Live data from Hacker News

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

judiciary.senate.gov

671–680 of 1001 posts

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

#671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The stakes are too high. View the wrong website on your chromebook and get referred to law enforcement Whoever implemented the surveillance of children should burn in hell. Since that probably doesn't exist the next prison with strong similarities should be chosen. You teach them that this kind of 24/7 surveillance is normal and I think they have enough problems with peer pressure through social media. You also tea…

I think maybe you've misunderstood the comment/situation a bit. There's definitely things on the internet parents don't want them to access - this is normal, we don't want them going on there. This 'surveillance' can be problematic but it's not 'dystopian'. The 'dystopian surveillance' is for the more serious issues, people getting flagged for this or that etc.. 'Age appropriate content' is fine, but nuanced. 'Survei…

Blocking something is very different than looking up what they click. After 12-14 it can very well get dystopian in my opinion. Kids have and need to have secrets from their parents at that point.

You also don't want moral busybodies at school make mountains out of molehills to make it more traumatic than the content they perhaps consumed and wasn't age appropriate. A while ago parents were oblivious to what content their children consume and didn't even have blocks. The children survived too although a bit more engagement might indeed be sensible.

As I said, it was criticism of surveillance, not blocking content or in general curating content for very young children.

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

#672
>There is an emerging consensus that the correlation is in the ballpark of r = .10 to r = .15. A ballpark figure for the correlation just for girls is roughly r = .15 to r = .22

Time to go back to the drawing board. If your correlation is so small then social media isn't the problem. Social media is a nice scapegoat but you literally disprove yourself if your correlation is so low.

>The “eyewitness testimony” confirms the academic findings: social media is a culprit.

Social sciences are notoriously bad for this. When you fail at your study with really bad correlations that should get you laughed at in any other legitimate science. You then go to the very scientific 'eyewitness testimony' this isn't laughable anymore, this is political. You are writing a study with a false conclusion with political motivation behind it. This is offensive, quite unlike Haidt.

>. Researchers and spokespeople for the major platforms who tell you that the evidence is “inconclusive” or that the effect sizes are “too small” should be asked directly: “OK, then what do YOU think caused this?”

Oh this is a simple one. The correlation between measurements of these kids and political polarization matches up quite a bit more than social media. This all derives from identity politics. Obama as 'first black president' was inevitably going to have a identity politics factor. There will always be consequences with this. The measurements detected in children at the same as adults.

Page 3 indicates a sharp rise since 2009. Instagram doesn't even launch until 2010 and obviously it didn't just go straight to being ultra popular. It wasn't until years later did really the big social media boom happen. Hence why social media correlation is so poor. Not to mention early social media wasn't quite the toxic pit that it is today.

Identity politics is toxic. No doubt all these children were sitting in classes hearing all about Obama and his identity politics. Doesnt even matter which way it rolls, perhaps they are in texas learning about how terrible obama is... doesn't matter. Though I would bet most teachers were pro-obama.

But once you pop that cork... you also have all the other politics coming through. Climate change no doubt being taught in schools. LGBT, Antiracism... all those poor white kids are oppressing their black friends...

But all of these are politically charged subjects that are not getting the nuance that the pundits give them. Their kindergarten teacher in everywhere except florida get to discuss gender and race issues these far too complicated subjects with kids. What do you expect to happen?

That's the danger of identity politics. It's insidious. It spreads like wild fire and leaves destruction in its path. It begets more identity politics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtWAmhOOEDI

Obama is a very smart dude who saw the consequences and this 'white male' problem but that's how the identity politics end. Working together again. You need to extend that hand to those 'white supremacists'. But what hand has been offered to date?

https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-53844037

Years later... Obama isn't offering his hand. He's 'blasting' trump.

Without someone bringing both parties back to the table and getting to talk to each other again. This inevitably will result in far more violence. Yes the USA has had 2+ years of civil unrest and violence already. It's a matter of time it goes well beyond.

