Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

judiciary.senate.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 1001 posts

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

#431

Post by towaway15463 »

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…

I don’t think these are the factors directly affecting teens. The thing that does directly affect them is the media both social and legacy telling them these things over and over. Consider that many people grew up during the Cold War when we were constantly 10 minutes away from nuclear armageddon. The difference is that we now have 24 hour news and are saturated with messaging on social media. The other weird twist is the idea that we are all “powerless to do anything” that’s not true in general and especially not for young people with their entire lives ahead of them. If you have time and motivation you can change the world. The biggest challenge is blocking out all the noise telling you it’s hopeless.

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

#433

Post by nivenkos »

yunohn wrote: post #419
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, cost of living is proportional to income; I could move inside my small country to a place twice as big, but if I were to get a job close to where I live it'd slash my wages by a lot to the point where I wouldn't actually be able to live there. That said, if you can work remotely, you can move south or east and live a lot cheaper. It just has to be your thing to move to a new country.

> if you can work remotely, you can move south or east and live a lot cheaper. It just has to be your thing to move to a new country. “The solution to these problems is to exploit systemic economic inequalities by leveraging remote work for income arbitrage” I don’t understand why HN keeps repeating this “solution”.

Because it's the only way most of us can afford to own our residence.

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

#434

Post by chab38 »

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…

I really doubt that, in my subjective experience the average person doesn't care about any of those issues enough to be depressive about them and certainly not enough to commit suicide over climate change or political extremism. Gen Z kids aren't nearly as "political" as the millennials working in media want them to be. The average teenager doesn't care about affording a house or the political climate, I think you (and a lot of others) are projecting a lot of your own fears onto them. It's also worth noting that the US is not the whole world, there are European countries which deal with the same mental health crisis in teenagers despite being a safe haven even in the worst climate change scenarios and have a quite stable political situation.

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

#435

Post by t0suj4 »

msrenee wrote: post #387
maeln wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk but in France, when I was still a teenager, it was not that uncommon to talk/joke about the fact that we will never be able to retire. In high school, most of my classmate already started to have a political conscience and where thinking about this kind of stuff. Same with the environment. We already had social media at the time (mostly facebook) and yes, I won't deny that there was already something anxious abou…

I don't know if it's a useful data point, but my sister made me a Facebook profile when I was 16. I never really gave a crap about it and would read a few posts maybe every other month or so and use the poke feature back and forth with friends because texting cost money. I was active on forums specific to my hobbies and that was honestly the extent of my social media use until the last couple months when I figured ou…

I used to read news every day. I've noticed that I dread every coming day. Quitting the news for two years helped me a lot. I still read the news but not in the volume I used to.

Most of the things are outside my control so I just don't worry about them.

In short: doom scrolling is poison.

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

#436

Post by native_samples »

tetris11 wrote: post #293
rendall wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except, people have been saying exactly this with the same unshakable confidence, literally since the beginning of recorded history. In the 70s, it was said that we would have experienced all of those things by 2000, and yet, life continued to get dramatically better for everyone, particularly for the poorest. So, no. Life will continue to get better despite global warming. Or, not doing so is an extraordinarily clai…

They rang the alarm bells because they saw the trend and tried to curb it. They knew things would get bad, not neccesarily at an exact date. We are only now experiencing the contributions to the atmosphere made at the dawn of the last century. This delayed effect is worrying to say the least.

No, in the 1970s they were ringing alarm bells about global cooling, not global warming. If you read newspaper archival articles from that period you'll see that they sound exactly like articles written last week, except with the word warming inverted to cooling. Scientists back then, or at least the ones being interviewed by journalists, were communicating an absolute certainty that an ice age was coming and the world needed to prepare. There was scientific consensus, etc.

This whole thing has long since been memory holed, but it happened. Here's Spock in 1979 with a whole documentary about about how politicians are ignoring the scientist's warnings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQSBn50o_8M&t=21s

"What scientists are telling us now, is that the threat of an ice age is not as remote as they once thought. During the lifetime of our grandchildren, arctic cold and perpetual snow could turn most of the inhabitable portions of our desert into a polar desert".

