Teen mental health is plummeting and social media is a major contributing cause [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#871

Post by stef25 » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #481

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…

#2 and #3.1 are quite specific to the US, afaik those don't really apply here in Europe. So it would be interesting to see a similar study done over here or indeed any other part of the world.

#1 - don't have a say in this as a parent, like don't enroll your kid in those things if you / they don't like it? Or is there a lot of pressure?

Personally I do think social media is more to blame than we realise. As a parent of toddlers I'm a bit worried about what the future will hold for them.

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

#872

Post by moonchrome » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:37 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #398

moonchrome wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... If they are they are probably already having mental issues because that's not something someone pre 20s should be concerned about. People in this thread need to stop projecting their problems and worldviews as universal social issues.

> You think teenagers are thinking about pensions... German here. Yes we absolutely fucking did, especially as our parents pushed us from early on to obtain as much education as we could because unlike even in the 80s, manual labor would not be enough to sustain a family or to have a comfortable retirement.

Retirement planning is a different thing from career pressure. I agree that's been increasing consistently - but even if your retirement was guaranteed - that wouldn't change anything about this problem - you aren't chassing a career so you can live well past 60s, and if you are, as a teen, you probably need to have counseling because you're setting yourself up for a depressing life.

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

#873

Post by neuralRiot » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:37 PM UTC

ratww wrote: post #685

theclansman wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah same, the internet of early 2000s was a super cozy place for me, I remember everyone at first was like "wow it's so amazing how you can be someone else online," now the internet is just a giant window to your life. I remember my mom telling me to never share any info about me online, now everyone has their entire lives uploaded, full name, face picture, phone number, it's all there. Funny thing is it didn't actu…

That's also how I remember it. It changed when Facebook became popular around me. Myspace, Tumblr, Twitter (my group of friends had it way before Facebook) were all about "nicknames" and random pics as avatars. But a strange thing happened with people I knew was that after FB's "Real Name Policy". Anyone who kept using a pseudonym was viewed as outdated at best, sometimes a downright weirdo. Only people part of Twitt…

I suggest you to read “The transparency society” from Wun-chul Han

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

#874

Post by conradev » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:39 PM UTC

derangedHorse wrote: post #467

conradev wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was 12 when I started using Twitter (shh, don’t tell them https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/29/twitter-is-locking-out-th... ) I was 14 when I had to loan my parents some money, and was acutely aware that I would not be able to afford college. I read the news every day and was smart enough to realize that things were not going so great (according to the news). To say that kids are blissfully unaware of the world they…

I think it would be safe to say the majority of kids (at least in America) don’t share that same experience. Also, I’m not saying that to try and discredit your experience, I’m just acknowledging the counterpoint may not generalize well to the majority of teenagers in America.

My story is certainly different than most, but

Many kids in my high school had to make tough decisions around college – weighing the universities they could get into against the costs of said universities

The classmates who decided to do pre-med in-state versus out of state to get better tuition because a full doctor’s education is expensive

The few who got into Ivy leagues but ultimately decided against it because they got some financial aid, but not enough

The ones who graduated college and decided to get into consulting not because it was their passion, but because it paid well.

Even harder is when these kids’ parents are not well equipped to help make these tough decisions, because they never had to make them themselves.

You can suspend it for quite a while, but at some point reality kinda sets in and you’re faced with tough decisions.

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

#875

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, May 05, 2022, 8:44 PM UTC

AlwaysRock wrote: post #676

roland35 wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Everyone remembers the first time they saw Goatse.

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

#876

Post by jerome-jh » Thu, May 05, 2022, 9:03 PM UTC

Eupraxias wrote: post #801

roland35 wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And here it is, perhaps the actual issue: TED talks. And everything else, that is, all of the information of the information age, including social media. Life for kids and everyone is drastically different from what it was just a few decades ago, because we have drastically different access and exposure to information, in general. This has changed the human experience. I suspect it is because I have not looked hard e…

A recent experience of me and my daughters: a few months ago we thought of making a submarine. I had the idea to use a lunch box as a water proof container, then began experimenting transmitting power through magnetic coupling. Then I found a video of someone who did the exact same thing (maybe even better) with Lego's: 20M+ views on Youtube. Project stopped straight away. Actually my daughters wanted me to go on but I was demotivated (side note: maybe not the best example I gave my kids).

It is a long time ago I impressed my class at school by programming the "biorhythm" on a Casio pocket calculator. Whatever you do, someone did it better, larger, shinier and posted the video on Youtube.

Of course it is not that gloomy and there is still a lot of fun experiments to be had. Currently we have a photographic trap and try to get pictures of wild animals: it is quite hard and that makes it all the more fun. It is a also a way to know our immediate surroundings better and that cannot be replaced by an online experience.