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

#674
post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add one more that IMHO is huge: Youth culture seems dead. I remember being a teen and early-20 in the 90s-2000s and there were things like a hippie festival circuit, raves, goth culture, club culture, and so on. I keep hoping I'm just old and don't see it, but I remember back then it would seep out and get covered by the media and get chatted about on the nascent Internet. I see nothing like it today. Sure there…

Quoted post unavailable.

No post body was provided.

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

#675

While this is absolutely true, there's also another elephant in the room: a global pandemic that's destroyed every kid's routine, robbed 2+ years of their childhood from them, and for many put them severely behind in school and extracurricular achievement. Given all the pressure we put on kids these days to excel at everything in order to ensure their futures, it's not surprising that many are feeling more hopeless a…

> While this is absolutely true, there's also another elephant in the room: a global pandemic that's destroyed every kid's routine, robbed 2+ years of their childhood from them, and for many put them severely behind in school and extracurricular achievement.

I'm baffled that you're one of the rare person mentioning this. We had 2 years stolen from us so of course people turned to social media to fill that void.

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

#676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the only source of the problem, but social media is certainly a big one. Back in the day you didn't get rape threats from 50 anonymous accounts, or see pictures of you photoshopped sucking dicks, or feel like even more of a loser because you see in 4K detail how everybody else in class is having more fun outside of school. The internet is a threat and embarrassment and envy machine. You feel like you're cons…

The internet was certainly a lot lower stakes and fun in the 90s and early 2000s. We had fun taking over the mic and singing karaoke in Yahoo chatrooms, watching albino black sheep, and playing flash games on kongregator. Even early Facebook was just making funny groups and posting in each other's walls. None of those activities really had me envying anyone else. I remember the first thing that made me feel worthless…

Yeah... But we also saw countless dicks on Chat Roulette and watched terrorists sever heads of journalists on LiveLeak and talked to plenty of perverts on AIM.

It wasnt all peaches and candy.

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

#677

Unpopular opinion: Social media is a great scapegoat, but it is not the source of the problem. It is where they go to communicate and cope. My sole qualification to post this: I have four kids that are either teens or in their early 20s, and one who will be a teen next year. Here is what I see out there: 1. Kids have little or no slack in their schedule. This means very little freedom, and very little time to work th…

How can you confidently say social media is not the source of the problem when the author of the PDF has researched it for as long as it exists and makes strong evidence-based claims? With his key point being the change being sudden and dramatic, which exactly aligns with the rise of social media in the timeline.

He's one of the leading authorities on the matter, and your take is...nah, not true.

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

#678
post #497

Unpopular opinion: Social media is a great scapegoat, but it is not the source of the problem. It is where they go to communicate and cope. My sole qualification to post this: I have four kids that are either teens or in their early 20s, and one who will be a teen next year. Here is what I see out there: 1. Kids have little or no slack in their schedule. This means very little freedom, and very little time to work th…

The article makes a strong claim, based on evidence, that social media and not anything else is the real culprit. Why is it wrong? What evidence supports your alternative proposed causes?

No post body was provided.

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

#679

Teens are being told the world is terrible by pessimists when there truly hasn’t been a better time to be alive. How do you expect them to feel? This is amplified on social media and shown with "proof" from all corners of the world. We've evolved from a place where hearing about bad news from the tribe was an advantage. It allowed us to adjust our life to take into account risks _seen_ by other folks in the tribe. On…

Boomers wrecked the world and young people know they need to fix it. Sorry it can't just all be sunshine and roses like you prefer, but women in this country are about to lose a fundamental human right, so maybe "looking on the bright side" is not the appropriate disposition for these times.

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

#680

Teens are being told the world is terrible by pessimists when there truly hasn’t been a better time to be alive. How do you expect them to feel? This is amplified on social media and shown with "proof" from all corners of the world. We've evolved from a place where hearing about bad news from the tribe was an advantage. It allowed us to adjust our life to take into account risks _seen_ by other folks in the tribe. On…

Boomers wrecked the world and young people know they need to fix it. Sorry it can't just all be sunshine and roses like you prefer, but women in this country are about to lose a fundamental human right, so maybe "looking on the bright side" is not the appropriate disposition for these times.

Well maybe only 50% of women
Post reply on HN