5 ms·

The rising teen suicide proves everyone’s favorite social critique. Declining church attendance. Declining corporeal punishment. The academic rat race. Climate

The rising teen suicide proves everyone’s favorite social critique. Declining church attendance. Declining corporeal punishment. The academic rat race. Climate change. Whatever I don’t like about the world is why the kids are killing themselves. Having had friends struggle with this when I was a teenager, I find it incredibly disrespectful and in poor taste to leverage their suffering in this lazy and offhand way as an argument for your political opinions.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
What is my lazy, poor taste or political opinion? You are attacking my post with no evidence or counter points, a emotional response that isn't based on anything other than hearsay, the first section is a strawman, and the second is how your sample bias should dismiss any other experiences. Is it not hypocritical to dismiss the effect of social media on suicide, such as by cyber bullying? My experience with social media has been negative, and I have lost friend due to suicide and depression, which is why I am pointing it out. Are you suggesting that it has no effect on mental heath or is proven to be beneficial? I would love to be proven wrong if you have information on it. https://www.newswise.com/articles/10-year-study-shows-elevated-suicide-risk-from-excess-social-media-time-for-teen-girls https://www.newswise.com/articles/10-year-study-shows-elevat... >Through annual surveys from 2009 to 2019, researchers tracked the media use patterns and mental health of 500 teens as part of the Flourishing Families Project. They found that while social media use had little effect on boys' suicidality risk, for girls there was a tipping point. Girls who used social media for at least two to three hours per day at the beginning of the study--when they were about 13 years old--and then greatly increased their use over time were at a higher clinical risk for suicide as emerging adults. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_suicide
- kapp_in_life 5y ago
  And plenty of people's experiences with social media have been positive. Think of the LGBT teen in a small town in the midwest who can find a social group to discuss their. Hobby groups, pick up sports groups, etc. Teens who were already finding 2-3 hours "and then greatly increased their use" a day for doomscrolling between school and homework probably would feel the same if they spent it watching TV.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    Can you prove these statements with any data? There are of course benefits to online networking, but the US population of LGBT is 5.6% (of all ages) with most concentrated in urban areas so you are pointing out a small age bracket of a specific type of social engagement in a small population as a counter with the assumption it is beneficial, and the hobbies you describe are not social media engagement, they are online meetings that go offline, which is not the usual trajectory of users online. These sound like extreme outliers unless you'd like to prove me wrong.
    - Karawebnetwork 5y ago
      I moderate four LGBTQIA+ communities and support spaces on Facebook, totaling over 395k members. I cover both my local scene and international communities. Without the online spaces, most members wouldn't have friends. The bulk of the work is managing the news feeds and the main task is to approve posts individually. So we see them all. Many would otherwise be totally isolated. Teens in rural America are among the most affected by this isolation. Many users create threads describing their lack of support in their physical lives or thanking the online spaces for existing, stating that prior to their presence on the group, they had no support network. While the population of LGBTQIA+ people is concentrated in urban areas, they are primarily adults who have the freedom to move around. Teens are stuck in their hometowns and can only move around after they reach adulthood and connect or build support networks online. As you said, the US population is around 5.6% but even states like Alabama still have 3.0%. This demographic is especially relevant in this topic as its suicide rates are higher that the country's average, with trans people (without support) having rates that go as high as 40 to 50%. Online spaces provide enough support to reduce that number significantly. There is a meme that goes something like: "Why are you on Facebook? It's for older people. - It's because your friends aren't queer." The LGBTQIA+ internet is similar to what the internet was in the 90s. Close-knit communities where everyone knows each other, sub-communities, sub-cultures, and lots of blogs and personal sites. I would even go so far as to say that comparing the average social network usage to LGBTQIA+ social network usage is the equivalent of comparing apples and oranges.
- closeparen 5y ago
