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

Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

frontiersin.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

#61

Post by D-Machine »

droidjj wrote: post #60
D-Machine wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're gish-galloping a bunch of random studies, most of which appear to be cross-sectional. I've linked a broad review. Even the longitudinal studies are poor here. See, for example, as this Nature article notes: "The study has multiple limitations that need to be considered. First, to interpret the parameters from our analyses as estimates of causal effects one would need to adopt the following assumptions: (a) the…

~Qualifying all of this with the caveat that I'm not a social scientist.~ I really appreciate your response, which made me realize this is more nuanced than I thought at first blush. (I wrote that reply before you linked the National Academies review, which was quite helpful.) Maybe I am truly morally panicked, but I'm really hesitant to brush aside the evidence as "basically nothing." Small effects are worth paying…

Yes, sorry about the edits.

IMO the correct framing most supported by the evidence is that a few vulnerable populations (most likely within a certain age bracket, and already dealing with other significant life issues) are definitely at risk of nontrivial harm from social media. Otherwise, for the majority, it is likely a wash. And since the bias in studies is to look for negatives (much like drug studies don't properly measure negative side effects until much later), we also can't say if there aren't subgroups benefiting hugely as well (e.g. autistic people that can connect online, or other people with unusual interests that before would have remained isolated and disconnected, feel crazy, etc).

So, yes, small effects can be important. The observed effects for social media are quite small and consistent with being driven solely by a small, vulnerable population, however, and this make broad social injunctions and moral panic less defensible.

Also, these are effects on self-report or other psychological instruments, where in general you need to find something like a minimal clinically important difference before you can determine if you care practically about these things. E.g. if a standardized regression coefficient of 0.1 translates to a 1-point shift on a 20-point life-satisfaction scale, is this even something I (or anyone) can even notice? Does it even rise above measurement error?

Since no one is doing that kind of research here, we just get these (relatively meaningless) standardized effect sizes, and it is really basically impossible to know if we should care at all about the observed effects. This is mainly what I mean by the evidence being flimsy / weak, it is really too inconclusive to drive decisions at this point.

Re: Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

#62

Post by Daishiman »

superkuh wrote: post #49

It is universal that authoritarians want to characterize audio-visual screens as if they directly altered incentive salicence like addictive drugs do. They do this because the false comparison, the inaccurate social memes (dopamine hit, etc), all invoke the coercion of actual drugs. But the fact is that audio-visual screens do not alter incentive salience directly. They are just like any other part of our world and s…

By your logic gambling is A-OK? I take it you never go to restaurants and see kids socially stunted by being hung up on tablets?

Re: Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

#63

Post by shortercode »

Strangely enough kids did fine before social media, and I would say as an adult I also do fine without it.

Concerns about age gating etc are true but as we’re already experiencing that nonsense without social media bans it’s kind of a moot point.

Re: Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

#64

Post by psychoslave »

Nasrudith wrote: post #9
psychoslave wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Formally the same as stating "Everyone should get off the addiction driven drug cartel, but the government shouldn't have a single thing to do with it."

To be fair for the literal example prohibition is what creates the drug cartels in the first place so it is more coherent than it sounds at first blush. Enforcement is effectively a subsidy to those who don’t get caught. For social media it is a whole different problem from it being entangled with protected speech. We don't want 'arrested for spreading misinformation defined as anything which contradicts the offical…

We don't agree here.

To my mind greed and will to monopolize resources by virtual scarcity is what create a cartel.

Prohibition might help such a scenario, yes. but gouvernement don't need to regulate with extrem policies like prohibition which indeed often prove counterproductive. Permitting legal sell under certain quality control, honest information and education on known outcomes, regulation on who can produce, sell, buy and use in which proportions.

Re: Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

#65

Post by gopher_space »

rwbt wrote: post #10

> First, enforcing a youth social media ban raises major ethical concerns. Enforcement efforts invade people’s privacy and are likely to hurt marginalized people more. For example, the technology that determines age based on selfie uploads makes more mistakes with young faces and people of color. Banned youth may also miss out on important resources and communications provided via social media, as schools, clubs, and…

The crux of the issue for a parent is that social media orgs do not require and should not receive access to my children, and there simply aren't any arguments from their position that address my concerns.

And there won't be, because the safest, cheapest, and most easily implemented solution is a moderated Kindernet they can't monetize and won't have access to.

So every conversation becomes a list of corner cases that look bizarre from a parenting point of view because these platforms are in no way essential. The answer to your quote is that the schools and clubs that aren't also handing out flyers would hand out flyers again. There's no scenario where scanning my preteen improves this process.

