this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
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Yes, Social Media Really Is a Cause of the Epidemic of Teenage Mental Illness (www.afterbabel.com)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 82 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ima go out on a limb and say treating kids like garbage probably does a lot of the heavy lifting in wrecking their minds. Also working all the adults so no-one is around to parent, and overworking and underpaying non-guardian adults like teachers.

Things like the lack of school lunches, the limit of civil rights on kids, delinquency (that is, state and federal crimes that apply to children only) and so on show that the fucks we give for children in the US are scant.

I remember when the Columbine High School shooting happened, and everyone was so eager to blame it on video games and Marilyn Manson. We make these claims because we don't want to face the consequences of the choices our society has made.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The other aspect to this is that even if social media is bad it is mostly because people are terrible to each other via social media. They are judgemental, demanding, lack empathy,... Those things were already a problem with social interactions before social media, just not this visible and a bit easier to avoid. And the same is true about companies being exploitative via social media (the ones that run it and the tracking/advertising aspect and companies just acting as regular users on there), that problem wasn't created by social media, it just became more visible.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The way I like to think about it is that social media has acted as a magnifying lens for many aspects of social interaction, for both positive and negative. The positives include greater sharing of knowledge, better lines of communication with relatives, easier capacity to organise and protest… but the negatives include what you’ve described: bigotry and social division, commercialisation, and exploitation of the dopamine-reward system for profit gain among many others. It’s brought together some amazing people but has rewarded some abhorrent behaviour. Social media has both intensified and distorted our social interactions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I think if anything could be attributed to social media itself it is probably that whole dopamine aspect but the fact that it is emphasized in the design is of course again due to exploitation.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 7 months ago

This is an editorial article on a moral philosophy essay site. It's not science news

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Why does this have to be a two sides thing? Is this underpinned by the culture war bullshit? I can't tell and I can't be assed to deep dive into every spat to untangle all the reading between the lines.

I'm surprised they found that there is no evidence that using these platforms is "rewiring" children’s brains. Wasn't it shown that social media companies base pretty much their entire technical decision making on psychologically conditioning not just children's brains but everyone who uses it? So the evidence now shows that these are benign after all? Zuckerberg and Dorsey and Huffman never had us trapped in infinite scroll fine tuning the knobs to keep us teetering on the brink? There's some discrepancy here.

I don't see what the divide is anyways. Social media is all about things like violence, structural discrimination, sexual abuse, substance abuse. It's odd the book author is saying these are non-issues. Seems like he is taking a rather shallow view.

Also teenagers have been using the broader definition of social media for decades.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I'm surprised they found that there is no evidence that using these platforms is "rewiring" children’s brains. Wasn't it shown that social media companies base pretty much their entire technical decision making on psychologically conditioning not just children's brains but everyone who uses it?

Not really. There's a difference between things being sticky and actually altering the brain.

Yeah, we spend more time on social media than we intend, but I also take longer to get up in the morning than I'd like. The big question is does this alter the rest of my behaviour, or my mental state, when I'm not doom scrolling or refusing to leave my duvet?

That's a much harder question to answer, and the evidence is a lot more mixed.

[–] AncientFutureNow 15 points 7 months ago

Its not good for adults either.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'll have to read this later. This website seems sketchy to me, but I'll have to actually read it to find out

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

This is a rebuttal by the author of the book that was the target of that recent Nature article. He's a professor at NYU who's been studying this for a long time

[–] GardenVarietyAnxiety 8 points 7 months ago

It's not not social media... But also it's the parents, which are also affected by how the ruling class treats the entire planet. Oh, and climate change looks like a load of not fun.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Doesnt benefit the geezers too nuch either

[–] Crackhappy 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I remember when video games were the root of all evil.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Video games and social media are very different things. Social media is actually a detriment to society.

[–] Crackhappy 2 points 7 months ago

Exactly.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

this guy was a co-author of "The coddling of the american mind" which is just a reactionary screed about campus culture (have blue haired libs gone to far?). Here's a podcast that goes into the book https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/id1651876897?i=1000603422829

In this article, he's literally advocating for following the examples set by Utah and Florida with regards to kids and social media. And yes, he's one of those "social contagion" idiots https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/jonathan-haidt-social-contagion-rogd-pbs

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It is all about the phones, not systemic issues that surround teenagers. But those pesky phones, and the apps surrounding them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I don't know if you're joking, and there definitely is other problems. But it's the fucking smartphones too mate they are a huge issue.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Kinda surprising given the knowledge we have that teens even want to use it.

I hope the next generation of teenagers think social media is cringe boomer shit (because now, it basically is).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I have no idea what you mean about cringe boomer shit. It sounds like you're going on a Facebook rant but you got sidetracked.

And if you're wondering why teenagers would want to use social media, it's a very freeing kind of technology. Kids are trying to understand their worlds, they're dealing with a ton of stress in various ways, they have situations going on that they can't talk about, and social media is one very good way for them to try to figure out how to handle it all.

Good for kids. I wish we had some of these tools when I was young.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

You sound like a cunt, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Don't talk to people so condescendingly, if you don't know what I mean, then ask me to clarify, instead of creating a strawman.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

My mistake. When I said I "have no idea what you mean", I was trying to say that you were saying things that just don't make any sense. But that sounds a little harsh, so I tried to soften the message a little. Oops!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

No, I think you were right the first time, when you said you don't know what I mean.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

If only /you/ did. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed your temper tantrum.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

Takes one to know one

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

It is extremely irresponsible to give your minor a smart phone and social media, but the majority of parents do it anyways, I dont get why its happening.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

So, what youre saying is that ignorance really is bliss