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Heavy social media use associated with lower mental health in adolescents

774 points by alexrustic 6y ago

tbugrara 6y ago
I think we all need to keep in mind that social media can also be a refuge for those struggling mentally. Correlation can not imply causation.
henearkr 6y ago
The damage probably extends to all age categories, too.
username90 6y ago
Doesn't it damage everyone's mental health?
twiss 6y ago
Loneliness damages peoples' mental health, too. Is there some chance that, for mental health, the ordering goes "in-person interaction > social media interaction > no interaction at all"? Then of course if you compare social media interaction with in-person interaction you may conclude that social media = bad, but the causality may (in part) be the other way around, as the article says: > “Those who feel worse may turn to social media for solace or community,” Dr Amy Orben, research fellow at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, said of the research.
- watwut 6y ago
  > Loneliness damages peoples' mental health, too. Is there some chance that, for mental health, the ordering goes "in-person interaction > social media interaction > no interaction at all"? In my experience, yes. When I was real life social isolated, stopping the online interactions was destructive each time I tried. (I tried couple of time till I realized that yes, it does count as interaction that I need.)
- croes 6y ago
  You can't order it by the type of interaction. "I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone." What makes social media so bad is that hundreds, thousands and more from all over the world can attack you. In-person thats seldom the case. On the other hand, you can more easily ignore online comments than real life comments.
  - bjt2n3904 6y ago
    Where did that quote come from? Excellent point. Someone once commented on how we can't go for a drive in the car without having some music on to distract us from thinking. I wonder if we don't want to be alone with our thoughts.
    - croes 6y ago
      The quote is often attributed to Robin Williams but it's from his role as Lance in the 2009 film “World’s Greatest Dad” written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait.
  - NalNezumi 6y ago
    >ou can more easily ignore online comments than real life comments. Not always the case I don't think(your over all point still stands though). An anectodtal example, I've been thrown some racial & very insensitive slurs at sports bar/convenience store late night, but seeing the person/the state the person throwing the slur is in (intoxicated) can make it way easier to just brush it off. Being thrown an insult in say, StackOverflow by someone that have provable trackrecord of excellence can be quite more demoralizing. The absence/existence of additional information about the person throwing the slur can make the whole difference, and that can exist/not exist on both internet and real life.
  - paganel 6y ago
    > On the other hand, you can more easily ignore online comments than real life comments. Not sure if I'm the only doing that but in many, many cases I just ignore the reddit red envelope (I open it in new tab and close that tab instantly with Cmd+W), I choose to which comments of mine to answer directly (if the case) by going straight to them, so to speak, and see if there's anything in there. Granted, I'm not strong enough to do that all the time, but it helps, nonetheless.
sillyquiet 6y ago
Social media as it exists currently is like being surrounded 24/7 by nattering, gossiping, scatterbrains playing an eternal game of brinksmanship and striving at one-upping each other. So yeah, I can intuitively believe this study.
- a_wild_dandan 6y ago
  It jives with my perspective too, but I can't help also feeling like that's an "old man yells at cloud" viewpoint. The way kids use social media today is fundamentally different to my experience. Like the way my parents viewed IRC usage as an outlet for kidnapping or whatever. Kids grew up immersed in social media, and probably use it for rich and important social interactions that are alien to me. I view social media as a largely performative, toxic space and I've quit most of it. But newer generations might see a lot of value that I don't. (And that's not helped by constantly seeing articles about cyberbullying, depressive correlation articles like OP, etc.)
  - Verdex 6y ago
    This is really off topic, but I just wanted to highlight how important the simpsons are to communication. Like, "old man yells at cloud" causes me to almost immediately understand your point (at least I feel I understand your point). The rest of your comment is almost unnecessary (although it is appreciated because it helps confirm that I am getting you). Personally, the experience is a bit incredible.
    - Bakary 6y ago
      Before the Simpsons this was just "get off my lawn", possibly inspired by some other piece of media long forgotten
      - lovecg 6y ago
        Apparently made popular by David Letterman in the eighties so not much older than the Simpsons. It makes sense for it to not be very old, as most people didn’t own lawns until mid twentieth century or so. The lawn as a concept has a fascinating history on its own. It’s a remnant of aristocratic signaling “look how much land I have that I can afford to put aside some of it over here for no reason”.
INTPenis 6y ago
Don't mean to sound deep and profound here but I think life in general damages your mental health. Social media just brings it to you in a superficial format. But I do also believe those little notifications can be addictive.
- wackro 6y ago
  That's very cynical. It's possible to enjoy life more and more as time goes on. Read Triumphs of Experience. My dad is one of those lucky people. Besides, even if life itself /is/ damaging in general, that doesn't explain the teen suicide rate etc, or any of the findings from this report specifically pertaining to teens.
  - Bakary 6y ago
    It's more a case of happy people and unhappy people being largely unable to understand each other and then turning their general outlook into a theory of the world. Even a single person can have trouble remembering their own happiness when they sink into depression and their past pain when they are breathing life into their lungs.
- samsquire 6y ago
  Modern life is indeed terrible. Being depressed sucks. I think there is a missing institution that should exist to protect people from market effects. The raw edge of the market is driving a wedge into people's lives. People need to be protected but they're just a few decisions away from loss. Society doesn't do enough for the losers of the world, it's a winner take all system.
  - wackro 6y ago
    I don't think markets and mental health are quite as intimately related. I think it's more to do with living in an individualistic society where we have less of a social net to fall back on. And I mean 'social' as in a close-knit community, nothing political.
ChrisRR 6y ago
Social media damages everyone's mental health it seems. For some reason it seems to bring out the worst in so many people, and people think it's now acceptable to post online the awful thoughts that they would've kept to themselves
- daenz 6y ago
  The communities are too big. We're not meant to socialize frequently with people with whom there are rarely repercussions for how we treat them.
  - toshk 6y ago
    I think part of the reason it's so stressful for teenagers is that there actual repercussions for their group position.
  - Verdex 6y ago
    This seems reasonable to me. Like, if you only have to get along with 120 people, it seems like a problem that an arbitrary person has a pretty good chance of solving. Then everyone else can be the "other". However, I wonder if the simplest strategy that works when you have to get along with everyone is that you have to become an noisy asshole that overreacts to real "enemies" over imagined slights.
  - offtop5 6y ago
    I've noticed this living in bigger cities as well, it was bad enough in one certain place I just left. Kind of estranged my family to do it, but as soon as I was in my new city I had a great girlfriend, and my cost of living was much lower, I was much happier. The old journey kind of took me on a personal discovery. You shouldn't worry about other people criticizing your choices because they aren't going to really affect them, and even if they are they're adults they can sort something else out. In this new city I would notice even though technically the population was large, the communities were very tight-knit. If you're rude to the local bartender her dad might have a word with you. Contrast it to the internet, I spoke to a girl who had to stop using dating apps because guys would just lead with calling her nasty and fat. In real life if you do that there can be immediate consequences to that behavior. Imagine if you will you were at a bar, and the Packers are playing the raiders or something, if you start yelling at random people that raiders fans are disgusting and horrible you can expect to be removed, and banned from returning to that bar. ( Or they might agree with you and buy you a beer who knows). On twitter, Reddit Facebook whatever that doesn't really exist. You can say ridiculously nasty mean things to everyone and nothing's going to happen to you. I had to stop using social media because I would become distraught over some of the stuff I read, almost all the bigotry I experienced was entirely online. Everyone has a right to spend their time in their energy the way they choose, but since I don't want to be called slurs I don't use social media. I've posted here a ton but back in 2019 I went completely offline and I had amazing partners, made tons of friends, traveled. I even increased my income by no small amount, I used that time I was spending making the Zuckerbergs of the world rich into improving myself. but if I've learned one thing in my life, it's that self-improvement is very hard, I'm the only person who can put down the second donut. it's a lot easier to go on Reddit and then complain about how societies out to get you, are to go on Twitter and just spread your own, really just self-hatred to other people hoping to dissipate it. Yet you can't, spreading hate doesn't take it out of you, if anything you're just going to get more hate back and then it builds up like a fuel. Most angry online folks, if you took away their social media and slowly reintroduced them to community, maybe a nice bowling league or something, within a year they'd be so much happier.
lailalessdad 6y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5OL8eIxtCo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5OL8eIxtCo
thick 6y ago
"Social Media" seems to be a scapegoat for the underlying causes: children are in particular affected by this because they haven't had years/decades to build up mental disorders yet where they justify it to themselves that it's "okay", and the unfairness in the world through the lens of social media, taking the emotional toll head on. Children are very sensitive to their status in society, but we forget this because we grew out of that. Those of us on the successful side of things anyway. Social Media isn't the boogeyman. It's that no matter how hard you try, your life will never be as good as what is usually portrayed through these channels. You are swarmed with people who lead far better lives than you do, have way more fun than you do, and so on and so forth. Your only escapism at home, in a pandemic, is to go on the internet where you're spammed with these successful people (posers or not, doesn't matter) selling you things by showing off what they have. So no, it's not social media that damages teenagers mental health. It's worse than that. Ignorance is bliss? There's an argument to be made for that. It starts before they even hit teens. That YouTube channel of the kid unpacking toys and other things is the kind of early stage precursor to things to come. The kids watching this viscerally live through him for some years, until it dawns on them that hey, wait a minute, he has all those toys and I don't have anything. It's no wonder exercise makes things better - it's a great distraction from the illnesses of the world. Assuming that children are somehow not aware of it, or are not susceptible to it, is being naive at best.
- watwut 6y ago
  > Children are very sensitive to their status in society, but we forget this because we grew out of that. Those of us on the successful side of things anyway. We don't outgrow that. Adults are very status conscious too.
- jancsika 6y ago
  Somehow in your contrarian riff you end up agreeing with the research, at least in part. If social media does indeed lead to less exercise as research suggests-- which, as you explicitly agree would make things worse-- it is a boogeyman.
- josho 6y ago
  Social media is engineered to be addictive and creates media bubbles that prey on kids insecurities. Social media takes every challenge that kids face and amplifies it. My anecdotal experience is two daughters whose normal teenage challenges have been made worse through social media. Social media could have been a utopian technology bubbling up unique experiences to cultivate hobbies and interests in the young. Instead the algorithms cater to our base instincts and is amplifying the risk of turning the next generation into mindless addicts.
himinlomax 6y ago
Does it damage it more than TV? is the question I always ask when I read that kind of headlines.
- tgv 6y ago
