4 ms·

"the majority of the evidence seems to point towards it not causing large well-being problems." I can't see how this is true. Anecdotally, everyone I talk to,

by giarc 3y ago

"the majority of the evidence seems to point towards it not causing large well-being problems." I can't see how this is true. Anecdotally, everyone I talk to, and you most comments in this thread (and any other thread) is full of people admitting that they A. use their phone too much B. wish they didn't and C. it makes them feel bad. Again, n of 1, but I've never met someone that openly wants to use their phone more or will say that social media has been great for them. Admittedly I haven't read the research, but how does it come to the conclusion that social media isn't causing problems?

saulrh 3y ago
Probably that there's an underlying common cause that means the effect disappears when you analyze the data properly. For example, if screen time is caused by lack of parental presence and lack of parental presence is caused by poverty and poverty also causes depression, then a naive analysis would find a correlation but a proper analysis or meta-analysis would subtract out the common causes of poverty and parental absence and find no effect.
genrilz 3y ago
I at least skimmed all of the meta-analyses that both of them cited. It seems like social media has both positive and negative effects on people, and these average out to fairly near zero. From this, I can make a hypothesis about why you are seeing what you are seeing: Assuming you are in a society which values hard work, (like the US) then the people around you probably think of social media based screen-time as being lazy. Thus they derive some amount of self-loathing from their own social media use, and are more likely to focus on the negative effects and not the positive effects of social media use. I don't have the data to prove this particular story, but hopefully it at least demonstrates how both the research and your personal experience could be true at the same time.
- giarc 3y ago
  "social media has both positive and negative effects on people, and these average out to fairly near zero" Is that the right way to think about it though? Opiates have many positives (medical pain management) and many negatives (drug misuse and overdoses). Do we simply say "the effects average out so there's not a problem"?
  - genrilz 3y ago
    I do think it is worth considering how social media effects people at a more granular level. For instance, I think the focus on "engagement" probably makes the negative effects worse, and we would see less negative effects if social media companies weren't optimizing for that. However, my understanding is that Haidt wants to completely kick kids off of social media. This is a bit different from how we engage with opioids, which are still used for pain management. Opioids only really have positive effects for pain management, and so I think that it is reasonable to keep them regulated. (although I've heard grumbling from doctors about how them trying to be careful about who they give opioids too leaves a lot of people in severe pain) On the other hand, social media's positive effects are things like staying in touch with old friends, building community with people like you when people around you hate you, and learning new skills. I don't think that restricting or eliminating social media use will help here. Instead I hope that people take the design of social media more seriously. (for instance, HN or Mastadon) EDIT: additionally I'd say that the negatives of unregulated opioids do far outweigh the positives, which is not the case for social media.
- benjovi 3y ago
  [flagged]
makeitdouble 3y ago
This article's threads are also filled with people talking about being on their phone too much and wishing they/other people weren't. It's all self declared though, the same way people will complain they don't exercice enough, they don't eat enough vegetable, they don't read enough books, they didn't stick to their new year's resolution etc. We can't take people's guilt or self loathing as an indicator of an actual critical problem.
- pms 3y ago
  There is a difference you neglected: nobody optimizes our society to eat less vegetables, or read less books, or to disregard new year's resolutions, so the responsibility is on us, whereas social media platforms do optimize for engagement, which implies showing us sensational and shallow content that grabs our attention, without giving us enough ways to control it, so responsibility is divided...
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    > nobody optimizes our society to eat less vegetables, or read less books, or to disregard new year's resolutions Disclaimer: I have no hourse in these races. There's absolutely whole industries dedicated to make you eat juicy meat as the main dish and making sure it stays so for the foreseeable future. Our media landscape is a zero sum attention market, we only have 24h in a day and you can check Netflix CEO interviews, he's painfuly aware the battle is against any other form of entertainment. And yes, you going to the gym doesn't help Netflix or Nintendo or Epic. If they find a lever to cut it down, they'll totally do it. On social media it's the same playing field: giving companies full freedom to do whatever they want at scale has always been a recipe for disaster. If we want more control we should get it, the same way radio and TV had more control structures in place. That's not what the author is pushing for though. Except if the definition of "control" is squarely "stop people from using it"

