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

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

#881

Post by abnercoimbre »

DougN7 wrote: post #860
cecilpl2 wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a teenager in the late 90s, I had escapes from the social hell of high school. I could go home, invite one or two close friends over, and play video games. I could find a super niche community on IRC and hang with them virtually. I felt like I had somewhere I could belong. Now, as a teenager you are plugged into that social fabric 24/7. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to find yourself in that hype…

That’s a great point and it gave me the epiphany that perhaps being always on/connected, i.e. smart phones combined with everything else is actually the cause of change. You can’t just get up and walk away (obviously you can put your phone down, but then you are cut off!)

And being cut off means you lose potentially life-altering opportunities?

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

#882

Post by mpfundstein »

tzs wrote: post #819
SamuelAdams wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this often with gangs I grew up around. Black people can call each other niggers in a casual, non-attack way. But as soon as a white person does it, it’s racist.

It will be interesting to see if music changes this. I mostly listen to classical and older pop/rock/folk but recently decided to see what is current and so listened to the entire Billboard Hot 100. There was a lot of rap and hip-hop with lyrics that prominently and repeatedly used that word. I wondered then about what happens when non-Black fans sing along with such a song on radio or streaming or at a concert. I di…

kendrick lamar is a good example regarding your first example. he has this song, good kid maad city, where nigga is used in about every single sentence. the whole hook is full with it.

at a concert, he invited a white girl to rap the song on stage. of course she went full with it. he stopped the track after she rapped nigga a few times during the track l and began to.blame her on stage for it. of course the whole crowd went with it.

i mean. what a god damn motherfucker. seriously. i dont want to know what the girl was going through mentally. it must have been horror.

the obsession with the n word is crazy anyway. of course i dont use it in mh regular life..but when i quote a rap song, i quote it literally ofc.

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

#883

Post by vanviegen »

mlindner wrote: post #218
vanviegen wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it definitely will not be "unlivable" Yeah, we will probably survive for the next 50 years at least. But climate events will be making life a lot harder. Droughts, floods, forest fires and tornados will be wrecking havoc in many places. Even if you don't live in one of those places, you'll be feeling the effects through shortages (as we're currently experiencing a very small taste of in Europe), refugees and politi…

> Yeah, we will probably survive for the next 50 years at least. I feel like you are fundamentally misinformed here. It has never been the case that IPCC predicted "end of the world" in terms of climate predictions, even in the worst case. And in fact things have been improving since the worst predictions. We are currently headed to a 3 degrees C temperature increase. Which will cause global hardship on a massive lev…

> I feel like you are fundamentally misinformed here. It has never been the case that IPCC predicted "end of the world"

I didn't mean to imply otherwise. What's needed to end civilization isn't quite clear though. It may not be much.

> The shortages in Europe are largely self-inflicted

I only referred to these (currently mild) shortages to paint a picture of what I think we're likely to see a lot more of. I agree that climate change is only a minor factor in these particular shortages.

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

#884

Post by indymike »

fleddr wrote: post #677
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…

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.

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

My take is that social media is often a coping mechanism for mental health issues, and therefore in reports like this, correlates with mental health issues.

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

#885

Post by imoverclocked »

tristor wrote: post #137
twayt wrote: post #83

Figure 2 that shows the rates of major depression among boys and girls is shocking. 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 10 boys have been diagnosed with major depression. I wonder what the distribution is of others who haven't been diagnosed or deal with depression to a lower degree. Something that may be surprising to some people is that this trend isn't limited to boys and girls. From data collected in 2019/2020, 30% of people a…

> This number is skewed heavily towards women too All of the data I've seen on the mental health crisis in the West seems to indicate that it hits women harder than men. I have yet to see an explanation for why, though. Does anyone know of any articles that thoroughly cover this gender split in mental health and why this particular issue is more predominantly affecting women?

Maybe a good place to start:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...

It cites many sources including biological and social, however:

> ... we still do not really understand the causes of these differences, and comparatively little research has been done to explain them.

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

#886

Post by thenerdhead »

naravara wrote: post #740
thenerdhead wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument seems more positioned around public education than it does social media. This seems to be the same problem, new generation. TV in the 50s. Video games in the 90s. Now smartphones.

Arguably TV was actually bad for kids. (And adults too, considering what kind of brain poisoning seems to accompany overconsumption of cable news).

That’s what I meant. Screen time in general. Suggestive screen time even more so.

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

#887

Post by _j5l3 »

tablespoon wrote: post #805
op00to wrote: post #798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was emotionally and psychically abused in cub scouts, led by the pack leader because I did not buy into her specific image of evangelical Christianity. This was in a suburb outside of NYC in the 90s. the lack of oversight and vetting allowed this to proceed and turned more than a few kids off Boy scouting. I would send my kids to Baden-Powell scouting if that was an option.

> I would send my kids to Baden-Powell scouting if that was an option. What's the difference?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baden-Powell_Scouts%27_Associa...

vs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America

Baden-Powell scouting is co-ed, non-religious, and founded in the 70s. Boy Scouts of America is the 'original' version, and, as recently as 15 years ago (I think some of this has changed since) explicitly excluded atheists, girls, and gay kids. BSA leadership is (or was, I think this has changed) heavily influenced by conservative Mormons.

Also, they culturally appropriate the fuck out of Native American culture. Think white suburban dads dancing around with costume jewelry and plastic headdresses dancing 'native style' dances to 'commune with the Great Spirit of the land'.

I'm glad of my time spent in BSA, but I wish I'd had the opportunity for BP instead.

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

#889

Post by pixodaros »

theclansman wrote: post #633
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 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…

Its a common misperception that "everyone has their entire lives uploaded", because humans are subject to availability bias. I recently spent some time living with young university students in a non-English-speaking European country, and most of them had one social media account (generally locked or pseudonymous) plus text apps. Data brokers are not able to collect and resell anything they please in most civilized countries.

Always remember that the Internet and social media are dominated by people who put an unhealthy amount of time and energy into the Internet and social media. Those people are not real, any more than the old-media commentariat and their taboos are real. Most people are much less visible because they have lives.

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

#890

Post by gilbetron »

pessimizer wrote: post #625
gilbetron wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an example from my son, a 13 year old white kid, gave me is that if you have one of the "diversity cards" (minority, LGBQT+, female sometimes, or some other thing) than you get to joke and talk in a way than those that don't have such a card. So his friends that are gay or black or indian or disabled are able to tease each other about it and have more liberty to use terms that my son is not allowed to. The gay kid…

Just commenting to confirm that they are not actually handing out anything called a diversity card that gives you permission to do anything. edit: also want to make sure that "teen mental health" includes the 75% of kids that are not straight, non-disabled white boys. If those kids are included then this probably isn't a reasonable explanation.

So ... funny story there. There is the concept of the "N-word pass" that black kids will "give out" to non-black kids "allowing" them a use of the n-word in front of them. I had heard about this several years ago, but now several of the black kids in my son's school are giving them out occasionally. I advised my son to never use the option were he to receive one!

Not a physical card in this situation, but there are stories that some kids in other schools actually give out physical cards.

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