  From my personal experience: yes. TV is less addictive, and its contents are better controlled.
samrmay 6y ago
The article mentions a myriad of factors that correlate with mental health issues going into adolescence. It’s interesting that the headline targets social media, as the body of the article doesn’t seem to highlight it as an especially strong correlation. As a side note, the differing trends of boys and girls after adolescence is really interesting. > However, it recognised that girls' self-esteem and wellbeing stabilises as they move into their late teens, whereas it continues to drop for boys Will have to read the source material to see if they propose any causes for that
- learnstats2 6y ago
  The article also quotes the researcher explicitly denying the BBC’s headline suggesting causation. I downvoted all the popular comments here which were ready to agree with the causation despite the research making no comment on that at all: the complete lack of critical thinking is why this gets to be the chosen headline. Pure clickbait.
  - samrmay 6y ago
    "Social media bad" is much more palpable than grappling with the fact that mental illness is a complicated problem with many contributing factors. Very frustrating because the researchers suggest increasing mental health resources and exercise, whereas the headline suggests social media as the much easier scapegoat.
OneGuy123 6y ago
Lets not pretend that the current news media is any different. There is no objective fact reporting, only fear mongering.
- tgv 6y ago
  What motivates you to reply that, when you know it isn't true? There's been news media for more than a century now, and it is not known to cause addiction and depression in teenagers.
  - OneGuy123 6y ago
    "When you know it isn't true". Really? Teenagers are addicted to social media and adults get addicted to news media. Both are based on fear mongering and the fear of missing out. Do you not see that underneath the problem is the same?
- jansan 6y ago
  The "news" aspect is probably the most harmless part about social media.
bjt2n3904 6y ago
There are entire subreddits dedicated to mocking this point, like /r/PhonesAreBad, and /r/InsaneParents. I doubt half the screenshots they post of text message conversations are even real -- but the point gets across. Phones are the most wonderful thing that keep us connected to each other, and only crude luddites living in the dark ages who don't understand the benefit they provide would take them away from a kid down spiraling into depression. It's almost like there's this gravitational well of depressed anxious people, and they don't want anyone to escape.
- tgv 6y ago
  It's an addiction. People leaving the circle are directly taking away the addict's stimulus.
  - superkuh 6y ago
    Please don't use words that have a real medical meaning in such an inaccurate and casual way. Calling things addictive has real consequences in terms of legislators taking these confused public sentiments as fact and then trying to use force against the groups that are "addicted". Addiction has never been proven in this context. Addiction is a a real, serious problem with drugs that effect the brains reward system (opioids) or prediction of reward (amphetamines). It is not a real problem associated with using online forums using a computer.
    - tgv 6y ago
      If it was just opioids or ampthetamines, alcohol or nocotine wouldn't be addictive, would it? Please don't use incomplete or irrelevant factoids when you contradict. But prediction of reward might very well be a concise description of the drive behind social media use.
      - superkuh 6y ago
        >If it was just opioids or ampthetamines, Obviously it's not. I gave examples of two drugs and their direct mechanisms of action. >But prediction of reward might very well be a concise description of the drive behind social media use. No, that's a description of a living mammal brain. Addiction is when that system is hijacked directly, not when it is doing it's normal thing in response to stimuli.
samsquire 6y ago
Life is hard enough without social media. You will be harshly judged on social media and treated with contempt.
- astura 6y ago
  What the fuck kind of social media are you guys talking about? Reddit and 4Chan? I use Facebook, everyone (that's people I know in person) is extremely nice to me on there, never got any contempt at all. We share pictures and funny memes and plan events on there. I used Facebook to reconnect with a childhood friend who I lost touch with and now we talk all the time. My husband did the exact same thing with Myspace a decade before.
bnralt 6y ago
I'm starting to wonder if mass media in general is bad for our mental health, and if we'd be better off unplugging as much as we can from everything - social media, TV, radio, Hacker News, etc. and spending more time with our community. I suppose the problem is, most communities are completely addicted to this stuff, so we're left in a situation where it's hard for most people to unplug for any long period of time without isolating themselves.
- mightybyte 6y ago
  Until six months ago, I consumed very little mainstream media or social media. I started following the news leading up to the presidential election because it seemed like this one would be more consequential than most. I can definitely say that I've been meaningfully less happy / more anxious / etc as a result. I definitely intend to scale back my news / media consumption to the level it was before in the near future.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  This is my experience. I disconnected from social media, and my social life immediately died. Friends only communicate with each other through Facebook, so I'm really only staying in regular contact with my very closest friends anymore. Most of it I don't miss, because social media has also reduced the quality of communication to the level of gossip, but what I do miss out on is any sort of invitations to social gatherings. It also eliminates opportunities to make new friends. It's surprisingly difficult to find a knitting group in my area that doesn't organize using Facebook Groups, for example. It frankly worries me. In the past, we worried about monopolies on things like oil and diamonds. I'm not sure our culture has the tools to cope with a monopoly on participation in society.
  - grumple 6y ago
    After leaving facebook a few years ago, I noticed at first that it was difficult to find out about social events. And I felt more disconnected. After a while, though, it just sort of filtered the events down to those I cared more about. My good friends still reach out directly and vice versa. I think it took a while for that to start happening though. I've lost touch with many acquaintances, but if I'm being honest it's probably better that I don't expend energy on those people. I'm certainly not isolated from society, though. I just engage on my own terms.
mikece 6y ago
If you have not seen it, the documentary "The Social Dilemma" (currently only available on Netflix) goes over this in detail, with first-hand accounts from the people who created the "addiction algorithms"... as well as references to research on how self-harm and suicide attempts in teens and pre-teens has skyrocketed since the advent of social media.
- kyrra 6y ago
  There were parts of that documentary that were good, but it was also way over the top. And funny enough Netflix was never mentioned in it, because it was produced by them (Even though binge watching is a thing). It also felt like it dived into conspiracy theories without a lot of backing. The funniest part for the entire thing is that they spent a lot of time of how do we solve this problem of social media. There was a lot of just weird things brought up in the documentary itself. But the real answer was actually in the interviews in the credit, which is where it just says to get off of social media. It did not feel like we're trying to be honest, rather they wanted to be controversial.
titzer 6y ago
Social media (and the attention economy) are worse for young brains than drugs. If you came up with a substance that caused young people by the millions to become totally addicted, cost them multiple hours per day, pushed them into depression and suicide, and contributed to inactivity, obesity, loss of attention span, and overall ennui, it would be banned almost immediately. Heck, if you proposed a tracking system that kept track of kids' whereabouts, social connections, and required them to post identifying information and photos, as well as gather their interests and political leanings, it'd be illegal. The fact that we allowed companies to do these two things together while making money off it is absolutely astounding to me.
- haolez 6y ago
  Add to that recent games like FIFA or NBA that have casino-like mechanics with real money.
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    Watch out, they'll outlaw Robinhood
- deleted 6y ago
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- simias 6y ago
  I've always been a bit extreme on this but I more than ever believe that it's insane that we consider that leaving teenagers with unsupervised internet access is reasonable. Maybe I'm prude or naive but I remember vividly when I first saw a pornographic movie at like around 17. It really shook me at the time. I wasn't traumatized or anything but it made a strong impact on me. These days I expect that most teens experience this at like 12yo on their smartphones. Last week I was linked a reddit video of some guy dying in absolutely gruesome circumstance due to an industrial accident. And then there's the constant influx of disinformation. Did you know that Hydroxychloroquine cures HIV? I saw a Youtube video claiming just that yesterday. Leaving a kid on the internet is like living them on a shaddy part of town for hours at a time. I'm old enough that I only had internet at home when I turned 18, in hindsight I feel like I dodged a bullet.
jMyles 6y ago
Closed-source algorithms designed to manipulate behavior, sell shit, and make you envy your friends are antisocial media.
jeffbee 6y ago
Now do adults.
josh_carterPDX 6y ago
And in other news, water is wet.
jefftk 6y ago
Here's the paper: https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/EPI-PT_Young-people%E2%80%99s-wellbeing_Jan2021.pdf https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/EPI-PT_Young-p... It's all correlational (observing that people with higher social media use are worse off in various ways). This approach is not capable of detecting reverse causation (people use social media more because they are unhappy) or third causes (something else causes people to both use more social media and also be unhappy)
- ohduran 6y ago
  that's what I thought when I read the article. > One in three girls was unhappy with their personal appearance by the age of 14, compared with one in seven at the end of primary school. That comparison doesn't support the hypothesis. It should have been compared to teenagers from 10 years ago. Otherwise, you can't rule out the effect of growing up on the mental health if these girls.
  - nineplay 6y ago
    I'm surprised its only one in three. In the 80s I would have guessed that at least half of 14 year old girls ( I was one ) were unhappy with their appearance.
    - astura 6y ago
      I was a 14 year old girl in the 90s and I share your surprise its only one in three. I would guess the majority of my peers were unhappy with their appearance at that time based on my experience and observations. I was one too. I (objectively) looked just fine but I thought I was a disfigured ghoul.
      - nineplay 6y ago
        The irony was that my conviction that I looked ghastly only made it worse. I permed my hair and teased my bangs and piled on the makeup and held my breath while I pulled on jeans that were too small for me. If I'd really seen myself when I looked in the mirror I would have been better off. I didn't, I saw someone who was supposed to look like Cindy Crawford and was failing miserably.
coreyrab 6y ago
A family friend explained it in a way that stuck with me, paraphrasing: "When you were in school, you only compared yourself to peers at your school and maybe one school over. Now me and my friends compare our looks, accomplishments, and follower counts to everyone within 10 years of us on Instagram"
itronitron 6y ago
Social media use seems like a subset of 'caring what other people think' which I believe is very damaging to young minds.
jp555 6y ago
doesn't that headline essentially say "teenagers damage teenagers' mental health"? Don't most teenagers spend most of their time socializing with other teenagers? My pre-internet teenage "social networking" was full of traumatic times. Has that not been the case of teenagers forever? I guess this study is reporting an measurable increase above the "normal" amount? That seems like it would be very hard to measure.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Indeed. I always find it strange when people are shocked by bullying in schools or teenagers being jerks to each other. Didn't everyone witness that? Every single person at my high school could tell you who was bullied.
  - jp555 6y ago
    At least with us geezers there's no trace of it ... now nothing gets deleted. That's a new stress for sure.
    - vulcan01 6y ago
      I don't think people my age (high school) fully understand > nothing gets deleted Mean people say and do equivalent things on social media as in person. Although, I must say, this lockdown is probably a blessing to those who are consistently bullied at school, as now they're able to at least physically avoid them.