by giarc 3y ago

saulrh 3y ago

Probably that there's an underlying common cause that means the effect disappears when you analyze the data properly. For example, if screen time is caused by lack of parental presence and lack of parental presence is caused by poverty and poverty also causes depression, then a naive analysis would find a correlation but a proper analysis or meta-analysis would subtract out the common causes of poverty and parental absence and find no effect.

genrilz 3y ago

I at least skimmed all of the meta-analyses that both of them cited. It seems like social media has both positive and negative effects on people, and these average out to fairly near zero. From this, I can make a hypothesis about why you are seeing what you are seeing: Assuming you are in a society which values hard work, (like the US) then the people around you probably think of social media based screen-time as being lazy. Thus they derive some amount of self-loathing from their own social media use, and are more likely to focus on the negative effects and not the positive effects of social media use. I don't have the data to prove this particular story, but hopefully it at least demonstrates how both the research and your personal experience could be true at the same time.

giarc 3y ago
"social media has both positive and negative effects on people, and these average out to fairly near zero" Is that the right way to think about it though? Opiates have many positives (medical pain management) and many negatives (drug misuse and overdoses). Do we simply say "the effects average out so there's not a problem"?
- genrilz 3y ago
  I do think it is worth considering how social media effects people at a more granular level. For instance, I think the focus on "engagement" probably makes the negative effects worse, and we would see less negative effects if social media companies weren't optimizing for that. However, my understanding is that Haidt wants to completely kick kids off of social media. This is a bit different from how we engage with opioids, which are still used for pain management. Opioids only really have positive effects for pain management, and so I think that it is reasonable to keep them regulated. (although I've heard grumbling from doctors about how them trying to be careful about who they give opioids too leaves a lot of people in severe pain) On the other hand, social media's positive effects are things like staying in touch with old friends, building community with people like you when people around you hate you, and learning new skills. I don't think that restricting or eliminating social media use will help here. Instead I hope that people take the design of social media more seriously. (for instance, HN or Mastadon) EDIT: additionally I'd say that the negatives of unregulated opioids do far outweigh the positives, which is not the case for social media.
benjovi 3y ago
[flagged]

makeitdouble 3y ago

This article's threads are also filled with people talking about being on their phone too much and wishing they/other people weren't. It's all self declared though, the same way people will complain they don't exercice enough, they don't eat enough vegetable, they don't read enough books, they didn't stick to their new year's resolution etc. We can't take people's guilt or self loathing as an indicator of an actual critical problem.

pms 3y ago
There is a difference you neglected: nobody optimizes our society to eat less vegetables, or read less books, or to disregard new year's resolutions, so the responsibility is on us, whereas social media platforms do optimize for engagement, which implies showing us sensational and shallow content that grabs our attention, without giving us enough ways to control it, so responsibility is divided...
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  > nobody optimizes our society to eat less vegetables, or read less books, or to disregard new year's resolutions Disclaimer: I have no hourse in these races. There's absolutely whole industries dedicated to make you eat juicy meat as the main dish and making sure it stays so for the foreseeable future. Our media landscape is a zero sum attention market, we only have 24h in a day and you can check Netflix CEO interviews, he's painfuly aware the battle is against any other form of entertainment. And yes, you going to the gym doesn't help Netflix or Nintendo or Epic. If they find a lever to cut it down, they'll totally do it. On social media it's the same playing field: giving companies full freedom to do whatever they want at scale has always been a recipe for disaster. If we want more control we should get it, the same way radio and TV had more control structures in place. That's not what the author is pushing for though. Except if the definition of "control" is squarely "stop people from using it"