451–460 of 689 posts
> Boys are doing badly too, but their rates of depression and anxiety are not as high, and their increases since 2011 are smaller. Bullshit. These numbers are self reported and show exactly the opposite of reality. Boys aged 15-24 are about four times [0] more likely than girls to die by their own hands, so clearly relying on self reported cases of mental illness is not very helpful and is likely to shift focus away…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You think it would be dubious for a society to value men and women equally?
Men and women are not identical; inescapably, the mean value contributed by each will material differ in at least some contexts. If a society equally values the contributions of men and women in all contexts, then, by definition, it must be using an inequitable metric to ascribe value to their contributions.
No two people are identical, and the range of difference between the two most extreme men almost certainly exceeds the range of difference between the most woman-like men and the most man-like women. Given the obvious differences between humans, nobody expects that every single person will contribute identical value, or should be valued identically.
However, there is a very, very, very long history of the inverse. In nearly every area of life, the activities and contributions most commonly fulfilled by women are under-valued, while the activities and contributions most commonly fulfilled by men are over-valued. This can be seen historically, as the primary occupants of careers shifted from one sex to the other. The early computer programmers (women) were treated as doing secretarial work, while modern computer programmers (mostly men) are compensated like rock stars. Conversely, early school teachers were highly respected and well-compensated when they were mostly men, and respect and compensation both dropped relative to other careers as teachers became more likely to be women.
These are systemic biases so ingrained that we don't think about them. People are lining up to respond to this comment to helpfully explain to me that those earlier programmers weren't the same, or that modern teachers are every bit as respected and well-compensated as they should be, or whatever.
The Venn diagram of all men and all women is not a circle, because of course there are differences. But there is much overlap between the two circles, and women are mostly not valued equally where the circles overlap, and the non-overlapping areas of each circle are valued completely differently as well.
When you see it, it's clear as day. When you don't or won't, it sounds silly. Feel free to dig in to the truth of it, or dismiss it as folklore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even chatgpt knows. (prompt:) what does it mean to parent? To parent means to raise and nurture a child from infancy to adulthood, providing them with love, care, guidance, and support as they grow and develop. Parenting involves a wide range of responsibilities and activities, including providing for a child's physical needs, such as food, shelter, and medical care, as well as their emotional and psychological needs…
ChatGPT has no idea what parenting means. It parrots what other people have written about parenting.
Social media is a psychological weapon that leaves no physical evidence which is why the state is making a big play on mental health. Its a control mechanism on the population because the state deliberately doesn't teach law and parents cant be relied upon, so social media can also be a way to psychological and biologically profile people before choosing to radicalise individuals, set them up for blackmail, or have t…
Im sorry but this is just absurd conspiracy psychobabble. Throw words and buzzphrases together as much as you like, there is still no coherent understanding or argument behind your post. "The government" (or the Illuminati, or the Jews, or ...) wanting XYZ from you because they are evil/malicious/warmongering/control freaks is just a trope. There is no reason why "the government" (who exactly?) needs a control mechan…
why must every piece of shared information be viewed through the lens of conspiracies and mental instability?
i feel the tireless, never ending scroll has taken away peoples creative interpretations above all else
I'm still reading it, but this is great so far. As a father to four little girls, though, it makes me feel really defeated. I can already see that social media has eroded my wife's mental health. I just don't know what to do in the next few years when our girls approach the age when everyone else will get an iPhone and have an Instagram account. I want to say no, but that leads to many other issues, including what th…
Middle School educator here. I can assure you that your daughters will not be alone when it comes to a moratorium on social media. However, the girls they may very well want to be friends with may be very much into social media and group chats. My advice is to be firm but also take steps to create social opportunities for your daughters. I have a 12yo and I host board game nights with amazing snack trays. I help her…
Tangentially, I’m curious if smoking went through a phase similar to this, where all the parents were doing it but there was still some recognition that children/teens shouldn’t and some parenting struggles against the ubiquity of cigarettes.
If so, what were the factors of success or failure? Did any progress in protecting kids from smoking have to wait until underage smoking was illegal or even the public push against adults smoking?
It really does feel to me like the smart phone and social media are the cigarettes of the millennial generation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was not our intent; she is not our oldest and we were surprised how unmotivated she was to plan outings with friends without using the phone compared to others. A phone is clearly a non-essential thing since she was able to function the first 13 years of her life without one. We have rules around proper phone use and there was a violation that was both significant, and a repeat offense, so the phone went away for…
How else is she supposed to reach out to her friends if she can't use a phone?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It must be frustrating to see this problem approaching and not knowing what to do. I wonder if at some point the only way out is to radically change one's family's lifestyle. Maybe homeschooling, very limited technology at home, living in a community with like-minded people, something like that?
I'm a father of a non-verbal autistic son. We have chosen a non-traditional path for him to avoid bullying and he is generally doing quite well (and slowly becoming a bit more verbal). It helps that he has siblings that love him as he is. Our kids have a mix of private schooling, tutoring, and homeschooling. They spend a lot of time outdoors and have very limited access to screens and no social media. We chose this p…
If you ingrain this kind of superiority complex into your kid then they will have major problems when they enter the real world where they have to cooperate in a world of “barbarians”.
I think it's somewhat important to ask why this effect is more observable for girls than for boys, and Haidt does not seem to really reflect on that. Social media in and of itself is really just an accelerant for the particular set of social expectations we stack on girls and women around appearance and how that relates to self-worth. Boys have more capacity to transcend social media's focus on image and beauty by fi…
Couldn't the why be due to (at least in part) these innate gender differences?
The price of this convenience is very high. Surely this can't be good for us.
The difference between girls and boys are interesting. From my casual experience, I have a lot of friends with teenage boys, a distinct pattern can be seen.
Almost all of them are gamers. That's their main digital channel. Many don't give a shit about social media and some don't even have any account at all. Nothing public anyway, just some basic chat account. As they game, they can at times be toxic and competitive, but that's "part of the game", they don't take it very serious at all.
Likewise, none of them seem to care much about stacking each other by looks, the typical male trait of physical strength, or wealth. Surely, some of this is always present in the background, but it's all in a lax "it is what it is" vibe. Their main issue/challenge seems to be gaming addiction and how this comes at the expense of other aspects of their lives (sleep, school performance, physical exercise, socializing with girls).
Also noteworthy: not politicized. Most don't seem to have much of an opinion on anything. Pure indifference.
The teenage girls are so radically different. They don't game, they're literally self-imaging non-stop. Constantly recording themselves, watching influencer videos, gossiping on chat, stacking and ranking each other. Unlike a gaming addiction (which is fixable), their success or failure is existential.
I would imagine that both tendencies between both and girls have always been there, it's just that they were naturally constrained by the physical world. Social media made it limitless.