With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit

Sometimes, yes, and that is the cause of some negative self-reflection on my part, but I think that there's another factor at work... I think that especially the "racist memes with spelling mistakes' crowd just values different things from what I value. For many of them, they see education as a negative attribute except to the extent that it intersects with income, (this attitude is creeping into HN, I think) and even then... you have to understand that unlike most of the people I work with now, I went to a school where scholastic aptitude was something you hid, if you were smart.

>Imagine yourself as if you went to highschool in the society where you now work (so that now, the people you used to know are twice as educated and lots of them are far more wealthy)

I've wondered what this would have been like. I mean, arrogance has always been with me; and I think I am a lot more aware of my own arrogance than other people are? But a big part of that is that for so many of my friends now, I am 'normal' or maybe even below average - just because they went to really exclusive schools then worked at prestigious places. They have a completely different view of what is normal.

What if I always existed in a world where I wasn't "special"? I imagine I'd be a better person, socially. But maybe not? I dunno.

>or perhaps imagine what it would be like to have stayed in your old town while someone else went to SV!

I... did move back to my hometown for a while. It was... not an experience I care to repeat.

Plenty of rich educated people are racists.

Turning it into him making them depressed (are they even depressed?) Is quite unfair and waaay to much benefit of doubt to them and waaay too little to him.. It is not his fault they believe in whatever that racist meme promoted.

That sentence makes me laugh, because when I grew up (and I'm not certain if this is "when" or "where," really.) that could only be said with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

At my debate club, I mentioned this part way through the argument, that I did find my own argument distressingly (and depressingly) arrogant and sad; It was pointed out that in debate club, it is traditional to not undermine your own argument.

The noise:content ratio is simply skewed way towards pointless noise. It's not worth it.

I.. huh. I really don't get this. Maybe it is because I am doing better than I thought I was going to for the first half of my life? or maybe I'm just less jealous than most people? but yeah, there are a few people I follow who you could say I am envious of; people who are super successful in all the ways I want to be successful, but I think it's good rather than bad, because I feel a connection to what I want and admire, and there's this person I really admire who is talking with me. That is... kinda neat, you know? Like showing up at your buddy's weekend board game party and finding the inventor of a famous programming language was also invited.

I guess I don't see how seeing people who are more successful than you on facebook could possibly be more distressing than seeing those people at work (and you will and always have seen those people at work. We've always had bosses.)

Even in person, I've always found being around people that are better than I am (better by my standards) to be fun and exciting. I don't think this is uncommon, really.

You might also want to look at why other people's happens or success makes you feel bad. It's a very common feeling but it's unhealthy and a sign that you have poor self-esteem.

Wait. Stop. What? I have 82 friends on Facebook. Probably half of those I could easily drop. I'm completely baffled where anyone would find 400.

Saying teens are "hyper-aware of social status" is not going far enough: the teenage years are a period of social awakening in which we reach new levels of understanding, empathy, and theory of mind.

From a physical perspective a lot of teenage behaviour can be attributed to various brain structures developing at different rates (specifically, structures associated with emotions developing quicker than the structures associated with rational inhibitions).

Mentally speaking, a lot of teenage development is about the brain growing and "recalibrating" to deal with the new sensations this growth brings.

It is not a great leap from there to expect that social media, with their hyper-optimised feedback-loops, are capable of greatly disturbing this process.

I feel the same way about myself, sometimes, but instead I just open a browser window and start typing news.... (not always HN, but often)

Yes, there is a reason practices like meditation, physical movements during prayer (yoga, Jewish and Islamic practices of prayer), etc. have lasted thousands of years. The screens are not the first attention-jackers to come around and they won't be the last.

No benefit? Maybe you mean that you prefer an Android tablet? I didn't have a computer until I was 18. The internet wasn't much of a thing until I got to college. Every day I think about how amazing it would have been to have access to so much free information when I was a kid.

My nephews in primary school had android tablets but had to get new ipads (second hand not supported) for the "programming" class that was introduced with proprietary drag'n'drop programming software. A raspberry pi would not only have been much cheaper but would have had much more potential as an educational tool.

Yes. And we've all been teenagers.

>Almost literally zero percent of them think (or need to think) about this stuff, with the possible exception of some of the very oldest teenagers (ie, people in their first or second year of college who are starting to think about the details of the start of their careers).

What? EVERY teenager thinks about it. Not only that, their parents financial situations and the prospects of the future most definitely influences their outlook.

What teenager doesn't talk about or think of their future? The entirety of high school is pretty much about preparing for college, finding a job, etc.

Edit: for historical context, this was nearly two decades ago and nobody had either a mobile phone or a Facebook account

Ban the phone and keep the isolating culture and you wind up with even more isolated teens.

Would any of these matter at all to a different intelligent species? Say, a hypothetical species without any gender. Poof. More than half of human values and aspirations become meaningless.

"Happiness" that is to last for more than a fleeting moment depends entirely on what we choose to believe. That is some pretty flimsy grounds.

