Some related information, I see a lot of talk about how people feel social media or phones affect young people, but little data or input from researchers who ar

Some related information, I see a lot of talk about how people feel social media or phones affect young people, but little data or input from researchers who are not politicians or selling books. From Nature[1]: > Time spent on social media among the least influential factors in adolescent mental health From the Atlantic[2] with citations in the article: > The Panic Over Smartphones Doesn’t Help Teens, > It may only make things worse. > I am a developmental psychologist, and for the past 20 years, I have worked to identify how children develop mental illnesses. Since 2008, I have studied 10-to-15-year-olds using their mobile phones, with the goal of testing how a wide range of their daily experiences, including their digital-technology use, influences their mental health. My colleagues and I have repeatedly failed to find compelling support for the claim that digital-technology use is a major contributor to adolescent depression and other mental-health symptoms. > Many other researchers have found the same. In fact, a recent study and a review of research on social media and depression concluded that social media is one of the least influential factors in predicting adolescents’ mental health. The most influential factors include a family history of mental disorder; early exposure to adversity, such as violence and discrimination; and school- and family-related stressors, among others. At the end of last year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report concluding, “Available research that links social media to health shows small effects and weak associations, which may be influenced by a combination of good and bad experiences. Contrary to the current cultural narrative that social media is universally harmful to adolescents, the reality is more complicated.” [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-023-00063-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-023-00063-7 [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/05/candice-odgers-teens-smartphones/678433/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/05/candi...