- mtippett 6y ago
  No they don't. The toxic communities that exist have a mixture of no-clue 11 year olds with minimal parental supervision (or parental supervision that's failing) through to young adults who found a community that can reflect their feelings back. Eg: the proana/edtwt communities are clearly children just working things out to young adults getting followings and interaction with a community. It sickens me to see a post from a 23 yr old spouting how to hide ED from your parents by doing the following... Or using subliminals to change the shape of your nose.
jameslk 6y ago
These studies seem to keep contradicting each other: http://www.nautil.us/blog/studies-shoot-down-techs-harmful-effects-on-kidsso-now-what http://www.nautil.us/blog/studies-shoot-down-techs-harmful-e... > A new study in Nature Human Behaviour, which looked at data from more than 350,000 adolescents, also found that digital tech use mattered little to kids’ well-being. The authors, Amy Orben and Przybylski, argue that prior research, which examined the impact of social media on teens and tweens, was based on weak correlations and insufficiently comprehensive methods, and therefore drew false conclusions.
- TaupeRanger 6y ago
  Yes, it's just like all high level studies trying to make broad statements about human behavior or any other complex human system, like nutrition or economics. The reason there is so much contradiction is that we can't deal with the complex relationships between variables or the unknown unknowns. The only reason medicine is able to do decent studies is because they can tightly control things in RCTs. Correlational/observational studies are almost never good enough to make strong statements about anything.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  It might make more sense to say that social media usage is just one large aspect of a child- like the presence or lack of presence of supportive adult figures, the presence or lack of presence of food security, good education, physical safety, etc. I'm sure a teenager who runs exclusively in cutting or pro-anorexia social circles online is a much different teenager to one who primarily uses the internet to keep up to date on horse shows.
  - mtippett 6y ago
    You got one too eh? tw sh / tw ed?
    - TeaDrunk 6y ago
      I don't know what this means; I don't have children if that's what you're asking.
AndrewKemendo 6y ago
People should really read the research [1] and not this article as the article doesn't actually capture the scope and real impact of the research. The executive summary highlights: * Personal wellbeing drops, on average, as children move from primary into secondary school, and continues to drop as children move through secondary school. * We find a graded relationship between family income and all three outcomes through adolescence: young people’s mental and emotional health scores are worse the lower down their family is on the income scale *Engaging in physical activity was found to be more important for boys’ mental and emotional health in early adolescence than girls’, with a graded relationship between frequency of exercise and scores on all three outcomes for 14-year-old boys; at age 17, we find a graded relationship with frequency of exercise in both girls and boys. Heavy social media use is associated with worse scores on all outcomes in girls age 14 and 17, but only worse well being for boys at age 14. Etc... [1]https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/EPI-PT_Young-people%E2%80%99s-wellbeing_Jan2021.pdf https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/EPI-PT_Young-p...
- vulcan01 6y ago
  As a high school guy, I have to wonder if > Engaging in physical activity was found to be more important for boys’ mental and emotional health is because (personal anecdata warning!) guys tend to prefer friends who are physically fit. This is just something I've noticed by observing my school; the stronger guys tend to have a larger social circle. However, this causation could be flawed, maybe physically active people have better emotional health and that's why people are attracted (friendship-wise) to them.
  - mlac 6y ago
    Your guess makes some sense, but I'd say it could also be that people who work out more often are typically involved in organized sports and have to work out x number of times per week. Organized sports often have a built in social circle.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    I wonder if it isn't a proxy for something else and we're measuring the wrong thing.
deleted 6y ago
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bluetomcat 6y ago
It's not "social" and it's not "media". I see those as online platforms which encourage you to build a curated, time-trackable version of your identity, where hyper-expression and outward individualism is the tool. Eventually, what happens is a clash of values between these shallow identities, which is as social as military conflict can be.
grumple 6y ago
It damages my mental health and I'm an adult. I watch it damage everyone I know as well.
duxup 6y ago
I'm trying to teach my 10 year old son. He's not on social media, but does play games online with others. I'm working really hard to enforce a sort of "If it isn't positive, you don't feel good about it... time to not do it for a while / find another game / people to play with." I'm trying to teach him to evaluate and shape his own experiences online and make choices based on that.
- Minor49er 6y ago
  Do you use any sort of parental control software/hardware to keep him off of social media? Or is it just a rule?
  - duxup 6y ago
    Anything with an internet connection requires some level of supervision. There's no free access to internet connected devices at this point, have to ask, use in spaces where we monitor, etc.
FpUser 6y ago
The world is fucked up in numerous ways. Modern means of communications including social media suddenly make all those depressing facts visible. I think we are confusing symptoms with the cause here.
mrfusion 6y ago
Wait till you see what it does to adults! (Sorry for the short comment but I’m trying out saying a lot with a little)
nineplay 6y ago
If they are specific about what "social media" they are talking about, I didn't see it. I feel like without naming names, the report and conclusion are frustratingly vague. All social media is not the same. YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and reddit are very different platforms with, I'm guessing, very different effects on teenage ( and adult ) psyches.
waynesonfire 6y ago
Is this similar to the damage done by video games? I suspect this is full of shit.
mrfusion 6y ago
I’m immune to most social media but for me the saddest thing is losing respect for 70% of the people I know. Just seeing the ignorance they post and comments they make.
hannob 6y ago
Response from a person with actual expertise in the topic: https://twitter.com/OrbenAmy/status/1354397497750335488 https://twitter.com/OrbenAmy/status/1354397497750335488 (tl;dr it's science by press release, has various methodological weaknesses and does not account for a likely bidirectional relationship of causation, i.e. a classic correlation/causation confusion)
jl2718 6y ago
Imagine you are the chairman of Phillip Morris in 1995. You control one of the biggest companies in the world, absolutely full of cash. You also know that your product is just bad all around for everybody whether they use it or not. One of your corporate lawyers tells you that you need to immediately break yourself up, sell off all the components to foreign buyers, cease all operations in the United States, and cash out the company to the shareholders. You pass; this will be no big deal. The next three years are living hell, morning to night sitting in a courthouse listening to your customers detail how you destroyed their lives. At the end you get a $200B settlement against you, your company is dead, everybody hates you, and you are no longer welcome in any of your social circles. Was it worth it? If a company is required to do the best thing for the shareholders, then shouldn’t it require them to cash out at the zenith of their value? Otherwise if they are going to ride all the way down, how is the stock ever worth anything?
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  Phillip Morris didn't operate a sophisticated propaganda machine capable of steering national opinion in its own favor and indeed directing the course of democracy (if we are to believe that foreign actors can side-channel attack Twitter's algos to influence elections, then it naturally follows that Twitter can influence elections with direct control over its algorithms). I don't mean this in a contrarian sense (I agree with you), moreso just venting my pessimism that things will change.
  - throwaway2245 6y ago
    > Phillip Morris didn't operate a sophisticated propaganda machine... What? Yes, it did, that's literally what it did do.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      I wasn't using "machine" in the figurative sense of an advertising department, I meant "a literal machine", like Twitter's algorithms. I can't imagine Phillip Morris in its heyday having 1% of the influence that Twitter enjoys today.
chadlavi 6y ago
Not a teen, but it's certainly damaged mine plenty. Granted, this is n=1 and I'm writing this ON a social media platform, of sorts.
elric 6y ago
An anecdote, at the risk of sounding old: Back when I was a kid, if we had internet access at all, we mostly used it for the community aspect. A fan of some book? Search for it on Altavista and you likely found some kind of fan site which had a little bulletin board community organized around it. Or maybe a usenet group. A few minutes down the road you were talking to strangers on the other side of the planet about something you were all actively interested in. Hell, even radio stations had their own chat rooms and forums. Many free software tools had dedicated IRC channels. Mailing lists and usenet groups abound. These communities were all interest based, and there were sooooo many of them. Because they were interest based, they mostly attracted people who at least had something in common with you, which made it easy to relate to them. And because people are not onedimensional, they were often part of many different communities. Which, aside from being fun, was also a great way to learn how to interact with people all over the world. Sure, flame wars were a thing, and I'm sure people were bullied and whatnot. Community moderation worked pretty well, though (as someone who administered a 10k+ members forum) it could be a lot of work. But no one ever damaged their mental health by frequenting a knitting forum. Facebook pretty much destroyed all of these (or at least decimated them). Perhaps these groups are still around, but it's now actively hard to find them. FB does not foster a sense of community. It's not a platform where you will learn anything about any topic. It's not an environment that's conducive to improving personal interactions. It attempted to centralize those things, and it failed. Instead of paying attention to things that interest us, we now have FB and its ilk begging us to please pay attention to their garbage. I miss actual communities, warts and all, and I think that young people's mental health would be better off if they made a return. Final note: yes, there are exceptions, I know it's not all quite as bad as I'm dramatizing here.
- __turbobrew__ 6y ago
  > I miss actual communities I have found that Discord has become the closest contemporary thing to the old communities you talk about. Many niche interests now have small Discord servers with like minded people, and if you hang around long enough you will become integrated with one of these niche communities. I have been a part of several Discord servers for 5 years and I feel like they truly are communities: there is a deep history of the active members; people who met on Discord have visited each other in real life; members have gotten married; members have shared in grief as other members committed suicide; over time people have come and gone, but they have always had the Discord community to come back to when a relationship falls through, or they just need companionship in a tough time.
pmlnr 6y ago
Is anyone even questioning this any more in 2021?
OmniiTyler 6y ago
It is heartsickening that this is the result of current social media implementation. As others have mentioned, it is largely caused by this attention economy (as I've heard Tristan Harris of https://www.humanetech.com/ https://www.humanetech.com/ call it) - where the apps most used today are made to be addictive and consume our attention as much as possible. I have been working on a more intimate, less addictive, social media and messaging application that I hope can be part of a trend of new apps that help solve this problem. I believe one of the features in current apps that makes them so addictive, for teens especially, is the endless stream of content they have access to - they can view hours and hours of videos from celebrities they don't personally know, content creators they have never met, brands, etc. If we can scale back the endless stream of content (which leads to doom-scrolling), that might be one approach to helping limit screen time without sacrificing the meaningful connection to friends and family that social media enables.
- bserge 6y ago
