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I think that the problem is that for some, the obvious Occam's razor is that "smartphone is the cause. obviously" and for some "smartphone is a confounding effe

by cauch 3y ago

I think that the problem is that for some, the obvious Occam's razor is that "smartphone is the cause. obviously" and for some "smartphone is a confounding effect of a deeper cause, obviously". Because it is like that, I would say both of these conclusions is not scientifically acceptable: the fact that some people believe that "obviously it's not the case" is enough to demonstrate that it is in reality not obvious. It does not mean it is impossible in social science to define causation: it is done in a lot of place, where there is a majority consensus on what is "obvious". The fact that this happened does not mean that you can conclude causation on everything you want.

rcme 3y ago
> or some "smartphone is a confounding effect of a deeper cause, obviously". But isn't this equally admitting smartphones are the issue? Like whatever deeper cause you're talking about existed before the smartphone. Like imagine you're a farmer and you grow crops that need a lot of water and climate change causes water to dry up in your area. What you're saying is basically "climate change didn't cause your crops to fail because you weren't growing drought resistant crops. Climate change is just a confounding effect on a deeper issue." I think what makes the discussion about smartphones unique vs. other social topics is that the adoption of the smartphone and social media was so swift that it's very easy to study mental well-being before the smartphone and after the smartphone without worrying about other changes in lifestyle.
- cauch 3y ago
  > But isn't this equally admitting smartphones are the issue? Not really: a confounding effect means that there is a cause X that leads to two things: using more smartphone, and depression. If you ban the smartphone, you don't stop the cause X, and you will still have depression. > "climate change didn't cause your crops to fail because you weren't growing drought resistant crops. Climate change is just a confounding effect on a deeper issue." That is not a confounding effect. Confounding is: X -> A + X -> B, and if you break the link between X and A, X -> B is unaffected. Your example is X -> A -> B, with X = climate change, A = drought, B = non-drought resistant plant die. A confounding effect with climate change would be: imagine you're a farmer and you grow crops that need a lot of water and you use the electricity from the hydroelectric central 100 miles away. What you are saying when you say that smartphone are the issue is like saying "the crops are dying and the central cannot produce electricity anymore, so if I use photovoltaic panel, the crops will not die anymore". ("crop dying" = depression, "producing electricity" = not using smartphone) > I think what makes the discussion about smartphones unique vs. other social topics is that the adoption of the smartphone and social media was so swift that it's very easy to study mental well-being before the smartphone and after the smartphone without worrying about other changes in lifestyle. That does not make sense: if you are arguing that smartphones increase global depression, then you are saying that smartphones induced a change in lifestyle. If smartphone can do it swiftly, then other things can do it too.
  - rcme 3y ago
    I think you’re missing the point: any confounding factor you can think of would foster before smartphones. So it doesn’t make sense to call phones a confounding factor. For instance, people are saying “people who get phones earlier may have less involved parents, and less involved parents lead to worse mental health outcomes.” Sure, this is possible, but there have always been poor parents, yet these changes to mental health have only started with adoption of the smartphone. > if you are arguing that smartphones increase global depression, then you are saying that smartphones induced a change in lifestyle. If smartphone can do it swiftly, then other things can do it too. Yes, that’s exactly my point! It theoretically could be something else, but what else has so drastically changed in the last 15 years. We see plenty of evidence of how dramatic smartphone adoption has been. What else has experienced such a fundamental in adoption? And now we’re back to Occam’s razor. Sure, the mental health crisis could be caused by some unseen force that has profoundly impacted life yet has so far eluded observation, or it could be smartphones, whose profound impact on lifestyle is easily observable.
    - cauch 3y ago
      > Sure, this is possible, but there have always been poor parents, yet these changes to mental health have only started with adoption of the smartphone. They started with adoption of the smartphone, which also corresponds with a specific and brand new phase in globalisation, in climate change crisis, in global loss of trust in the media, in disillusion in the capacity of changing elements that matters, in faster access of overwhelming communication, a more open communication about personal issues (gender, ...), ... It's incorrect to say that "it has to be smartphones because smartphones are the only thing that appeared", it's just really obtuse, and also a bit of Dunning-Kruger. > but what else has so drastically changed in the last 15 years. We see plenty of evidence of how dramatic smartphone adoption has been. What else has experienced such a fundamental in adoption? Smartphone adoption was a dramatic adoption that is visible for the layman, but in sociology, it's a very unimpressive thing. There are TONS of technology that were introduced that fast, from domestic electricity usage to internet, rap music or video games. But layman people are victim of Dunning-Kruger effect: smartphone is very visible to them, so they don't realise to which extent smartphone is in reality important or not. And again, if I have to bet, I would say it is rather social media that is the cause, and if you ban smartphones, people will just use laptop and the problem will be the same.

