusion. People problem. > Smartphones make every single child afraid that what they are doing is being recorded by someone…

"Drugs aren't the problem. They are just things. They don't make people do things."
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