  I'd be interested to see what you're working on. How would you reduce the amount of content? Would people still be able to find it by search? Or is this more of a Facebook/Whatsapp without the extra bs? I've been trying to block social media and have finally managed to do it (DoH was a pain in the ass to block). Although I can still access websites on mobile, working on that. I quit Imgur after years and I don't understand why I was even going there. Now everything looks dumb and uninteresting. Truly like a drug addiction.
antattack 6y ago
Manufacturers add fat or sugar to their product to make them more palatable or attractive. Flashy packaging or celebrity endorsement also helps. Social media is similar in many ways. Games, daily challenges, rewards, sense of belonging etc. In both instances you have to recognize what is beneficial to you and at what point is a waste of time or unhealthy. It's hard to do it for adults and it's hard or impossible to do for children and teenagers. Also, as with everything, everyone's experience will be different. In food example, some people can manage their calories better than other. Some are easily addicted or depressed. It's the same with social media or internet content in general.
Ericson2314 6y ago
Well there is the attention economy, and then there is also social media which facilitates comparison to your actual peers not mere aspirational influencer types. No doubt both are bad more mental health, but I wonder what the breakdown is. For example, maybe less Instagram more TikTok might actually be marginally good for people's mental health.
blitz_skull 6y ago
In other news, the sky is blue.
hiimtroymclure 6y ago
I left all social media just after xmas after I couldn't take the constant flood of politics. I miss the memes but overall i've loved my decision. Ill never go back
- hollerith 6y ago
  "Constant flood of politics" also describes HN between late Dec and now IME. Have you considered leaving HN over it? (I have.)
  - hiimtroymclure 6y ago
    I have not. I get a lot of value out of HN as it relates to my interests. I really don't get any value over what someone I went to college with who I no longer speak to anymore is doing with their lives. But I understand your frustrations. Its hard to find any place that escapes it all
dfmooreqqq 6y ago
I wish there was more on the different types/uses of social media. Twitter != Facebook != Goodreads != HN and so on. Even within different social media there is varying uses - using FB groups to find affinity groups like Woodworkers or a shared hobby and more is very different than just doom scrolling the news feed. I didn't get through to the actual report (just the linked article), so maybe there is more there.
f430 6y ago
What I found shocking about the latest trend in video consumption on social media is that they are 10 seconds long or less. This is only one of the many ways to keep a person locked to the screen (ex. youtube) It's not hard to imagine what this sort of exposure does to a young person's brain and attention span. You are essentially creating addicts and social media users all show withdrawl symptoms of any prolonged psychotropic drug use: - irritability - depression - physical restlessness - overwhelming need for redose - tolerance build up Something has to be done. We cannot rely on the generosity or moral guidelines of the companies that produce these apps well aware of the link between serotonin and screen time. I'm all for small government but this is a matter of public health. We needed regulation, and we need regulation, and will need regulation.
onenightnine 6y ago
they said the same about video games, violent movies and music
- oblio 6y ago
  And guess what, all those are now regulated (to an increasing degree).
akulbe 6y ago
I'm not a doctor/scientist… but I feel like it's easily just as bad for mature adults. The constant stream of news and social media… it doesn't have a calming effect. People, in general, seem more angry too.
deleted 6y ago
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turing_complete 6y ago
We should make it a beat practice to link to the primary source directly instead of news sites.
mtippett 6y ago
It cuts both ways. One child (reserved/shy) - has had probably more negative impact than anything else in her life. From the very first access to tech has continually found opportunity to find toxic, negative communities (hentai, r/teenagers, edtwt, sh, bdsm). Any attempt to reduce results in hiding and lying. The speed that a kid can change window or swipe away is ridiculous. Literally can't find a way that tech has benefitted her. Another child (shy too), enamored with anything that teaches her more (tik tok, youtube, etc). The big difference is that the second child isn't looking for community. The first child is looking for community but can only find community in echo chambers that reflect back teenage angst, and those echo chambers run deep. I can only hope that the first child grows into an well adjusted adult, and while not social media, toxic and negative online communities are just simply too easier to slide into.
bengale 6y ago
It seems to damage most people's mental health. It's crazy the sort of radicalisation going on with older people.
eli 6y ago
It's remarkable how similar this is to the previous panic over children watching television. And before that, reading comic books. And before that listening to the radio...
known 6y ago
Antidote https://archive.is/QaeAg https://archive.is/QaeAg
12xo 6y ago
Social media is just like fast food. Its cheap, tasty, filling and easy. Eat it too often and you'll grow fat, get sick and cause irreparable bodily harm.
DevKoala 6y ago
I deleted all my social media accounts years ago because social media made me anxious. I can’t imagine the pain kids must be since they feel forced to participate in order to “socially” exist.
Sindrome 6y ago
No shit?
SunlightEdge 6y ago
I think a problem with teenagers and social media is that they are often not mature enough to handle toxic elements on social media such as: 1. Trolling 2. Heated political discussions 3. Stalkers 4. Obsession with likes and doing negative behaviours to get likes 5. In general not knowing how to handle people Social media should probably be banned for under 18
kodah 6y ago
For all the folks talking about pro's and con's of social media companies, the government (and investing world) are working on a solution to make these kinds of findings empirical. It's called Economic, Social, and Governance metrics (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/environmental-social-and-governance-esg-criteria.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/environmental-social-an...) Biden is already poised to encourage the DOL to adopt these more directly: https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2021/1/27/biden-may-have-to-move-quickly-to-reverse-anti-esg/ https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2021/1/27/biden-may-have-t...
grillvogel 6y ago
i unironically believe social media should be banned and is responsible for most of the negative aspects of society in the past 10 years
OOPMan 6y ago
Not just teenagers...
LatteLazy 6y ago
This may be the most disjointed think I've ever read. A depressing number of people here don't seem to have read it. But then neither it seems has the person who wrote it and added the headline.
jayant123 6y ago
Here's an excerpt from the article - Heavy social media use was linked to negative wellbeing and self-esteem, regardless of a young person's mental state, with more girls experiencing feelings of depression and hopelessness. “Those who feel worse may turn to social media for solace or community,” Dr Amy Orben, research fellow at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, said of the research. “It’s not a vacuum, it works both ways." Contrast that with the title of this post, which tries to establish a clear causal link from social media use to poor mental health.
mraza007 6y ago
I hundred percent agree with this report as social is basically a modern day drug. It has played so well with our brain mechanism and made us addicted to it. If you want to leave social especially as a teenager you have you try really hard as you fall into something called fomo(fearing of missing out)
deleted 6y ago
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xmlblog 6y ago
Only teenagers?
908087 6y ago
It also damages adults' mental health, and a large portion of my friends, family members and acquaintances are living proof of that. The past year in particular has severely damaged not only their mental health, but their grasp on reality itself. I don't really know where we go from here, but the path we're on isn't sustainable.
confidantlake 6y ago
I think it is the same for adults and I think news sites are also up there with social media. Just a constant barrage of NEGATIVE THING HAPPENED!!! that you have no control of and can't do anything about.
jjice 6y ago
I was addicted to Twitter in high school. I spent hours on it at night, getting no sleep. I spent so much time and mental bandwidth thinking of funny things to say or memes to make to get more likes. I was addicted to the likes and keeping up with everyone I knew. First semester of college, I stopped using Twitter. My sleep got better, I had more free time, and I was noticeably happier and freer. I no longer spent time in that dopamine cycle. I've been weening off of Reddit and HN the past few months as well. YouTube is my next beast to conquer, and that might be the biggest one for me right now. I'm trying to adapt to longer form content again, instead of only watching videos under a minute or reading 280 character tweets. I want to have an attention span again, I really do. Is social media an inherently evil thing? I don't think so, but I don't think I should use it. I also think that it can be toxic for teenagers in general. There are a variety of reasons, but the one that applied to me was the dopamine cycle caused by "likes".
- causalmodels 6y ago
  This comes shockingly close to my experience growing up playing WoW.
  - JCharante 6y ago
    I went from playing 8 hours / day (well, per night truthfully) of Eve Online during high school to logging in every few months when I began college. The new environment of college made me too busy with "IRL" stuff. I wouldn't say that social media is inherently bad because it can be addicting, because games aren't seen as inherently bad because they can be addicting.
    - mdocherty 6y ago
      Leaving my xbox behind at my parents house when I went to college was one of the best things I ever did for myself.
    - codecalec 6y ago
      Sadly during COVID times, Youtube and gaming have absorbed and taken the place of my "IRL" stuff. Hopefully, it will be easy to switch back to being back in the real world socially.
ktzar 6y ago
I wrote a novel that takes place in the near future (2035) and the main character is a 18 year old. I predict that using phones will be banned until you come off age and their technology interaction is restricted to smart watches. Social media is damaging to adults, I wonder why nobody has put a limit by law to younger people.
- herewegoagain2 6y ago
  I think China introduced a law recently, limiting usage to a certain amount time.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
Heck. It damages adult brains. I have learned to avoid Facebook, and barely ever look at Twitter. It has resulted in a drastic improvement in my general mood.
tqi 6y ago
It is interesting to me the way these research results are spun. A previous study[1] that paid users to quit Facebook found that they were happier, and were less up to date about news and politics. The headlines were all some variation of "quitting facebook will make you happier", as opposed to "keeping up to date on news / politics makes you unhappy". Similarly, the headline here says "Social media damages teenagers' mental health, report says" while the body of the article notes: “Those who feel worse may turn to social media for solace or community,” Dr Amy Orben, research fellow at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, said of the research. “It’s not a vacuum, it works both ways." [1] https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/quitting-facebook-research-happiness-stanford-nyu-allcott-braghieri-eichmeyer-gentzkow.html https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/quitting-facebook-research-...
pedro1976 6y ago
Social media should be forbidden until the age of 18. Just consider beeing mobbed, you will be exposed 24/7.
anarchogeek 6y ago
just look at how it's been damaging to queer teens... oh wait... not they aren't killing themselves like before... neverind.
JSavageOne 6y ago
It's sad the extent to which these problems exacerbated by COVID restrictions are neglected. It would almost seem like the boomers are sacrificing the youth for their own benefit since the virus is only statistically deadly to older people.
cortexio 6y ago
It's not "social media", it's just "media". I dont expect the media to tell they are the problem, they are hypocrites anyway.
ajarmst 6y ago
Based on a single cohort study (all subjects born within a year or so of each other), UK only. Primary evaluation is questionnaire. No focused investigation or hypothesis testing. Correlational study only, no control group. no peer review. At best, this study supports only two conclusions: (1) 20 year-old Britons who report higher use of social media also have a tendency to answer leading questions in a way that could be interpreted as reflecting somewhat higher levels of anxiety and depression: and (2) Prince's Trust-funded research is a good gig if you can get it.