They also had plans for how to stop it. They wanted to, amongst other things, cover the arctic in black dust to make it absorb more heat.

IMHO one of the major reasons teenagers suffer mentally is because they are way too sensitive to social pressures to never question claims about future destruction of the world. They're told the world is ending and that anyone who claims otherwise is an unspeakably evil conservative who must not be listened to under any circumstances. But it's not ending, even decades after global cooling scientists still don't really understand the climate at all and the people who claim otherwise aren't evil or bad. They're actually the level headed ones. Teenagers should listen to them a lot more - they'd realize there's a lot to live for.

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

#437

Post by throwaway0a5e »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #426
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Compare that to my father born in 1941' I am sorry but the idea that 'bad old days had great mental health is a meme. Do we have any evidence? Was anyone even counting who is depressed and who isn't? What about other mental issues and traumas? They didnt exactly have loads of psycologists avaliable.

> 'bad old days had great mental health An who said that actually? Did you not read what I wrote or are you trying to troll? Anyway, I'll rephrase it, so that it may become clearer to you: my father didn't survive all his traumas because he's stronger than current generations, but because he was not constantly surrounded by misleading messages of rapid success and luxurious lifestyle, something that you should absolu…

>trauma doesn't automatically lead to depression.

As an aside, watering down what constitutes trauma and then assuming everyone's actions are the result of trauma seems like a path toward denying people their agency which is an implied goal of a lot of people these days.

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

#438

Post by antisinguIarity »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #393
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…

'Don't try to downplay the role of internet, mobile devices and social media' Exhibit A people: we have impeding total collapse of the ecosystem, and they blame 'too many phones'. Have you spoken to a teenager lately? All my younger colleagues are convinced they are the ones that will have to deal with the mess, and they are probably right

It's funny how people don't associate the endless stream of shiny gadgets they own, that are stuffed full with the latest and greatest in rare minerals, with the destruction of the ecosystem.

Just to pick a recent-ish story at random: https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/nickel-deforestation

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

#439

Post by germinalphrase »

bradlys wrote: post #82
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…

> Their social skills (and social interest) appear markedly reduced even compared to even five years ago. So many of them struggle to articulate any kind of positive vision for themselves/their lives unless they have lucked into a passion or have family that pushes. Yikes. How is a lack of positive vision indicative of poor social skills? You can be quite articulate and good at socializing but still suicidal. Have yo…

I didn’t intend to link social skills and positive visions. Lazy writing before falling asleep.

As for the accusation, I certainly hope not. I am absolutely one of those type that kills them with kindness and excitement. And, to be clear, I didn’t call them socially inept - I called their social skills are reduced compared to students in the recent past/socially disinterested.

And, I absolutely didn’t call them unworthy of any attention; that’s absurd.

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

#440

Post by towaway15463 »

caslon wrote: post #424
hilbert42 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not denying that those issues all contribute to the problem. However, teenagers had a terrible, rotten time during WWII - bombs on cites, constant threat of military service, parents and elder brothers killed in war, one's country being invaded, etc. yet on the whole most never suffered these mental health issues. The difference is striking Somehow, they had stamina and resilience that today's teenagers don't hav…

Teenagers back then had more to look forward to. You work for some local company for three decades, then you retire, picking up a house somewhere in the process and are able to put your kids in college. Family members die, but who cares? Sure, it'll traumatize you, but it doesn't ruin your future. Not like that hasn't been happening consistently over the past few years with a pandemic. Nowadays, what's anyone got to…

People who were teens during WW2 would not have known these things. In their era people more often than not died before retirement. Many people had no pension. Most people did not go to college so they would only dream that someday they or their kids would. With their parents having lived through the Great Depression neither housing nor food were guaranteed. The time you’re thinking of is well past the war during the late 50s and 60s and even they had to deal with the threat of nuclear war and actual wars like Korea and Vietnam and yet they didn’t lose hope.
Post reply on HN