[edit] In low income households smartphone+subscription take a large share of the free income, yet are felt as necessary. This leaves no money for leisure other then social networks, which are costless.

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

#877

Post by leach » Thu, May 05, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

I'm in my mid twenties, I grew up with social media evolving around me and quit it during the pandemic in 2020. I still use reddit every now and then but stopped commenting and reading comments besides on technical subreddits or gaming ones.

I detest social media, I think even though it may not be the root cause as others have pointed out it's definitely amplifying the underlying issues. I think I can sum up my detest for it in one simple statement, it's all fake.

I know people who will delete a post on instagram if it doesn't get enough "likes". I put likes in quotes because what do likes even mean? Likes are just people scrolling through their timeline and liking something from whoever their friends with. They are essentially meaningless, they add no value to your life and just feed an arbitrary algorithm that runs on a positive feedback loop. So why do people obsess over them to the point of deleting content if they do not receive the "correct" amount of likes.

Meanwhile the actual currency of social media is really just attention. Every single service is fighting for your attention. More eyes on the timeline means more eyes on ads. So they create the whole experience of the network around keeping you on it. Suddenly you don't see content you may be interested in, rather you start seeing content that will keep you hooked. Just one more post, one more tweet, one more tik tok. Suddenly you've spent an hour of your life doing nothing besides consuming mediocre content.

This comment is getting too long and ranty, and doesn't even touch on the way the companies will prime your emotional state to be more receptive to whatever ad they want to show you. Adults have problems with social media and addiction to it, there is absolutely no reason a child should be consuming these addictive apps. They are a net negative on society, any perceived "connection" they supposedly give is vapid and fleeting and quickly overwhelmed by the negatives they push down the timeline.

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

#878

Post by leach » Thu, May 05, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #575

chimen wrote: post #465

Ofc it is plummeting. We are letting them install apps that have people behind them with the sole job of making them more addictive. We are handing them drugs, multiple variants if I may say so. I had to fight with my daughter for TikTok and whatnot, she is only allowed with YouTube due to school/tutorials/classes etc and I still find myself pretty often having to snap her out of shorts and other bs with an algorithm…

It's not a problem that can be solved at an individual level. Physical drugs are relatively easy to not get into because for the most part, the majority of society doesn't use them and their users are still mostly marginalized. If your current social group are drug addicts it's possible to find a new, healthier group. Digital drugs on the other hand are something that nearly everyone uses and thus you have to use the…

We should just apply a 500% tax or something ridiculous to these ad companies that claim to be tech companies.

They don't actually contribute anything to society, they are just vampires leeching on attention and time and selling whatever data they get.

In a perfect world they wouldn't exist at all, in our flawed one they should have to pay the price for providing essentially nothing.

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

#879

Post by vel0city » Thu, May 05, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

Jcowell wrote: post #459

meerita wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 kids from previous generations lived under much worse conditions. Not only economical ones, but also social (wars, technology, etc.)

It depends where you are ? A male kid from Kentucky probably didn’t see his life get worse in the last 60 years. A kid from Yemen & Afghanistan (and now Ukraine) more than likely did.

I have family in small town Appalachia. 60 years ago their towns were still growing. New infrastructure was being built. Jobs were plentiful.

These days tons of those small towns are dying. People don't care to live out there anymore. Factories keeping towns alive closed in the late 90's. Coal mines closed. Rail yards are quiet since the factories aren't receiving and shipping and the coal mines aren't moving coal. Other than some fast food chains, its almost hard to find infrastructure built since the late 80s. States like KY and WV are largely these small dying towns, not mostly big cities.

I'm not arguing that overall life in the US has gone down in 60 years or that we should be starting up the coal mines. I'm just trying to suggest Kentucky probably wasn't the best place to pick to suggest life not getting worse; for tons of people in Appalachia life has gotten worse over the last 60 years. Note, this isn't even a small town vs. big city argument, there are plenty of small towns out there that have had their own booms and due to the US tendency to sprawl our cities out places that used to be small backwater towns are now shiny new mini-cities attached to giant sprawling city regions.

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

#880

Post by thoughtpeddler » Thu, May 05, 2022, 9:50 PM UTC

Eupraxias wrote: post #801

roland35 wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And here it is, perhaps the actual issue: TED talks. And everything else, that is, all of the information of the information age, including social media. Life for kids and everyone is drastically different from what it was just a few decades ago, because we have drastically different access and exposure to information, in general. This has changed the human experience. I suspect it is because I have not looked hard e…

I love this comment. This is a hugely under-appreciated fact of the now-mature Information Age: that we are oversaturated with all the ... information!

This occurs across a variety of dimensions: too much information about the goings-on of our friends and family, about the world at large, about all the things we're supposed to do to "stay healthy", etc.