774 points by alexrustic 6y ago

I think we all need to keep in mind that social media can also be a refuge for those struggling mentally. Correlation can not imply causation.

henearkr 6y ago

The damage probably extends to all age categories, too.

username90 6y ago

Doesn't it damage everyone's mental health?

twiss 6y ago

Loneliness damages peoples' mental health, too. Is there some chance that, for mental health, the ordering goes "in-person interaction > social media interaction > no interaction at all"? Then of course if you compare social media interaction with in-person interaction you may conclude that social media = bad, but the causality may (in part) be the other way around, as the article says: > “Those who feel worse may turn to social media for solace or community,” Dr Amy Orben, research fellow at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, said of the research.

watwut 6y ago
> Loneliness damages peoples' mental health, too. Is there some chance that, for mental health, the ordering goes "in-person interaction > social media interaction > no interaction at all"? In my experience, yes. When I was real life social isolated, stopping the online interactions was destructive each time I tried. (I tried couple of time till I realized that yes, it does count as interaction that I need.)
croes 6y ago
You can't order it by the type of interaction. "I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone." What makes social media so bad is that hundreds, thousands and more from all over the world can attack you. In-person thats seldom the case. On the other hand, you can more easily ignore online comments than real life comments.
- bjt2n3904 6y ago
  Where did that quote come from? Excellent point. Someone once commented on how we can't go for a drive in the car without having some music on to distract us from thinking. I wonder if we don't want to be alone with our thoughts.
  - croes 6y ago
    The quote is often attributed to Robin Williams but it's from his role as Lance in the 2009 film “World’s Greatest Dad” written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait.
- NalNezumi 6y ago
  >ou can more easily ignore online comments than real life comments. Not always the case I don't think(your over all point still stands though). An anectodtal example, I've been thrown some racial & very insensitive slurs at sports bar/convenience store late night, but seeing the person/the state the person throwing the slur is in (intoxicated) can make it way easier to just brush it off. Being thrown an insult in say, StackOverflow by someone that have provable trackrecord of excellence can be quite more demoralizing. The absence/existence of additional information about the person throwing the slur can make the whole difference, and that can exist/not exist on both internet and real life.
- paganel 6y ago
  > On the other hand, you can more easily ignore online comments than real life comments. Not sure if I'm the only doing that but in many, many cases I just ignore the reddit red envelope (I open it in new tab and close that tab instantly with Cmd+W), I choose to which comments of mine to answer directly (if the case) by going straight to them, so to speak, and see if there's anything in there. Granted, I'm not strong enough to do that all the time, but it helps, nonetheless.

sillyquiet 6y ago

Social media as it exists currently is like being surrounded 24/7 by nattering, gossiping, scatterbrains playing an eternal game of brinksmanship and striving at one-upping each other. So yeah, I can intuitively believe this study.

a_wild_dandan 6y ago
It jives with my perspective too, but I can't help also feeling like that's an "old man yells at cloud" viewpoint. The way kids use social media today is fundamentally different to my experience. Like the way my parents viewed IRC usage as an outlet for kidnapping or whatever. Kids grew up immersed in social media, and probably use it for rich and important social interactions that are alien to me. I view social media as a largely performative, toxic space and I've quit most of it. But newer generations might see a lot of value that I don't. (And that's not helped by constantly seeing articles about cyberbullying, depressive correlation articles like OP, etc.)
- Verdex 6y ago
  This is really off topic, but I just wanted to highlight how important the simpsons are to communication. Like, "old man yells at cloud" causes me to almost immediately understand your point (at least I feel I understand your point). The rest of your comment is almost unnecessary (although it is appreciated because it helps confirm that I am getting you). Personally, the experience is a bit incredible.
  - Bakary 6y ago
    Before the Simpsons this was just "get off my lawn", possibly inspired by some other piece of media long forgotten
    - lovecg 6y ago
      Apparently made popular by David Letterman in the eighties so not much older than the Simpsons. It makes sense for it to not be very old, as most people didn’t own lawns until mid twentieth century or so. The lawn as a concept has a fascinating history on its own. It’s a remnant of aristocratic signaling “look how much land I have that I can afford to put aside some of it over here for no reason”.

INTPenis 6y ago

Don't mean to sound deep and profound here but I think life in general damages your mental health. Social media just brings it to you in a superficial format. But I do also believe those little notifications can be addictive.

wackro 6y ago
That's very cynical. It's possible to enjoy life more and more as time goes on. Read Triumphs of Experience. My dad is one of those lucky people. Besides, even if life itself /is/ damaging in general, that doesn't explain the teen suicide rate etc, or any of the findings from this report specifically pertaining to teens.
- Bakary 6y ago
  It's more a case of happy people and unhappy people being largely unable to understand each other and then turning their general outlook into a theory of the world. Even a single person can have trouble remembering their own happiness when they sink into depression and their past pain when they are breathing life into their lungs.
samsquire 6y ago
Modern life is indeed terrible. Being depressed sucks. I think there is a missing institution that should exist to protect people from market effects. The raw edge of the market is driving a wedge into people's lives. People need to be protected but they're just a few decisions away from loss. Society doesn't do enough for the losers of the world, it's a winner take all system.
- wackro 6y ago
  I don't think markets and mental health are quite as intimately related. I think it's more to do with living in an individualistic society where we have less of a social net to fall back on. And I mean 'social' as in a close-knit community, nothing political.

ChrisRR 6y ago

Social media damages everyone's mental health it seems. For some reason it seems to bring out the worst in so many people, and people think it's now acceptable to post online the awful thoughts that they would've kept to themselves

daenz 6y ago
The communities are too big. We're not meant to socialize frequently with people with whom there are rarely repercussions for how we treat them.
- toshk 6y ago
  I think part of the reason it's so stressful for teenagers is that there actual repercussions for their group position.
- Verdex 6y ago
  This seems reasonable to me. Like, if you only have to get along with 120 people, it seems like a problem that an arbitrary person has a pretty good chance of solving. Then everyone else can be the "other". However, I wonder if the simplest strategy that works when you have to get along with everyone is that you have to become an noisy asshole that overreacts to real "enemies" over imagined slights.
- offtop5 6y ago
  I've noticed this living in bigger cities as well, it was bad enough in one certain place I just left. Kind of estranged my family to do it, but as soon as I was in my new city I had a great girlfriend, and my cost of living was much lower, I was much happier. The old journey kind of took me on a personal discovery. You shouldn't worry about other people criticizing your choices because they aren't going to really affect them, and even if they are they're adults they can sort something else out. In this new city I would notice even though technically the population was large, the communities were very tight-knit. If you're rude to the local bartender her dad might have a word with you. Contrast it to the internet, I spoke to a girl who had to stop using dating apps because guys would just lead with calling her nasty and fat. In real life if you do that there can be immediate consequences to that behavior. Imagine if you will you were at a bar, and the Packers are playing the raiders or something, if you start yelling at random people that raiders fans are disgusting and horrible you can expect to be removed, and banned from returning to that bar. ( Or they might agree with you and buy you a beer who knows). On twitter, Reddit Facebook whatever that doesn't really exist. You can say ridiculously nasty mean things to everyone and nothing's going to happen to you. I had to stop using social media because I would become distraught over some of the stuff I read, almost all the bigotry I experienced was entirely online. Everyone has a right to spend their time in their energy the way they choose, but since I don't want to be called slurs I don't use social media. I've posted here a ton but back in 2019 I went completely offline and I had amazing partners, made tons of friends, traveled. I even increased my income by no small amount, I used that time I was spending making the Zuckerbergs of the world rich into improving myself. but if I've learned one thing in my life, it's that self-improvement is very hard, I'm the only person who can put down the second donut. it's a lot easier to go on Reddit and then complain about how societies out to get you, are to go on Twitter and just spread your own, really just self-hatred to other people hoping to dissipate it. Yet you can't, spreading hate doesn't take it out of you, if anything you're just going to get more hate back and then it builds up like a fuel. Most angry online folks, if you took away their social media and slowly reintroduced them to community, maybe a nice bowling league or something, within a year they'd be so much happier.

lailalessdad 6y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5OL8eIxtCo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5OL8eIxtCo

thick 6y ago

"Social Media" seems to be a scapegoat for the underlying causes: children are in particular affected by this because they haven't had years/decades to build up mental disorders yet where they justify it to themselves that it's "okay", and the unfairness in the world through the lens of social media, taking the emotional toll head on. Children are very sensitive to their status in society, but we forget this because we grew out of that. Those of us on the successful side of things anyway. Social Media isn't the boogeyman. It's that no matter how hard you try, your life will never be as good as what is usually portrayed through these channels. You are swarmed with people who lead far better lives than you do, have way more fun than you do, and so on and so forth. Your only escapism at home, in a pandemic, is to go on the internet where you're spammed with these successful people (posers or not, doesn't matter) selling you things by showing off what they have. So no, it's not social media that damages teenagers mental health. It's worse than that. Ignorance is bliss? There's an argument to be made for that. It starts before they even hit teens. That YouTube channel of the kid unpacking toys and other things is the kind of early stage precursor to things to come. The kids watching this viscerally live through him for some years, until it dawns on them that hey, wait a minute, he has all those toys and I don't have anything. It's no wonder exercise makes things better - it's a great distraction from the illnesses of the world. Assuming that children are somehow not aware of it, or are not susceptible to it, is being naive at best.

watwut 6y ago
> Children are very sensitive to their status in society, but we forget this because we grew out of that. Those of us on the successful side of things anyway. We don't outgrow that. Adults are very status conscious too.
jancsika 6y ago
Somehow in your contrarian riff you end up agreeing with the research, at least in part. If social media does indeed lead to less exercise as research suggests-- which, as you explicitly agree would make things worse-- it is a boogeyman.
josho 6y ago
Social media is engineered to be addictive and creates media bubbles that prey on kids insecurities. Social media takes every challenge that kids face and amplifies it. My anecdotal experience is two daughters whose normal teenage challenges have been made worse through social media. Social media could have been a utopian technology bubbling up unique experiences to cultivate hobbies and interests in the young. Instead the algorithms cater to our base instincts and is amplifying the risk of turning the next generation into mindless addicts.

himinlomax 6y ago

Does it damage it more than TV? is the question I always ask when I read that kind of headlines.

tgv 6y ago
From my personal experience: yes. TV is less addictive, and its contents are better controlled.

samrmay 6y ago

The article mentions a myriad of factors that correlate with mental health issues going into adolescence. It’s interesting that the headline targets social media, as the body of the article doesn’t seem to highlight it as an especially strong correlation. As a side note, the differing trends of boys and girls after adolescence is really interesting. > However, it recognised that girls' self-esteem and wellbeing stabilises as they move into their late teens, whereas it continues to drop for boys Will have to read the source material to see if they propose any causes for that

learnstats2 6y ago
The article also quotes the researcher explicitly denying the BBC’s headline suggesting causation. I downvoted all the popular comments here which were ready to agree with the causation despite the research making no comment on that at all: the complete lack of critical thinking is why this gets to be the chosen headline. Pure clickbait.
- samrmay 6y ago
  "Social media bad" is much more palpable than grappling with the fact that mental illness is a complicated problem with many contributing factors. Very frustrating because the researchers suggest increasing mental health resources and exercise, whereas the headline suggests social media as the much easier scapegoat.