  Social media is one of dozens of social changes in the last N years. You can line any one of them up next to any bad outcome. This is not generally being done from a place of epistemic humility or interest in establishing causation. It’s just “thing I already don’t like lines up with bad outcome, see how right I am not to like it!” If that’s not what you’re doing, I don’t mean it as an attack on you. I just think we’re systematically abusing miserable kids as confirmation of our priors (about all kinds of things, social media is just one). We owe them curiosity about how to actually help.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    Thank you for the clarification. It is a multi dimensional problem, and I have found very negative effects from social media for myself and people around me. I do not think that social media is overall good for mental health, it has been shown to be harmful in statistics especially for women and also there is no shortage of n=1 articles on benefits of quitting it. I think it is a serious issue when the teenage suicide rates are higher in the US (pre corona) when it is a wealthy country. If you can clarify, what is the problem you have with my post? I am posting it not only from personal experience but also with data to substantiate my claims.
  - tomlin 5y ago
    A lot of data counters what you're trying to put out here. I wish it weren't true, but if you would like, I can point you to studies where you can see how teen suicide in girls and the launch of Instagram, then Snapchat, then TikTok - as well, final thoughts and letters by a large amount of these young girls vary from saying that social media WAS the reason for their suicide, to saying that actions made by others (via social media) were a factor in others. I do sincerely think social media is a force for harm for everyone - as it raises division among people at rates that are hard to build responses to. Psychologists also largely agree that the effects of social media are causing a new kind of concern outside of what we've so far dealt with. I do sort of think you might have an agenda here, for at this point you are suggesting that the thoughts and feelings of the girls who committed suicide should hold almost no weight. Maybe you're not saying that outright, but if you haven't looked into the lives of these girls before suggesting their plight is "just another generational grievance", well, yeah, we are fucked.
- chiefalchemist 5y ago
  I think the point is, there are plenty of signals that increase suicide rate. Without full and proper analysis (e.g., control group, etc.) tying social media to suicide rate is correlation. And as presented, that comes off as opinion. Note: I'm not taking sides. I'm only wanting to answer your question :) please don't shoot the messenger.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    I can see that viewpoint. Data is imperfect but it isn’t a random correlation like cell phones associated with fungal infection. There is no shortage of self reported data, but cyber bullying attacks directly cause suicide attempts for instance. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6791504/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6791504/
    - chiefalchemist 5y ago
      Um. Actually, cyber bullying (probably) correlates with suicide. That is, the suicide victim likely has other contributing causes. Maybe that depression? Maybe it's being abused as a child. Etc. I am by no means belittling suicide (note: a close family member used that exit), nor am I belittling bullying. It's evit. But it's rare such things can be traced to a single trigger. Life is complicated. Sometimes we're too willing to oversimplify.
      - GhettoComputers 5y ago
        Yes there is enough media attention it may be overly skewed but it’s like coronavirus statistics, did they die of corona, oxygen deprivation, or inflammation? They said in the study that once that was taken out the stats are way less skewed to negative.
mbesto 5y ago
Your overall point is valid, but this last comment is unnecessary. > I find it incredibly disrespectful and in poor taste to leverage their suffering in this lazy and offhand way as an argument for your political opinions. I find it odd that's one of the conclusions you drew from the parent's comment. You're making a baseless claim that the OP has a political agenda (I didn't get this sense at all) when they were clearly demonstrating that there is potential causation and providing insight/opinion to it. You make it sound like we can't even have discussions about suicide because "we're leveraging suffering". I don't think you meant to direct that at the parent but rather politicians, otherwise your comment is far more distasteful and not posted in good faith.
908B64B197 5y ago
Remember the moral panics around Dungeons and Dragons? [0] Or the "Hyper Realistic violence of Doom"? [1] Social Media is the next in line. In 20 years people will laugh at the articles and news report about it. Something I wonder too is if suicides aren't just better reported today because there's less social stigma around mental health than in previous decades (for an extreme example, just look at the 1950's...). [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26328105 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26328105 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mEP4cflrd4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mEP4cflrd4
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Do you think we’ll also laugh about the coronavirus response?

