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Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

jonathanhaidt.substack.com

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Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#501

Post by jimbo9991 »

maegul wrote: post #455
timst4 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sounds like some form of collective action could go a long way here to the point of being imperative. Get like minded parents and teachers and administrators together on this and work together to preview and encourage alternatives. 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 p…

I think you are on to something here. That's exactly what happened with smoking.

Factors for that being successful was mostly just repeating the information about how bad it was a lot in the beginning. Once everybody agrees about that, then you slowly start making it socially unacceptable.

I could see a similar thing happening with social media of awareness of the seriousness of the damage becomes as widespread as for smoking. As in I think it's possible that one day it will be totally socially unacceptable to be glued to your phone at a social event of some sort.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#502

Post by jasonfarnon »

bigger_cheese wrote: post #434
RetpolineDrama wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and with the limit on my phone, I would be using it minimally, especially because I use a lot of my phone time daily to listen to music (like 5 [REDACTED], which I am listening to right now) and to text my friends, so I would only use it for 20 or so minutes a day, which is very low. This is a recipe for frustrating yourself. Social media is very addictive. You're currently unhappy and you're _not_ allowed to use it…

>This is a recipe for frustrating yourself. Social media is very addictive. You're currently unhappy and you're _not_ allowed to use it, imagine how much more unhappy you'll be after having only 20 minutes. You'll only want to use it more and more once you're allowed to use it. You'll be thinking about those 20 minutes and what you'll do all day, you'll get mad when the 20 minutes is up etc. This rings pretty true fo…

We're around the same age and my parents had pretty heavy restrictions on tv and videogames, I also got ticked off at the time, but I was certainly happy for it even by the end of my teen years. I imagine if your goal is to make your kid happy while they're still a kid, there's a good chance you'll screw up your kid. What makes a kid happy half the time is stuff they'll regret in short order. And yeah, more rules went out the window as each of my successive siblings were born, too. I also seem to remember kids who had NO tv whatsoever (or just PBS, which was arguably worse than nothing), and I don't seem to remember them being too bothered by it. As much as we teased them for not getting the simpsons etc jokes. In fact they seemed to develop, at a much earlier age, some independence from the crowd.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#503

Post by [deleted] »

austinl wrote: post #68
warner25 wrote: post #2

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…

I once sat next to a dean of private school on a plane—she mentioned that the ~100 parents that sent their children to the school signed an agreement that they would restrict their children's access to social media until 9th grade. I have no idea how well it was adhered to or enforced, but it surprised me that the parents of the school and the dean were trying to collectively organize action around this issue to prev…

[deleted]

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#504

Post by mixmastamyk »

mulmen wrote: post #15
mixmastamyk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s ok for a 12yo to be out of the loop for a few hours. They see their friends every day at school.

Do they? Is social media being used in morning classes to plan lunch? Will a socially isolated student even have friends? I haven't been in school for many years so I don't know the social dynamic but it isn't hard to imagine.

No, phones not allowed on in class. Might be able to do for 3 mins between classes while walking.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#505

Post by mulmen »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #504
mulmen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they? Is social media being used in morning classes to plan lunch? Will a socially isolated student even have friends? I haven't been in school for many years so I don't know the social dynamic but it isn't hard to imagine.

No, phones not allowed on in class. Might be able to do for 3 mins between classes while walking.

Yeah and no games were allowed on my ti-83.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#506

Post by fleddr »

marcellus23 wrote: post #368
Zetice wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boys are for sure not exempt from harm, but the harm seems to be as a result of equity: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3868557-most-yo... > “Today in America, women expect more from men,” Levant said, “and unfortunately, so many men don’t have more to give.” Powerful stuff.

A bit disappointing seeing the implicit bias in that article. The thrust seems to basically be "women are fine, men are failing and need to do better". Some choice quotes: > Women are tiring of their stereotypical role as full-time therapist for emotionally distant men > “Today in America, women expect more from men,” Levant said, “and unfortunately, so many men don’t have more to give.” > The same emotional deficits…

Exactly. So boys are hurting and the conclusion is: do better. We'll just add that to the ever growing list that defines Mr Perfect.

Imagine that in this particular article we'd say to teen girls: your mental health issues are imagined, just be sane and normal. Do better.

Wildly unacceptable, but perfectly normal to talk about men that way.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#507

Post by westurner »

Perhaps Facebook should again require an email address at an approving college or university for sign up.

But what about supporting the NCMEC National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, without biometrics due to new laws?

Can you teach your daughters to be considerate of others on the internet?

They used to tell us not to put any personal information online as kids; no real names, etc.

Perhaps social media is a mirror from which we can determine parenting approach?

Are violent video games less bad than social media for which unhealthily-competitive strata?

"Please do not bully people on the internet because:"

"Please be considerate and helpful on the internet because:"

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#508

Post by tonightstoast »

NewEntryHN wrote: post #226
largepeepee wrote: post #23

"It also creates a trap—a collective action problem—for girls and for parents. Each girl might be worse off quitting Instagram even though all girls would be better off if everyone quit." I like this part, it is quite clear quitting social media alone is probably even worse and self-isolating than not taking part. The solution would be to address it on a societal level, but that requires pretty strong societal/politi…

And yet, this part is inconsistent with the part the headline comes from: they argue for causation because they asked individual random students to quit social media for 4 weeks, and saw an improvement of their mental health.

Right but they mentioned those were (young) adults vs young teens. So there is a good chance they already have a solidified friend group and don't have to play the game of constantly being on social media.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#509

Post by bart_spoon »

denton-scratch wrote: post #341
ljm wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would contest one point in the article, and I admit this is dependent on where you live: > But social media is very different because it transforms social life for everyone, even for those who don’t use social media, whereas sugar consumption just harms the consumer. In countries with single-payer healthcare (or socialised healthcare), it's not true that it harms only the consumer. If it turns into obesity, diabete…

> In countries with single-payer healthcare (or socialised healthcare), it's not true that it harms only the consumer. This is a fallacy. Public health measures benefit some individuals more than others; but everyone benefits. Free treatment catches TB infections, for example, which occur overwhelmingly among homeless people. We're all better off if there are no homeless people wandering around with TB. I'm glad my n…

You aren’t addressing the point they are making. They aren’t arguing that socialized healthcare is worse than no socialized health care. They are saying that the societal burden of providing said health care is distributed across the population, and while it may be preferable to do so, it still means that something like excess sugar consumption has a negative effect on others.

Re: Social media is a cause, not a correlate, of mental illness in teen girls

#510

Post by westurner »

westurner wrote: post #507

Perhaps Facebook should again require an email address at an approving college or university for sign up. But what about supporting the NCMEC National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, without biometrics due to new laws? Can you teach your daughters to be considerate of others on the internet? They used to tell us not to put any personal information online as kids; no real names, etc. Perhaps social media is a…

StopBullying.gov: https://www.stopbullying.gov/

"How to Make a Family Media Use Plan" (HealthyChildten.org (AAP)) https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/Media/Pa...

Internet safety: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_safety

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