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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]

#891

Post by gilbetron »

radarsat1 wrote: post #849
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…

I understand this quite well, I've felt this myself in the past too, that feeling of being "not in the club". Thanks for your explanation. One does get over it, and one also learns eventually that it's something not restricted to race / sexual orientation etc., it can be similar just with a group of people from a certain neighbourhood etc. But having it be based on race can be hard for a kid in the "out" group. How t…

Thanks for the nuanced understanding! We've been giving our son basically that advice as he learns to navigate the situation. It's tough because he's a pretty strict rules-follower, and so it upsets him to hear kids breaking the "ism" rules! We say, "let it roll of you like water off a duck's butt" :) He's learning ... I think.

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

#892

Post by wolverine876 »

WalterSear wrote: post #135
wolverine876 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One big zero-sum game. Not relationships, marriage, work, or community. Even business is rarely zero sum, or the economy wouldn't grow. Generally speaking, business is win-win deals.

> Not relationships, marriage, work, or community I don't understand how you could think any of this. Relationships? They are absolutely a competition for the young: both platonic and romantic, but especially romantic. Nothing more competitive. Work? Work is absolutely a competition, for young and old alike. Community? What else do you think teens are seeking out online?

Your experience with relationships, work, and community are different than mine. There's some competition, of course, but relationships, romantic and platonic, IME mostly rely on factors that have little to do with third parties; their success depends on the two people involved - I find that's true even for romantic, monogamous relationships with 3 or more parties as options. Most of my time at work is not spent competing, but cooperating and helping each other.

Mostly, people seem to love to argue about nihilism to some philosophical extreme, but let's separate that from real life.

> Community? What else do you think teens are seeking out online?

Does that mean community is or is not competitive? HN is a community but isn't much competitive.

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

#893

Post by wolverine876 »

noisy_boy wrote: post #141
WalterSear wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not relationships, marriage, work, or community I don't understand how you could think any of this. Relationships? They are absolutely a competition for the young: both platonic and romantic, but especially romantic. Nothing more competitive. Work? Work is absolutely a competition, for young and old alike. Community? What else do you think teens are seeking out online?

Relationships are a huge competition in an atomic family type situation - children competing with spouses for time, spouse/kids competing with grandparents, family competing with friends... and god forbid if you have a family member with medical needs. When time was collective because of extended families, this stress got spread out and not as much noticeable but with the shrinked family unit, this is only going to g…

> Relationships are a huge competition in an atomic family type situation - children competing with spouses for time, spouse/kids competing with grandparents, family competing with friends... and god forbid if you have a family member with medical needs.

Wow, I have never experienced competition in that situation. There are scarce resources at times, but that doesn't mean they are distributed by competition. IME, usually people work together toward the greatest good for the family. They love each other and want each other to thrive, and would generally rather sacrifice themselves than see a loved one sacrifice for them. That good faith is never in question.

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

#894

Post by veltas »

bart_spoon wrote: post #488
veltas wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It affects girls far more". Don't far more young men kill themselves? How is this being measured? Seems more complicated than that.

My understanding is that young men are successful at killing themselves far more than young women, but young women attempt to kill themselves at higher rates than young men.

Compared with suicide statistics, suicide attempts are much harder to measure (and also sort of misleading). They classify 'serious suicide attempts' (SSA) as where there is serious intent of death (SSA is the real suicide attempt, everything else is suicidal behavior or a gesture). Where suicide attempts are reported, men are more likely to commit SSA's. Not all suicide attempts are reported... and there very well may be a difference between the proportion of reported male attempts versus female attempts. Likewise the classification of the attempt is often self-reported, again the accuracy could vary according to gender. We don't know, but I would guess men are less likely to report, and less likely to commit a 'gesture'.

Mental health as well is a moderately subjective matter, and there's no doubt that the self-reported aspect of mental health problems has been highly influenced by cultural and societal changes, like how the public perception of mental illness has changed over time. Likewise I'm sure men and women think differently about this, and I'm sure the societal expectations of men/women impact it as well. When we talk about mental health getting worse over time, or impacting women more, this is inherently imprecise.