GhettoComputers 5y ago

What is my lazy, poor taste or political opinion? You are attacking my post with no evidence or counter points, a emotional response that isn't based on anything other than hearsay, the first section is a strawman, and the second is how your sample bias should dismiss any other experiences. Is it not hypocritical to dismiss the effect of social media on suicide, such as by cyber bullying? My experience with social media has been negative, and I have lost friend due to suicide and depression, which is why I am pointing it out. Are you suggesting that it has no effect on mental heath or is proven to be beneficial? I would love to be proven wrong if you have information on it. https://www.newswise.com/articles/10-year-study-shows-elevated-suicide-risk-from-excess-social-media-time-for-teen-girls https://www.newswise.com/articles/10-year-study-shows-elevat... >Through annual surveys from 2009 to 2019, researchers tracked the media use patterns and mental health of 500 teens as part of the Flourishing Families Project. They found that while social media use had little effect on boys' suicidality risk, for girls there was a tipping point. Girls who used social media for at least two to three hours per day at the beginning of the study--when they were about 13 years old--and then greatly increased their use over time were at a higher clinical risk for suicide as emerging adults. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477910/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_and_suicide

kapp_in_life 5y ago
And plenty of people's experiences with social media have been positive. Think of the LGBT teen in a small town in the midwest who can find a social group to discuss their. Hobby groups, pick up sports groups, etc. Teens who were already finding 2-3 hours "and then greatly increased their use" a day for doomscrolling between school and homework probably would feel the same if they spent it watching TV.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Can you prove these statements with any data? There are of course benefits to online networking, but the US population of LGBT is 5.6% (of all ages) with most concentrated in urban areas so you are pointing out a small age bracket of a specific type of social engagement in a small population as a counter with the assumption it is beneficial, and the hobbies you describe are not social media engagement, they are online meetings that go offline, which is not the usual trajectory of users online. These sound like extreme outliers unless you'd like to prove me wrong.
  - Karawebnetwork 5y ago
    I moderate four LGBTQIA+ communities and support spaces on Facebook, totaling over 395k members. I cover both my local scene and international communities. Without the online spaces, most members wouldn't have friends. The bulk of the work is managing the news feeds and the main task is to approve posts individually. So we see them all. Many would otherwise be totally isolated. Teens in rural America are among the most affected by this isolation. Many users create threads describing their lack of support in their physical lives or thanking the online spaces for existing, stating that prior to their presence on the group, they had no support network. While the population of LGBTQIA+ people is concentrated in urban areas, they are primarily adults who have the freedom to move around. Teens are stuck in their hometowns and can only move around after they reach adulthood and connect or build support networks online. As you said, the US population is around 5.6% but even states like Alabama still have 3.0%. This demographic is especially relevant in this topic as its suicide rates are higher that the country's average, with trans people (without support) having rates that go as high as 40 to 50%. Online spaces provide enough support to reduce that number significantly. There is a meme that goes something like: "Why are you on Facebook? It's for older people. - It's because your friends aren't queer." The LGBTQIA+ internet is similar to what the internet was in the 90s. Close-knit communities where everyone knows each other, sub-communities, sub-cultures, and lots of blogs and personal sites. I would even go so far as to say that comparing the average social network usage to LGBTQIA+ social network usage is the equivalent of comparing apples and oranges.
closeparen 5y ago
Social media is one of dozens of social changes in the last N years. You can line any one of them up next to any bad outcome. This is not generally being done from a place of epistemic humility or interest in establishing causation. It’s just “thing I already don’t like lines up with bad outcome, see how right I am not to like it!” If that’s not what you’re doing, I don’t mean it as an attack on you. I just think we’re systematically abusing miserable kids as confirmation of our priors (about all kinds of things, social media is just one). We owe them curiosity about how to actually help.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Thank you for the clarification. It is a multi dimensional problem, and I have found very negative effects from social media for myself and people around me. I do not think that social media is overall good for mental health, it has been shown to be harmful in statistics especially for women and also there is no shortage of n=1 articles on benefits of quitting it. I think it is a serious issue when the teenage suicide rates are higher in the US (pre corona) when it is a wealthy country. If you can clarify, what is the problem you have with my post? I am posting it not only from personal experience but also with data to substantiate my claims.
- tomlin 5y ago
  A lot of data counters what you're trying to put out here. I wish it weren't true, but if you would like, I can point you to studies where you can see how teen suicide in girls and the launch of Instagram, then Snapchat, then TikTok - as well, final thoughts and letters by a large amount of these young girls vary from saying that social media WAS the reason for their suicide, to saying that actions made by others (via social media) were a factor in others. I do sincerely think social media is a force for harm for everyone - as it raises division among people at rates that are hard to build responses to. Psychologists also largely agree that the effects of social media are causing a new kind of concern outside of what we've so far dealt with. I do sort of think you might have an agenda here, for at this point you are suggesting that the thoughts and feelings of the girls who committed suicide should hold almost no weight. Maybe you're not saying that outright, but if you haven't looked into the lives of these girls before suggesting their plight is "just another generational grievance", well, yeah, we are fucked.
chiefalchemist 5y ago
I think the point is, there are plenty of signals that increase suicide rate. Without full and proper analysis (e.g., control group, etc.) tying social media to suicide rate is correlation. And as presented, that comes off as opinion. Note: I'm not taking sides. I'm only wanting to answer your question :) please don't shoot the messenger.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  I can see that viewpoint. Data is imperfect but it isn’t a random correlation like cell phones associated with fungal infection. There is no shortage of self reported data, but cyber bullying attacks directly cause suicide attempts for instance. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6791504/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6791504/
  - chiefalchemist 5y ago
    Um. Actually, cyber bullying (probably) correlates with suicide. That is, the suicide victim likely has other contributing causes. Maybe that depression? Maybe it's being abused as a child. Etc. I am by no means belittling suicide (note: a close family member used that exit), nor am I belittling bullying. It's evit. But it's rare such things can be traced to a single trigger. Life is complicated. Sometimes we're too willing to oversimplify.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      Yes there is enough media attention it may be overly skewed but it’s like coronavirus statistics, did they die of corona, oxygen deprivation, or inflammation? They said in the study that once that was taken out the stats are way less skewed to negative.

mbesto 5y ago

Your overall point is valid, but this last comment is unnecessary. > I find it incredibly disrespectful and in poor taste to leverage their suffering in this lazy and offhand way as an argument for your political opinions. I find it odd that's one of the conclusions you drew from the parent's comment. You're making a baseless claim that the OP has a political agenda (I didn't get this sense at all) when they were clearly demonstrating that there is potential causation and providing insight/opinion to it. You make it sound like we can't even have discussions about suicide because "we're leveraging suffering". I don't think you meant to direct that at the parent but rather politicians, otherwise your comment is far more distasteful and not posted in good faith.

908B64B197 5y ago

Remember the moral panics around Dungeons and Dragons? [0] Or the "Hyper Realistic violence of Doom"? [1] Social Media is the next in line. In 20 years people will laugh at the articles and news report about it. Something I wonder too is if suicides aren't just better reported today because there's less social stigma around mental health than in previous decades (for an extreme example, just look at the 1950's...). [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26328105 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26328105 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mEP4cflrd4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mEP4cflrd4

GhettoComputers 5y ago
Do you think we’ll also laugh about the coronavirus response?