OneGuy123 6y ago

Lets not pretend that the current news media is any different. There is no objective fact reporting, only fear mongering.

tgv 6y ago
What motivates you to reply that, when you know it isn't true? There's been news media for more than a century now, and it is not known to cause addiction and depression in teenagers.
- OneGuy123 6y ago
  "When you know it isn't true". Really? Teenagers are addicted to social media and adults get addicted to news media. Both are based on fear mongering and the fear of missing out. Do you not see that underneath the problem is the same?
jansan 6y ago
The "news" aspect is probably the most harmless part about social media.

bjt2n3904 6y ago

There are entire subreddits dedicated to mocking this point, like /r/PhonesAreBad, and /r/InsaneParents. I doubt half the screenshots they post of text message conversations are even real -- but the point gets across. Phones are the most wonderful thing that keep us connected to each other, and only crude luddites living in the dark ages who don't understand the benefit they provide would take them away from a kid down spiraling into depression. It's almost like there's this gravitational well of depressed anxious people, and they don't want anyone to escape.

tgv 6y ago
It's an addiction. People leaving the circle are directly taking away the addict's stimulus.
- superkuh 6y ago
  Please don't use words that have a real medical meaning in such an inaccurate and casual way. Calling things addictive has real consequences in terms of legislators taking these confused public sentiments as fact and then trying to use force against the groups that are "addicted". Addiction has never been proven in this context. Addiction is a a real, serious problem with drugs that effect the brains reward system (opioids) or prediction of reward (amphetamines). It is not a real problem associated with using online forums using a computer.
  - tgv 6y ago
    If it was just opioids or ampthetamines, alcohol or nocotine wouldn't be addictive, would it? Please don't use incomplete or irrelevant factoids when you contradict. But prediction of reward might very well be a concise description of the drive behind social media use.
    - superkuh 6y ago
      >If it was just opioids or ampthetamines, Obviously it's not. I gave examples of two drugs and their direct mechanisms of action. >But prediction of reward might very well be a concise description of the drive behind social media use. No, that's a description of a living mammal brain. Addiction is when that system is hijacked directly, not when it is doing it's normal thing in response to stimuli.

samsquire 6y ago

Life is hard enough without social media. You will be harshly judged on social media and treated with contempt.

astura 6y ago
What the fuck kind of social media are you guys talking about? Reddit and 4Chan? I use Facebook, everyone (that's people I know in person) is extremely nice to me on there, never got any contempt at all. We share pictures and funny memes and plan events on there. I used Facebook to reconnect with a childhood friend who I lost touch with and now we talk all the time. My husband did the exact same thing with Myspace a decade before.

bnralt 6y ago

I'm starting to wonder if mass media in general is bad for our mental health, and if we'd be better off unplugging as much as we can from everything - social media, TV, radio, Hacker News, etc. and spending more time with our community. I suppose the problem is, most communities are completely addicted to this stuff, so we're left in a situation where it's hard for most people to unplug for any long period of time without isolating themselves.

mightybyte 6y ago
Until six months ago, I consumed very little mainstream media or social media. I started following the news leading up to the presidential election because it seemed like this one would be more consequential than most. I can definitely say that I've been meaningfully less happy / more anxious / etc as a result. I definitely intend to scale back my news / media consumption to the level it was before in the near future.
mumblemumble 6y ago
This is my experience. I disconnected from social media, and my social life immediately died. Friends only communicate with each other through Facebook, so I'm really only staying in regular contact with my very closest friends anymore. Most of it I don't miss, because social media has also reduced the quality of communication to the level of gossip, but what I do miss out on is any sort of invitations to social gatherings. It also eliminates opportunities to make new friends. It's surprisingly difficult to find a knitting group in my area that doesn't organize using Facebook Groups, for example. It frankly worries me. In the past, we worried about monopolies on things like oil and diamonds. I'm not sure our culture has the tools to cope with a monopoly on participation in society.
- grumple 6y ago
  After leaving facebook a few years ago, I noticed at first that it was difficult to find out about social events. And I felt more disconnected. After a while, though, it just sort of filtered the events down to those I cared more about. My good friends still reach out directly and vice versa. I think it took a while for that to start happening though. I've lost touch with many acquaintances, but if I'm being honest it's probably better that I don't expend energy on those people. I'm certainly not isolated from society, though. I just engage on my own terms.

mikece 6y ago

If you have not seen it, the documentary "The Social Dilemma" (currently only available on Netflix) goes over this in detail, with first-hand accounts from the people who created the "addiction algorithms"... as well as references to research on how self-harm and suicide attempts in teens and pre-teens has skyrocketed since the advent of social media.

kyrra 6y ago
There were parts of that documentary that were good, but it was also way over the top. And funny enough Netflix was never mentioned in it, because it was produced by them (Even though binge watching is a thing). It also felt like it dived into conspiracy theories without a lot of backing. The funniest part for the entire thing is that they spent a lot of time of how do we solve this problem of social media. There was a lot of just weird things brought up in the documentary itself. But the real answer was actually in the interviews in the credit, which is where it just says to get off of social media. It did not feel like we're trying to be honest, rather they wanted to be controversial.

titzer 6y ago

Social media (and the attention economy) are worse for young brains than drugs. If you came up with a substance that caused young people by the millions to become totally addicted, cost them multiple hours per day, pushed them into depression and suicide, and contributed to inactivity, obesity, loss of attention span, and overall ennui, it would be banned almost immediately. Heck, if you proposed a tracking system that kept track of kids' whereabouts, social connections, and required them to post identifying information and photos, as well as gather their interests and political leanings, it'd be illegal. The fact that we allowed companies to do these two things together while making money off it is absolutely astounding to me.

haolez 6y ago
Add to that recent games like FIFA or NBA that have casino-like mechanics with real money.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  Watch out, they'll outlaw Robinhood
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simias 6y ago
I've always been a bit extreme on this but I more than ever believe that it's insane that we consider that leaving teenagers with unsupervised internet access is reasonable. Maybe I'm prude or naive but I remember vividly when I first saw a pornographic movie at like around 17. It really shook me at the time. I wasn't traumatized or anything but it made a strong impact on me. These days I expect that most teens experience this at like 12yo on their smartphones. Last week I was linked a reddit video of some guy dying in absolutely gruesome circumstance due to an industrial accident. And then there's the constant influx of disinformation. Did you know that Hydroxychloroquine cures HIV? I saw a Youtube video claiming just that yesterday. Leaving a kid on the internet is like living them on a shaddy part of town for hours at a time. I'm old enough that I only had internet at home when I turned 18, in hindsight I feel like I dodged a bullet.

jMyles 6y ago

Closed-source algorithms designed to manipulate behavior, sell shit, and make you envy your friends are antisocial media.

jeffbee 6y ago

Now do adults.

josh_carterPDX 6y ago

And in other news, water is wet.

jefftk 6y ago

Here's the paper: https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/EPI-PT_Young-people%E2%80%99s-wellbeing_Jan2021.pdf https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/EPI-PT_Young-p... It's all correlational (observing that people with higher social media use are worse off in various ways). This approach is not capable of detecting reverse causation (people use social media more because they are unhappy) or third causes (something else causes people to both use more social media and also be unhappy)

ohduran 6y ago
that's what I thought when I read the article. > One in three girls was unhappy with their personal appearance by the age of 14, compared with one in seven at the end of primary school. That comparison doesn't support the hypothesis. It should have been compared to teenagers from 10 years ago. Otherwise, you can't rule out the effect of growing up on the mental health if these girls.
- nineplay 6y ago
  I'm surprised its only one in three. In the 80s I would have guessed that at least half of 14 year old girls ( I was one ) were unhappy with their appearance.
  - astura 6y ago
    I was a 14 year old girl in the 90s and I share your surprise its only one in three. I would guess the majority of my peers were unhappy with their appearance at that time based on my experience and observations. I was one too. I (objectively) looked just fine but I thought I was a disfigured ghoul.
    - nineplay 6y ago
      The irony was that my conviction that I looked ghastly only made it worse. I permed my hair and teased my bangs and piled on the makeup and held my breath while I pulled on jeans that were too small for me. If I'd really seen myself when I looked in the mirror I would have been better off. I didn't, I saw someone who was supposed to look like Cindy Crawford and was failing miserably.

coreyrab 6y ago

A family friend explained it in a way that stuck with me, paraphrasing: "When you were in school, you only compared yourself to peers at your school and maybe one school over. Now me and my friends compare our looks, accomplishments, and follower counts to everyone within 10 years of us on Instagram"

itronitron 6y ago

Social media use seems like a subset of 'caring what other people think' which I believe is very damaging to young minds.

jp555 6y ago

doesn't that headline essentially say "teenagers damage teenagers' mental health"? Don't most teenagers spend most of their time socializing with other teenagers? My pre-internet teenage "social networking" was full of traumatic times. Has that not been the case of teenagers forever? I guess this study is reporting an measurable increase above the "normal" amount? That seems like it would be very hard to measure.

