4 ms·

If you want to posit an explanation for this phenomenon, you have to be able to explain two things: what changed abruptly in the early/mid 2010s?, and why did i

If you want to posit an explanation for this phenomenon, you have to be able to explain two things: what changed abruptly in the early/mid 2010s?, and why did it uniquely affect teen girls? Many of the reactions I've seen over the years to these authors' work focuses on some particular frustrations or complaints about American society, the economy, our culture, and so on. The problem with these theories is that none of that stuff abruptly changed in the 2010s, and even then there's no particular reason that a 13-year old girl would be so much more negatively impacted by changes that did occur than anyone else. Haidt's theory focuses a lot on technological change like smartphones and social media (though it has some other components). Ten years ago this seemed believable because it appeared at that time that teen girls were more interested in these technologies than boys. However, the under-30 mental health problem is ongoing (and may even be accelerating), and yet it's much less clear now that there is any gender difference in technology uptake. I haven't seen a satisfying explanation from Haidt about the more recent data, and have come to believe that there is no adequate explanation right now.

naasking 3y ago
> If you want to posit an explanation for this phenomenon, you have to be able to explain two things: what changed abruptly in the early/mid 2010s?, and why did it uniquely affect teen girls? And that it's cross-cultural, so three things. > and yet it's much less clear now that there is any gender difference in technology uptake. There are definitely well known differences in how the tech is used by the different sexes. Females are typically far more social than males.
hackinthebochs 3y ago
Social media created a perpetual church gossip culture where every action and statement is endlessly evaluated by the peanut gallery, while also creating a land rush for finding new moral angles to exploit for social status. Naturally, this catty culture will affect females more and teen girls in particular. Why specifically social media? It's a function of communication efficiency. It's why church is associated with this sort of cattiness, everyone knows everyone and is brought together regularly to provide a venue to trade gossip. It also supplies the moral standard by which everyone is evaluated and one's social status is tied to how well one appears to meet this standard. The cattiness is just status games playing out given these constraints. Why 2010? It's when the "always online" culture went from niche nerd to ubiquitous.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  > Naturally, this catty culture will affect females more and teen girls in particular. Why naturally? Can you describe this without leaning on a vague and misogynist adjective. There might be something here but as stated it's no more nuanced and has no more explanatory power than "women are like that."
  - hackinthebochs 3y ago
    Women are more social, i.e. more agreeable[1], more people-oriented[2], and so on. As such, they will be more susceptible to status anxiety derived from their place in the social hierarchy. Men's social status is more about who you are, what you do, or what you have, and so social hierarchy is less relevant. Social media has massively scaled up the complexity and the stakes of managing one's place in the social hierarchy. Women feel this more acutely than men. Teens even moreso because they are actively negotiating their place in the hierarchy and are less likely to have a rigid social network to fall back on and feel secure in. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/ [2] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00189/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0018...
    - bigstrat2003 3y ago
      The fact you even had to explain this is surprising to me. We don't need papers to tell us this stuff, this is something one can learn by basic common sense observation of the world. Why are people so keen on pretending like there aren't very basic psychological differences between the sexes?
      - giraffe_lady 3y ago
        It's one thing to notice differences, it's completely another to attribute specific phenomena to them based on these lay observations. I mean, in recent memory, the "basic common sense" consensus was that women were not capable of owning property or voting because of these observed differences. And I mean do I even need to point out that "cattiness" is not exactly a well-attested psychological axis in use by reputable professionals? This is simple straightforward misogyny. They adequately laundered it through a thesaurus to HN standards when pressed but the underlying attitude is just crusty old sexism.
bondarchuk 3y ago
>and even then there's no particular reason that a 13-year old girl would be so much more negatively impacted by changes that did occur than anyone else. It would be a comparable reason (maybe even the exact same particular reason) to the reason that teen girls were uniquely impacted by earlier mass media to develop body image issues (and boy-band fandoms..). I think this is the (maybe implied) gender difference that a lot of people are seeing that you're missing. Also, if the proposed explanation is exposure + susceptibility, with a gender difference in susceptibility, then your counterarguments that there's no gender difference in exposure doesn't really work.

naasking 3y ago

> If you want to posit an explanation for this phenomenon, you have to be able to explain two things: what changed abruptly in the early/mid 2010s?, and why did it uniquely affect teen girls? And that it's cross-cultural, so three things. > and yet it's much less clear now that there is any gender difference in technology uptake. There are definitely well known differences in how the tech is used by the different sexes. Females are typically far more social than males.

hackinthebochs 3y ago

Social media created a perpetual church gossip culture where every action and statement is endlessly evaluated by the peanut gallery, while also creating a land rush for finding new moral angles to exploit for social status. Naturally, this catty culture will affect females more and teen girls in particular. Why specifically social media? It's a function of communication efficiency. It's why church is associated with this sort of cattiness, everyone knows everyone and is brought together regularly to provide a venue to trade gossip. It also supplies the moral standard by which everyone is evaluated and one's social status is tied to how well one appears to meet this standard. The cattiness is just status games playing out given these constraints. Why 2010? It's when the "always online" culture went from niche nerd to ubiquitous.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
> Naturally, this catty culture will affect females more and teen girls in particular. Why naturally? Can you describe this without leaning on a vague and misogynist adjective. There might be something here but as stated it's no more nuanced and has no more explanatory power than "women are like that."
- hackinthebochs 3y ago
  Women are more social, i.e. more agreeable[1], more people-oriented[2], and so on. As such, they will be more susceptible to status anxiety derived from their place in the social hierarchy. Men's social status is more about who you are, what you do, or what you have, and so social hierarchy is less relevant. Social media has massively scaled up the complexity and the stakes of managing one's place in the social hierarchy. Women feel this more acutely than men. Teens even moreso because they are actively negotiating their place in the hierarchy and are less likely to have a rigid social network to fall back on and feel secure in. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3149680/ [2] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00189/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.0018...
  - bigstrat2003 3y ago
    The fact you even had to explain this is surprising to me. We don't need papers to tell us this stuff, this is something one can learn by basic common sense observation of the world. Why are people so keen on pretending like there aren't very basic psychological differences between the sexes?
    - giraffe_lady 3y ago
      It's one thing to notice differences, it's completely another to attribute specific phenomena to them based on these lay observations. I mean, in recent memory, the "basic common sense" consensus was that women were not capable of owning property or voting because of these observed differences. And I mean do I even need to point out that "cattiness" is not exactly a well-attested psychological axis in use by reputable professionals? This is simple straightforward misogyny. They adequately laundered it through a thesaurus to HN standards when pressed but the underlying attitude is just crusty old sexism.

bondarchuk 3y ago

>and even then there's no particular reason that a 13-year old girl would be so much more negatively impacted by changes that did occur than anyone else. It would be a comparable reason (maybe even the exact same particular reason) to the reason that teen girls were uniquely impacted by earlier mass media to develop body image issues (and boy-band fandoms..). I think this is the (maybe implied) gender difference that a lot of people are seeing that you're missing. Also, if the proposed explanation is exposure + susceptibility, with a gender difference in susceptibility, then your counterarguments that there's no gender difference in exposure doesn't really work.