by cauch 3y ago

rcme 3y ago

> or some "smartphone is a confounding effect of a deeper cause, obviously". But isn't this equally admitting smartphones are the issue? Like whatever deeper cause you're talking about existed before the smartphone. Like imagine you're a farmer and you grow crops that need a lot of water and climate change causes water to dry up in your area. What you're saying is basically "climate change didn't cause your crops to fail because you weren't growing drought resistant crops. Climate change is just a confounding effect on a deeper issue." I think what makes the discussion about smartphones unique vs. other social topics is that the adoption of the smartphone and social media was so swift that it's very easy to study mental well-being before the smartphone and after the smartphone without worrying about other changes in lifestyle.

cauch 3y ago
> But isn't this equally admitting smartphones are the issue? Not really: a confounding effect means that there is a cause X that leads to two things: using more smartphone, and depression. If you ban the smartphone, you don't stop the cause X, and you will still have depression. > "climate change didn't cause your crops to fail because you weren't growing drought resistant crops. Climate change is just a confounding effect on a deeper issue." That is not a confounding effect. Confounding is: X -> A + X -> B, and if you break the link between X and A, X -> B is unaffected. Your example is X -> A -> B, with X = climate change, A = drought, B = non-drought resistant plant die. A confounding effect with climate change would be: imagine you're a farmer and you grow crops that need a lot of water and you use the electricity from the hydroelectric central 100 miles away. What you are saying when you say that smartphone are the issue is like saying "the crops are dying and the central cannot produce electricity anymore, so if I use photovoltaic panel, the crops will not die anymore". ("crop dying" = depression, "producing electricity" = not using smartphone) > I think what makes the discussion about smartphones unique vs. other social topics is that the adoption of the smartphone and social media was so swift that it's very easy to study mental well-being before the smartphone and after the smartphone without worrying about other changes in lifestyle. That does not make sense: if you are arguing that smartphones increase global depression, then you are saying that smartphones induced a change in lifestyle. If smartphone can do it swiftly, then other things can do it too.
- rcme 3y ago
  I think you’re missing the point: any confounding factor you can think of would foster before smartphones. So it doesn’t make sense to call phones a confounding factor. For instance, people are saying “people who get phones earlier may have less involved parents, and less involved parents lead to worse mental health outcomes.” Sure, this is possible, but there have always been poor parents, yet these changes to mental health have only started with adoption of the smartphone. > if you are arguing that smartphones increase global depression, then you are saying that smartphones induced a change in lifestyle. If smartphone can do it swiftly, then other things can do it too. Yes, that’s exactly my point! It theoretically could be something else, but what else has so drastically changed in the last 15 years. We see plenty of evidence of how dramatic smartphone adoption has been. What else has experienced such a fundamental in adoption? And now we’re back to Occam’s razor. Sure, the mental health crisis could be caused by some unseen force that has profoundly impacted life yet has so far eluded observation, or it could be smartphones, whose profound impact on lifestyle is easily observable.
  - cauch 3y ago
    > Sure, this is possible, but there have always been poor parents, yet these changes to mental health have only started with adoption of the smartphone. They started with adoption of the smartphone, which also corresponds with a specific and brand new phase in globalisation, in climate change crisis, in global loss of trust in the media, in disillusion in the capacity of changing elements that matters, in faster access of overwhelming communication, a more open communication about personal issues (gender, ...), ... It's incorrect to say that "it has to be smartphones because smartphones are the only thing that appeared", it's just really obtuse, and also a bit of Dunning-Kruger. > but what else has so drastically changed in the last 15 years. We see plenty of evidence of how dramatic smartphone adoption has been. What else has experienced such a fundamental in adoption? Smartphone adoption was a dramatic adoption that is visible for the layman, but in sociology, it's a very unimpressive thing. There are TONS of technology that were introduced that fast, from domestic electricity usage to internet, rap music or video games. But layman people are victim of Dunning-Kruger effect: smartphone is very visible to them, so they don't realise to which extent smartphone is in reality important or not. And again, if I have to bet, I would say it is rather social media that is the cause, and if you ban smartphones, people will just use laptop and the problem will be the same.