MattGaiser 6y ago
Indeed. I always find it strange when people are shocked by bullying in schools or teenagers being jerks to each other. Didn't everyone witness that? Every single person at my high school could tell you who was bullied.
- jp555 6y ago
  At least with us geezers there's no trace of it ... now nothing gets deleted. That's a new stress for sure.
  - vulcan01 6y ago
    I don't think people my age (high school) fully understand > nothing gets deleted Mean people say and do equivalent things on social media as in person. Although, I must say, this lockdown is probably a blessing to those who are consistently bullied at school, as now they're able to at least physically avoid them.
mtippett 6y ago
No they don't. The toxic communities that exist have a mixture of no-clue 11 year olds with minimal parental supervision (or parental supervision that's failing) through to young adults who found a community that can reflect their feelings back. Eg: the proana/edtwt communities are clearly children just working things out to young adults getting followings and interaction with a community. It sickens me to see a post from a 23 yr old spouting how to hide ED from your parents by doing the following... Or using subliminals to change the shape of your nose.

jameslk 6y ago

These studies seem to keep contradicting each other: http://www.nautil.us/blog/studies-shoot-down-techs-harmful-effects-on-kidsso-now-what http://www.nautil.us/blog/studies-shoot-down-techs-harmful-e... > A new study in Nature Human Behaviour, which looked at data from more than 350,000 adolescents, also found that digital tech use mattered little to kids’ well-being. The authors, Amy Orben and Przybylski, argue that prior research, which examined the impact of social media on teens and tweens, was based on weak correlations and insufficiently comprehensive methods, and therefore drew false conclusions.

TaupeRanger 6y ago
Yes, it's just like all high level studies trying to make broad statements about human behavior or any other complex human system, like nutrition or economics. The reason there is so much contradiction is that we can't deal with the complex relationships between variables or the unknown unknowns. The only reason medicine is able to do decent studies is because they can tightly control things in RCTs. Correlational/observational studies are almost never good enough to make strong statements about anything.
TeaDrunk 6y ago
It might make more sense to say that social media usage is just one large aspect of a child- like the presence or lack of presence of supportive adult figures, the presence or lack of presence of food security, good education, physical safety, etc. I'm sure a teenager who runs exclusively in cutting or pro-anorexia social circles online is a much different teenager to one who primarily uses the internet to keep up to date on horse shows.
- mtippett 6y ago
  You got one too eh? tw sh / tw ed?
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    I don't know what this means; I don't have children if that's what you're asking.

AndrewKemendo 6y ago

People should really read the research [1] and not this article as the article doesn't actually capture the scope and real impact of the research. The executive summary highlights: * Personal wellbeing drops, on average, as children move from primary into secondary school, and continues to drop as children move through secondary school. * We find a graded relationship between family income and all three outcomes through adolescence: young people’s mental and emotional health scores are worse the lower down their family is on the income scale *Engaging in physical activity was found to be more important for boys’ mental and emotional health in early adolescence than girls’, with a graded relationship between frequency of exercise and scores on all three outcomes for 14-year-old boys; at age 17, we find a graded relationship with frequency of exercise in both girls and boys. Heavy social media use is associated with worse scores on all outcomes in girls age 14 and 17, but only worse well being for boys at age 14. Etc... [1]https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/EPI-PT_Young-people%E2%80%99s-wellbeing_Jan2021.pdf https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/EPI-PT_Young-p...

vulcan01 6y ago
As a high school guy, I have to wonder if > Engaging in physical activity was found to be more important for boys’ mental and emotional health is because (personal anecdata warning!) guys tend to prefer friends who are physically fit. This is just something I've noticed by observing my school; the stronger guys tend to have a larger social circle. However, this causation could be flawed, maybe physically active people have better emotional health and that's why people are attracted (friendship-wise) to them.
- mlac 6y ago
  Your guess makes some sense, but I'd say it could also be that people who work out more often are typically involved in organized sports and have to work out x number of times per week. Organized sports often have a built in social circle.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  I wonder if it isn't a proxy for something else and we're measuring the wrong thing.

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bluetomcat 6y ago

It's not "social" and it's not "media". I see those as online platforms which encourage you to build a curated, time-trackable version of your identity, where hyper-expression and outward individualism is the tool. Eventually, what happens is a clash of values between these shallow identities, which is as social as military conflict can be.

grumple 6y ago

It damages my mental health and I'm an adult. I watch it damage everyone I know as well.

duxup 6y ago

I'm trying to teach my 10 year old son. He's not on social media, but does play games online with others. I'm working really hard to enforce a sort of "If it isn't positive, you don't feel good about it... time to not do it for a while / find another game / people to play with." I'm trying to teach him to evaluate and shape his own experiences online and make choices based on that.

Minor49er 6y ago
Do you use any sort of parental control software/hardware to keep him off of social media? Or is it just a rule?
- duxup 6y ago
  Anything with an internet connection requires some level of supervision. There's no free access to internet connected devices at this point, have to ask, use in spaces where we monitor, etc.

FpUser 6y ago

The world is fucked up in numerous ways. Modern means of communications including social media suddenly make all those depressing facts visible. I think we are confusing symptoms with the cause here.

mrfusion 6y ago

Wait till you see what it does to adults! (Sorry for the short comment but I’m trying out saying a lot with a little)

nineplay 6y ago

If they are specific about what "social media" they are talking about, I didn't see it. I feel like without naming names, the report and conclusion are frustratingly vague. All social media is not the same. YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and reddit are very different platforms with, I'm guessing, very different effects on teenage ( and adult ) psyches.

waynesonfire 6y ago

Is this similar to the damage done by video games? I suspect this is full of shit.

mrfusion 6y ago

I’m immune to most social media but for me the saddest thing is losing respect for 70% of the people I know. Just seeing the ignorance they post and comments they make.

hannob 6y ago

Response from a person with actual expertise in the topic: https://twitter.com/OrbenAmy/status/1354397497750335488 https://twitter.com/OrbenAmy/status/1354397497750335488 (tl;dr it's science by press release, has various methodological weaknesses and does not account for a likely bidirectional relationship of causation, i.e. a classic correlation/causation confusion)

jl2718 6y ago

Imagine you are the chairman of Phillip Morris in 1995. You control one of the biggest companies in the world, absolutely full of cash. You also know that your product is just bad all around for everybody whether they use it or not. One of your corporate lawyers tells you that you need to immediately break yourself up, sell off all the components to foreign buyers, cease all operations in the United States, and cash out the company to the shareholders. You pass; this will be no big deal. The next three years are living hell, morning to night sitting in a courthouse listening to your customers detail how you destroyed their lives. At the end you get a $200B settlement against you, your company is dead, everybody hates you, and you are no longer welcome in any of your social circles. Was it worth it? If a company is required to do the best thing for the shareholders, then shouldn’t it require them to cash out at the zenith of their value? Otherwise if they are going to ride all the way down, how is the stock ever worth anything?

throwaway894345 6y ago
Phillip Morris didn't operate a sophisticated propaganda machine capable of steering national opinion in its own favor and indeed directing the course of democracy (if we are to believe that foreign actors can side-channel attack Twitter's algos to influence elections, then it naturally follows that Twitter can influence elections with direct control over its algorithms). I don't mean this in a contrarian sense (I agree with you), moreso just venting my pessimism that things will change.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  > Phillip Morris didn't operate a sophisticated propaganda machine... What? Yes, it did, that's literally what it did do.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    I wasn't using "machine" in the figurative sense of an advertising department, I meant "a literal machine", like Twitter's algorithms. I can't imagine Phillip Morris in its heyday having 1% of the influence that Twitter enjoys today.

chadlavi 6y ago

Not a teen, but it's certainly damaged mine plenty. Granted, this is n=1 and I'm writing this ON a social media platform, of sorts.

elric 6y ago

An anecdote, at the risk of sounding old: Back when I was a kid, if we had internet access at all, we mostly used it for the community aspect. A fan of some book? Search for it on Altavista and you likely found some kind of fan site which had a little bulletin board community organized around it. Or maybe a usenet group. A few minutes down the road you were talking to strangers on the other side of the planet about something you were all actively interested in. Hell, even radio stations had their own chat rooms and forums. Many free software tools had dedicated IRC channels. Mailing lists and usenet groups abound. These communities were all interest based, and there were sooooo many of them. Because they were interest based, they mostly attracted people who at least had something in common with you, which made it easy to relate to them. And because people are not onedimensional, they were often part of many different communities. Which, aside from being fun, was also a great way to learn how to interact with people all over the world. Sure, flame wars were a thing, and I'm sure people were bullied and whatnot. Community moderation worked pretty well, though (as someone who administered a 10k+ members forum) it could be a lot of work. But no one ever damaged their mental health by frequenting a knitting forum. Facebook pretty much destroyed all of these (or at least decimated them). Perhaps these groups are still around, but it's now actively hard to find them. FB does not foster a sense of community. It's not a platform where you will learn anything about any topic. It's not an environment that's conducive to improving personal interactions. It attempted to centralize those things, and it failed. Instead of paying attention to things that interest us, we now have FB and its ilk begging us to please pay attention to their garbage. I miss actual communities, warts and all, and I think that young people's mental health would be better off if they made a return. Final note: yes, there are exceptions, I know it's not all quite as bad as I'm dramatizing here.

__turbobrew__ 6y ago
> I miss actual communities I have found that Discord has become the closest contemporary thing to the old communities you talk about. Many niche interests now have small Discord servers with like minded people, and if you hang around long enough you will become integrated with one of these niche communities. I have been a part of several Discord servers for 5 years and I feel like they truly are communities: there is a deep history of the active members; people who met on Discord have visited each other in real life; members have gotten married; members have shared in grief as other members committed suicide; over time people have come and gone, but they have always had the Discord community to come back to when a relationship falls through, or they just need companionship in a tough time.

pmlnr 6y ago

Is anyone even questioning this any more in 2021?

OmniiTyler 6y ago

It is heartsickening that this is the result of current social media implementation. As others have mentioned, it is largely caused by this attention economy (as I've heard Tristan Harris of https://www.humanetech.com/ https://www.humanetech.com/ call it) - where the apps most used today are made to be addictive and consume our attention as much as possible. I have been working on a more intimate, less addictive, social media and messaging application that I hope can be part of a trend of new apps that help solve this problem. I believe one of the features in current apps that makes them so addictive, for teens especially, is the endless stream of content they have access to - they can view hours and hours of videos from celebrities they don't personally know, content creators they have never met, brands, etc. If we can scale back the endless stream of content (which leads to doom-scrolling), that might be one approach to helping limit screen time without sacrificing the meaningful connection to friends and family that social media enables.

bserge 6y ago
I'd be interested to see what you're working on. How would you reduce the amount of content? Would people still be able to find it by search? Or is this more of a Facebook/Whatsapp without the extra bs? I've been trying to block social media and have finally managed to do it (DoH was a pain in the ass to block). Although I can still access websites on mobile, working on that. I quit Imgur after years and I don't understand why I was even going there. Now everything looks dumb and uninteresting. Truly like a drug addiction.

antattack 6y ago

Manufacturers add fat or sugar to their product to make them more palatable or attractive. Flashy packaging or celebrity endorsement also helps. Social media is similar in many ways. Games, daily challenges, rewards, sense of belonging etc. In both instances you have to recognize what is beneficial to you and at what point is a waste of time or unhealthy. It's hard to do it for adults and it's hard or impossible to do for children and teenagers. Also, as with everything, everyone's experience will be different. In food example, some people can manage their calories better than other. Some are easily addicted or depressed. It's the same with social media or internet content in general.