Re: Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

#66

Post by gopher_space »

gopher_space wrote: post #65
rwbt wrote: post #10

> First, enforcing a youth social media ban raises major ethical concerns. Enforcement efforts invade people’s privacy and are likely to hurt marginalized people more. For example, the technology that determines age based on selfie uploads makes more mistakes with young faces and people of color. Banned youth may also miss out on important resources and communications provided via social media, as schools, clubs, and…

The crux of the issue for a parent is that social media orgs do not require and should not receive access to my children, and there simply aren't any arguments from their position that address my concerns. And there won't be, because the safest, cheapest, and most easily implemented solution is a moderated Kindernet they can't monetize and won't have access to. So every conversation becomes a list of corner cases tha…

You can demonstrate the severity of the situation at family gatherings by asking the kid's table how many beheadings they've seen.

Re: Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

#67

Post by cyanydeez »

gopher_space wrote: post #65
rwbt wrote: post #10

> First, enforcing a youth social media ban raises major ethical concerns. Enforcement efforts invade people’s privacy and are likely to hurt marginalized people more. For example, the technology that determines age based on selfie uploads makes more mistakes with young faces and people of color. Banned youth may also miss out on important resources and communications provided via social media, as schools, clubs, and…

The crux of the issue for a parent is that social media orgs do not require and should not receive access to my children, and there simply aren't any arguments from their position that address my concerns. And there won't be, because the safest, cheapest, and most easily implemented solution is a moderated Kindernet they can't monetize and won't have access to. So every conversation becomes a list of corner cases tha…

No, the crux is a unregulated harmful market is unregulated.

We have lots of rules that just arnt being enforced. instead, we do think that won't make a dent and are draconian dystopian surveillance state because we refuse to curtail the grift economy.

Re: Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

#68

Post by J37T3R »

rwbt wrote: post #10

> First, enforcing a youth social media ban raises major ethical concerns. Enforcement efforts invade people’s privacy and are likely to hurt marginalized people more. For example, the technology that determines age based on selfie uploads makes more mistakes with young faces and people of color. Banned youth may also miss out on important resources and communications provided via social media, as schools, clubs, and…

Yeah, it really hurts to read. So many decent arguments andthe author goes for the foot-gun.

Re: Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

#69

Post by anakaine »

rwbt wrote: post #10

> First, enforcing a youth social media ban raises major ethical concerns. Enforcement efforts invade people’s privacy and are likely to hurt marginalized people more. For example, the technology that determines age based on selfie uploads makes more mistakes with young faces and people of color. Banned youth may also miss out on important resources and communications provided via social media, as schools, clubs, and…

What a terrible argument. When social media is banned support material for those young people is distributed via other channels because, surprisingly, those providing support know that social media os no longer a viable policy.

An invasion of privacy is similarly a particularly vapid argument. Youth are not being invited to participate in social media once it is banned, there is no reach into their private realm and where face age estimation is being used that is data which is being provided willingly and with an understanding of its intended purpose. That in and of itself is not an invasion of privacy.

I will be quite surprised if these claims every make it past peer review and withstand scrutiny by the other social scientists who recommended social media onboarding delays.

Re: Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

#70

Post by krapp »

pacman1337 wrote: post #51
krapp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an emotional statement, not a rational one, which kind of proves the point that what's going on here is a moral panic. As does a cursory glance at this thread. It's all heat and very little light.

This exactly the issue. Anyone with common sense knows that social media have many negative effects, attention span, negative beliefs and ideas, addiction, etc. Just like inhaling smoke into your lungs can't be healthy right? But then comes so called scientist who say well since we thought the the universe was Euclidean but now we see it is non-Euclidean what is common sense is not common sense, there is no common se…

> Anyone with common sense knows that social media have many negative effects, attention span, negative beliefs and ideas, addiction, etc.

This is common sense.

> Just like inhaling smoke into your lungs can't be healthy right?

You're asserting that social media is as dangerous and deadly and smoking. That isn't common sense.

> But then comes so called scientist who say well since we thought the the universe was Euclidean but now we see it is non-Euclidean what is common sense is not common sense, there is no common sense.

Now you're trying to discredit any scientist who disagrees with your premise with a ridiculous straw argument that doesn't at all describe any claim being made. This is what's called "motte and bailey." You started with an actually uncontroversial premise but then started arguing for something far more controversial, drawing the false equivalence between the two.

You keep saying "common sense" and even try to imply that "common sense" should take precedence over science, and that is exactly the issue.

Post reply on HN