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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]

#921

Post by oicU00 »

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…

The same was true with religion. There was no wonder, just gospel.

Again we’ve made a truism that we’re doing for the greater good by setting ourselves aside for the hustle. Yet no science gives anyone omniscience; we follow along because what else to do, but the high minded goals we follow along with do not have to be rockets to nowhere.

Notice how all the rich people do little real work to provide material things they need? They externalize the necessary effort required for their survival, despite being mortals who are expected to support themselves, they gossip and babble and produce little that truly supports them.

The public needs to let go of the Protestant work ethic, the mountain man struggle and become a better negotiator. The grind keeps them from imagining in detail for themselves.

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

#922

Post by mensetmanusman »

dtjb wrote: post #596
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…

This sounds like how a bunch of old dudes on HN see the "teenager world," with very adult interpretations. I also have teenagers and have worked in schools. I think there are two truths that this comment overlooks; 1) today's youth, generally speaking, are pretty impressive and resourceful, and 2) being a teenager has always sucked. Just because their experience is different doesn't mean it's worse. Every generation…

“All of these studies about how x is a million times worse these days often can be attributed to more accurate data and measurements.”

This sounds like the old ‘everyone was blind back then, but now we have glasses!’

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

#923

Post by mensetmanusman »

themitigating wrote: post #793
sxv wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all seriousness, I think the freedom to tell (and receive) bigoted jokes as a youth was an integral part of my maturation.

Why?

Because everyone dies in the end

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

#924

Post by noisy_boy »

wolverine876 wrote: post #893
noisy_boy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, usu…

The question is not of good faith or the competition being overt or malicious type etc. Time is finite - if you are spending on one side, you can't be sending on the remaining sides. Usually the people in your life realize it and adjust for the priority/greater good and so yes, they will willingly sacrifice in that spirit. But the relationships themselves are emotionally competing - if you have, e.g., to choose between relocating for the future of your kids and your ailing parents, those duties are competing, even though the recipients themselves may not be - you will have to choose.

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

#925

Post by tsol »

standardUser wrote: post #706
brightball wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sincerely hope you don't actually believe this. Reductionist statements like this which attempt to blame an entire generation for a world that few if any of them had any control over. "Boomers" tried to scrape together a life and provide for a family within the rules of the world where they lived. They elected people to solve the problems that they knew about at the time, just like every other generation.

"Boomers" is just shorthand for the older generation who treated the environment like a toilet, pillaged the welfare state, jailed anyone who wanted to get high in their free time and made hating/mocking LGBTQ people a national pastime (to name a few examples). I'd say #notallboomers but it's implied unless you're being willfully obtuse.

Wait are we not still treating the environment like a toilet? Do people younger than boomers not create mountains of plastic trash that will be here hundreds of years after their bones turn to dust? Do they not use phones with lithium mined by child slaves, and wear make up with mica mined by child slaves? Do they monitor how much has and electricity they are using? I'm not a boomer but I know enough to know the younger generations are not ready to sacrifice present comfort for future generations

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

#926

Post by avisser »

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #647
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…

> Unpopular opinion: Social media is a great scapegoat, but it is not the source of the problem. It's the War On Drugs all over again. We understand addiction enough to be able to say that a person's mental, emotional, and psychosocial states are the greatest causes of addiction and not the drug itself. Social media leads to an increase in a cortisol and dopamine. It also increased oxytocin by a large margin. Behavio…

I think I know what you are saying, but I think you're misusing the war on drugs as a rhetorical device. I think you're just talking about treating the symptoms of addicts rather than looking at the causes.

The phrase "war on drugs," at least to me, is about all the collateral damage caused by criminalizing drugs. No one is criminalizing Facebook usage.

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

#927

Post by odessacubbage »

rapind wrote: post #554
raxxorraxor wrote: post #524

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 could understand it until age 10 perhaps but at some point you want your kids to be independent. There's surveillance (parental supervision) and then there's "surveillance" (corporate psycos / overbearing governments). You want your kids to learn independence in a gradual and some what safe / controlled way (not too safe of course). There are still some things I don't want them exposed to at age 10. Unfortunately…

i still tend to believe that the only lesson kids learn from content filters is how to bypass the content filter. electronic s̶u̶r̶v̶e̶i̶l̶l̶a̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶ supervision seems like it will yield a similar result. kids are going to see and experience the things you don't think they are prepared for and my personal anecdata suggests that they will survive. you cannot force them to be safe but you can be the one place they can always turn to when they do wish to seek safety.

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

#928

Post by tsol »

eldaisfish wrote: post #691
carlgreene wrote: post #649

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…

this ignores the harsh realities for life as a young person in the west. Sure, they are not scrounging for food nor is there widespread famine but politics is increasingly polarised. There is a climate problem looming and the youngest will deal with it, western citizens or otherwise. Economies are tanking, job markets are topsy turvy not to mention the real estate problem in a lot of western countries. These problems…

To put it in perspective; children in the west use phones with lithium mined by children in poor countries, and wear make up with mica mined by children in poor countries. Not saying that makes their problems invalid, but gratitude has been scientifically proven to increase happiness and we do have some things to be grateful for. Unfortunately telling people to me grateful is for some reason seen as annoying to most. I'm no Christian but that was one big positive of Christianity-- the focus on gratitude and skills to help one ensure stress and unhappiness

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

#929

Post by stevofolife »

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…

That's what happens when you allow adults and kids to play together in a highly unregulated environment, cough social media platforms cough.

Please just build a social media platform just for kids. We don't need weird adults playing in the same sandbox as little kids. We also don't need helpless adults dancing in the same recreational teen dance.

I'm surprised we even allow this to happen in the first place. Go figures.

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

#930

Post by tsol »

abyssin wrote: post #183
paulcole wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll tell you that’s how my parents were about some stuff. Excluding me from stuff my peers were doing because they thought they knew best. They were mostly wrong and I don’t really talk to them today. Better hope you’re right.

On the other hand, my parents didn’t let me watch TV or play video games and I’m thankful for it. I didn’t talk to them for a few years, but today I’ve accepted many of their flaws and can better focus on what they can bring to my life. As a parent myself, I’m not too sure about the best course of action, but I sure believe I want to introduce my kids progressively to activities that require a lot of knowledge about…

Agreed. I used to be so jealous of the kids that could do whatever they want but now I'm very happy my parents did that they did. I would say, at least in terms of metrics that are important to me, I've ended up in a better place than a lot of them. Now I'm sure some of them have other values and prefer their life but I am happy so I have to thank my parents
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