Ericson2314 6y ago

Well there is the attention economy, and then there is also social media which facilitates comparison to your actual peers not mere aspirational influencer types. No doubt both are bad more mental health, but I wonder what the breakdown is. For example, maybe less Instagram more TikTok might actually be marginally good for people's mental health.

blitz_skull 6y ago

In other news, the sky is blue.

hiimtroymclure 6y ago

I left all social media just after xmas after I couldn't take the constant flood of politics. I miss the memes but overall i've loved my decision. Ill never go back

hollerith 6y ago
"Constant flood of politics" also describes HN between late Dec and now IME. Have you considered leaving HN over it? (I have.)
- hiimtroymclure 6y ago
  I have not. I get a lot of value out of HN as it relates to my interests. I really don't get any value over what someone I went to college with who I no longer speak to anymore is doing with their lives. But I understand your frustrations. Its hard to find any place that escapes it all

dfmooreqqq 6y ago

I wish there was more on the different types/uses of social media. Twitter != Facebook != Goodreads != HN and so on. Even within different social media there is varying uses - using FB groups to find affinity groups like Woodworkers or a shared hobby and more is very different than just doom scrolling the news feed. I didn't get through to the actual report (just the linked article), so maybe there is more there.

f430 6y ago

What I found shocking about the latest trend in video consumption on social media is that they are 10 seconds long or less. This is only one of the many ways to keep a person locked to the screen (ex. youtube) It's not hard to imagine what this sort of exposure does to a young person's brain and attention span. You are essentially creating addicts and social media users all show withdrawl symptoms of any prolonged psychotropic drug use: - irritability - depression - physical restlessness - overwhelming need for redose - tolerance build up Something has to be done. We cannot rely on the generosity or moral guidelines of the companies that produce these apps well aware of the link between serotonin and screen time. I'm all for small government but this is a matter of public health. We needed regulation, and we need regulation, and will need regulation.

onenightnine 6y ago

they said the same about video games, violent movies and music

oblio 6y ago
And guess what, all those are now regulated (to an increasing degree).

akulbe 6y ago

I'm not a doctor/scientist… but I feel like it's easily just as bad for mature adults. The constant stream of news and social media… it doesn't have a calming effect. People, in general, seem more angry too.

deleted 6y ago

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turing_complete 6y ago

We should make it a beat practice to link to the primary source directly instead of news sites.

mtippett 6y ago

It cuts both ways. One child (reserved/shy) - has had probably more negative impact than anything else in her life. From the very first access to tech has continually found opportunity to find toxic, negative communities (hentai, r/teenagers, edtwt, sh, bdsm). Any attempt to reduce results in hiding and lying. The speed that a kid can change window or swipe away is ridiculous. Literally can't find a way that tech has benefitted her. Another child (shy too), enamored with anything that teaches her more (tik tok, youtube, etc). The big difference is that the second child isn't looking for community. The first child is looking for community but can only find community in echo chambers that reflect back teenage angst, and those echo chambers run deep. I can only hope that the first child grows into an well adjusted adult, and while not social media, toxic and negative online communities are just simply too easier to slide into.

bengale 6y ago

It seems to damage most people's mental health. It's crazy the sort of radicalisation going on with older people.

eli 6y ago

It's remarkable how similar this is to the previous panic over children watching television. And before that, reading comic books. And before that listening to the radio...

known 6y ago

Antidote https://archive.is/QaeAg https://archive.is/QaeAg

12xo 6y ago

Social media is just like fast food. Its cheap, tasty, filling and easy. Eat it too often and you'll grow fat, get sick and cause irreparable bodily harm.

DevKoala 6y ago

I deleted all my social media accounts years ago because social media made me anxious. I can’t imagine the pain kids must be since they feel forced to participate in order to “socially” exist.

Sindrome 6y ago

No shit?

SunlightEdge 6y ago

I think a problem with teenagers and social media is that they are often not mature enough to handle toxic elements on social media such as: 1. Trolling 2. Heated political discussions 3. Stalkers 4. Obsession with likes and doing negative behaviours to get likes 5. In general not knowing how to handle people Social media should probably be banned for under 18

kodah 6y ago

For all the folks talking about pro's and con's of social media companies, the government (and investing world) are working on a solution to make these kinds of findings empirical. It's called Economic, Social, and Governance metrics (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/environmental-social-and-governance-esg-criteria.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/environmental-social-an...) Biden is already poised to encourage the DOL to adopt these more directly: https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2021/1/27/biden-may-have-to-move-quickly-to-reverse-anti-esg/ https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2021/1/27/biden-may-have-t...

grillvogel 6y ago

i unironically believe social media should be banned and is responsible for most of the negative aspects of society in the past 10 years

OOPMan 6y ago

Not just teenagers...

LatteLazy 6y ago

This may be the most disjointed think I've ever read. A depressing number of people here don't seem to have read it. But then neither it seems has the person who wrote it and added the headline.

jayant123 6y ago

Here's an excerpt from the article - Heavy social media use was linked to negative wellbeing and self-esteem, regardless of a young person's mental state, with more girls experiencing feelings of depression and hopelessness. “Those who feel worse may turn to social media for solace or community,” Dr Amy Orben, research fellow at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, said of the research. “It’s not a vacuum, it works both ways." Contrast that with the title of this post, which tries to establish a clear causal link from social media use to poor mental health.

mraza007 6y ago

I hundred percent agree with this report as social is basically a modern day drug. It has played so well with our brain mechanism and made us addicted to it. If you want to leave social especially as a teenager you have you try really hard as you fall into something called fomo(fearing of missing out)

deleted 6y ago

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xmlblog 6y ago

Only teenagers?

908087 6y ago

It also damages adults' mental health, and a large portion of my friends, family members and acquaintances are living proof of that. The past year in particular has severely damaged not only their mental health, but their grasp on reality itself. I don't really know where we go from here, but the path we're on isn't sustainable.

confidantlake 6y ago

I think it is the same for adults and I think news sites are also up there with social media. Just a constant barrage of NEGATIVE THING HAPPENED!!! that you have no control of and can't do anything about.

jjice 6y ago

I was addicted to Twitter in high school. I spent hours on it at night, getting no sleep. I spent so much time and mental bandwidth thinking of funny things to say or memes to make to get more likes. I was addicted to the likes and keeping up with everyone I knew. First semester of college, I stopped using Twitter. My sleep got better, I had more free time, and I was noticeably happier and freer. I no longer spent time in that dopamine cycle. I've been weening off of Reddit and HN the past few months as well. YouTube is my next beast to conquer, and that might be the biggest one for me right now. I'm trying to adapt to longer form content again, instead of only watching videos under a minute or reading 280 character tweets. I want to have an attention span again, I really do. Is social media an inherently evil thing? I don't think so, but I don't think I should use it. I also think that it can be toxic for teenagers in general. There are a variety of reasons, but the one that applied to me was the dopamine cycle caused by "likes".

causalmodels 6y ago
This comes shockingly close to my experience growing up playing WoW.
- JCharante 6y ago
  I went from playing 8 hours / day (well, per night truthfully) of Eve Online during high school to logging in every few months when I began college. The new environment of college made me too busy with "IRL" stuff. I wouldn't say that social media is inherently bad because it can be addicting, because games aren't seen as inherently bad because they can be addicting.
  - mdocherty 6y ago
    Leaving my xbox behind at my parents house when I went to college was one of the best things I ever did for myself.
  - codecalec 6y ago
    Sadly during COVID times, Youtube and gaming have absorbed and taken the place of my "IRL" stuff. Hopefully, it will be easy to switch back to being back in the real world socially.

ktzar 6y ago

I wrote a novel that takes place in the near future (2035) and the main character is a 18 year old. I predict that using phones will be banned until you come off age and their technology interaction is restricted to smart watches. Social media is damaging to adults, I wonder why nobody has put a limit by law to younger people.

herewegoagain2 6y ago
I think China introduced a law recently, limiting usage to a certain amount time.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

Heck. It damages adult brains. I have learned to avoid Facebook, and barely ever look at Twitter. It has resulted in a drastic improvement in my general mood.

tqi 6y ago

It is interesting to me the way these research results are spun. A previous study[1] that paid users to quit Facebook found that they were happier, and were less up to date about news and politics. The headlines were all some variation of "quitting facebook will make you happier", as opposed to "keeping up to date on news / politics makes you unhappy". Similarly, the headline here says "Social media damages teenagers' mental health, report says" while the body of the article notes: “Those who feel worse may turn to social media for solace or community,” Dr Amy Orben, research fellow at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, said of the research. “It’s not a vacuum, it works both ways." [1] https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/quitting-facebook-research-happiness-stanford-nyu-allcott-braghieri-eichmeyer-gentzkow.html https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/quitting-facebook-research-...

pedro1976 6y ago

Social media should be forbidden until the age of 18. Just consider beeing mobbed, you will be exposed 24/7.

anarchogeek 6y ago

just look at how it's been damaging to queer teens... oh wait... not they aren't killing themselves like before... neverind.

JSavageOne 6y ago

It's sad the extent to which these problems exacerbated by COVID restrictions are neglected. It would almost seem like the boomers are sacrificing the youth for their own benefit since the virus is only statistically deadly to older people.

cortexio 6y ago

It's not "social media", it's just "media". I dont expect the media to tell they are the problem, they are hypocrites anyway.

ajarmst 6y ago

Based on a single cohort study (all subjects born within a year or so of each other), UK only. Primary evaluation is questionnaire. No focused investigation or hypothesis testing. Correlational study only, no control group. no peer review. At best, this study supports only two conclusions: (1) 20 year-old Britons who report higher use of social media also have a tendency to answer leading questions in a way that could be interpreted as reflecting somewhat higher levels of anxiety and depression: and (2) Prince's Trust-funded research is a good gig if you can get it.