But suicide is suicide: From 1981 to 2017 the male suicide rate per 100,000 in my country (the UK) has gone from 19.5 to 17.2. The female suicide rate has gone from 10.6 to 5.4. Mostly good news: the rate has gone down.

But the gap between men and women has increased, men have gone from roughly twice as likely to kill themselves to about three times as likely as women.

It's sad that even now concern about mental health only seems to get weight when phrased in a way that makes it sound like it's impacting women more, when one of the more concrete, key statistics clearly indicates it could be the other way around (and getting worse). This observation may very well be related to the disparity at this point.

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

#895

Post by wolverine876 »

bowsamic wrote: post #455
wolverine876 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> dgaf about everyone else, you'll be ok It sounds cool but it could be taken as serious advice. If that's how you truly feel and act, you are not ok and you are missing out on what is most rewarding in life.

It's not at all worth the risk. I'd rather be not okay and not attached to conditions of reality than be "okay" and attached to conditions

I'm sorry you feel that way. It doesn't need to be that bad at all. Nihilism is trendy now, but don't confuse a trend with life and reality; don't make life decisions on a fashion of the moment. Loving relationships have been a fashion for all of human history, and they aren't going away because of trolling.

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

#896

Post by medvezhenok »

hilbert42 wrote: post #587
7952 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think WWII could actually be quite a fun time to be alive for young people on the home front in the UK (and maybe N America). They had much more social freedom, often worked in groups with other young people, and had a sense of purpose, unity and camaraderie. The future was uncertain, but their own role was much clearer. And rationing even meant that people were getting fed properly. The modern world is brilliant a…

" Why do the richest most stable countries feels so insecure?" This is the question I keep asking myself. There seems to any number of answers but I'm not sure we've any definitive ones as yet. If we had then we ought to be able to do something about it. Perhaps the uncertainty of not knowing is the cause.

I think it’s partially unresolved cognitive dissonance between rhetoric and reality - “you can do / be anything you want” (which is true in theory, but not so much in practice).

The “happiest” societies - the Nordics - are rated that way because they start out with low expectations.

Happiness is a measure of the delta between expectation and reality. When that delta is negative, mental health crises ensue.

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

#897

Post by eggsmediumrare »

ginger2016 wrote: post #89
eggsmediumrare wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt you're all that familiar with his work if you think his main point is anti-diversity. Read The Righteous Mind. It's a really good book.

I am not familiar with his work, I watched his videos on YouTube. In the videos he is frequently talking against diversity and equity, and I was surprised a Professor of his stature advocating against diversity and equity. I found his arguments divisive and thought it was directed at the diversity and equity initiatives aimed at increasing enrollment of people of color in major universities and technology companies l…

Being against affirmative action is a valid point of view.

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

#898

Post by paulryanrogers »

jimmyjazz14 wrote: post #841
paulryanrogers wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider also that reality today may have unique intractable problems: plastic pollution, acidic oceans, mercury contamination, temperatures nearing unsurvivable in places, etc.

I don't discount the effects of pollution and consider climate change to be a very important problem to recognize that said, more humans are thriving (as in not starving to death or dying at young age) today than in any time in history.

More humans existing today isn't a sign of stability or sustainability though. Would horses have thought the same in the early 1900s, just before their population rapidly declined?

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

#899

Post by tekknik »

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…

All of this except number 3 applied to adults as well, which means a couple things here.

1) How come adults don’t have the same issues with mental health? (I think we do)

2) If adults face the same issues, is this not life preparation?

I’ll grab the lowest hanging fruit, cancel culture. How many careers were ruined because of this? Is all this control on speech causing damage we’re not even aware of yet?

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

#900

Post by tekknik »

pydry wrote: post #407
Shared404 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, as a 20 year old I've been told my whole life that I'll be paying for social security but never see the money. Same for most of my peers.

This is part of the effort to kill it. If enough people believe it is a ponzi scheme, unsustainable, etc. then the political impetus to either privatize or get rid of it can be mustered. Social security is very popular among the working classes (especially retired ofc) and deeply unpopular among the upper classes who see it as a tax burden on them that makes their workers lazy.

It’s more-so to do with the fact that the account was emptied, and now it’s a bit of a pyramid scheme. Also the board themselves saying they’re out of money in 2034: https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2021/

It’s a broken system.

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