I can only speak for myself, of course, and in my case, the ever increasing access to information and social contacts, actually eliminates the hope of finding any large-scale meaning in this world, ever-so-gradually, when you keep failing to see any point no matter what you learn and who you meet.

Not exactly depression, maybe it falls under nihilism, but.. Everything just is, and it doesn't ultimately matter what you do.

I suspect that even if I had a starship capable of traveling to other worlds, and a long enough lifespan to see them all, I'd still find everything ultimately pointless.

I found it a great resource to reach out and break into the tech sector. It only becomes a dick measuring contest when you've no clear goal on the platform.

There’s two metrics for dick-measuring contests, size of network and quality of network. Linkedin is there to show, yeah I’m a badass who got the <insert big shot here> to link to me, or look at me, I have lots of cards.

There is some actual stuff happening there, but the bread and circus that brings the crowd are those two metrics.

The average LinkedIn profile is just if not more fictitious than Facebook. And everyone knows it but plays along anyway.

So the counter-argument is that Instagram is not so depressing provided that one uses as little Instagram as possible ("curate, curate, curate")?

That kind of proves the parent's point (which wasn't that one can't possible ever find anything non-depressing/jealousy inducing on Instagram).

I suppose social media like Instagram makes the experience different, more intimate perhaps. Reading newspaper accounts of super-rich lifestyle is still a bit like hearing tales of life of Kublai Khan: it's something that happens far away, half mythical and half magical. A magazine publishes an article how the super-rich enjoy their life, sailing around the world on their yachts? Maybe it was an overview of the phenomenon in general, or if it was an in-depth portrait focused on some particular celebrity, it probably was a story about what they did maybe weeks or months ago. And in any case, when you've read the article, you put the magazine away, and continue with your life.

Following people on the internet service, looking at the pictures and stories they personally share with their followers in near real time, it's a bit more like observing a person doing all those things on first hand basis. And that could make it more soul-crushing as an experience.

But this is all conjecture. Someone pointed out in other comment that the true reason might be the economic downturn.

When I went to uni I met similar friends which led to my social life improving, but before then there really was no substitute for online games at the time simply because I did not enjoy the company of the people I'd met at the time.

When I didn't have access to online games I'd just read the same amount instead.

I guess what I'm saying is that a lot of the time (but not always), online games are a symptom, not a cause.

Now how you can help him get a couple good friends, I don't know. It is something that has to happen very organically. Forcing it won't help in most cases (you'll know within a couple interactions). Don't try to push him to events he doesn't want to do. You can be around hundreds of people and still be lonely.

And that includes the characters who are educated and aware. God knows what's happening in households with unmonitored 24*7 sewage being pumped into developing minds.

Once your kid has had his or her mind misguided during crucial periods of its development, reprogramming it, postfacto is on par with rehabilitating the severely disabled. It takes a huge effort on all sides.

When it comes to mental health and development, the instinctive thing to do is not always the right thing. And it's even harder to do after things go wrong. So take it seriously. Keep talking to experts and other families going through the same thing. Stay on his case.

And lastly don't expect the govt or sillicon valleys shitheads (who produced this environment) to act fast.

He's 17 which is the "I think I'm an adult" area. Every 2 years he'll be looking back and thinking, "wow, I was really young".

Tread cautiously, treat him like an adult and just talk to him. The more comfortable he feels around you, the better. Many of us got sick of our parents at that age (I moved out the week after I turned 18 - nobody expected it), but I figured out later when I lived with another adult who treated me almost like I'd imagine a really good boss would, ala, "everyone keeps the house clean, if I ask you to do something it's because I've already done something today and I know you've seen it and not done anything about it. I get it, nobody wants to do this stuff - but I work 8 hours a day, 7 days a week and I hate it too, but it's easier on both of us if we work together".

Get him to participate in more around the house stuff, cooking is good, help with your taxes if he's interested (then hopefully exploit that for the next 30 years). Repairing stuff. Don't tell, ask - reward.

On the social side, go to meetups or clubs in things you've found interesting together, ask him for help finding them. I get people say kids should be around people their own age, and generally speaking I think they should, but I look back and at that time I just wanted to do stuff that interested me. Unfortunately none of my friends from school had similar interests - so I found that escape through work and online.

I'm glad I forced myself to hang with my friends then since we still keep in touch, but there's opportunities all through his 20s (and especially university, send him to student living spaces) to build relationships with people his own age. I do regret however, forcing myself into relationships just because it was "what was expected of me".

Plenty of people live lives that are considered "the norm", parents hope their children follow similar paths they did. But sometime we don't. And that's OK, so long as we're happy. So concentrate on that.

Good luck!

Kudos to you for figuring this out. Taking the screen away without providing alternatives doesn't seem very helpful. Even if we accept the thesis that online interaction isn't deep or satisfying enough, replacing it with no interaction is still a step in the wrong direction. Anything that gets them to interact with peers or parents, be it sports or board games or shared craft projects or whatever, is going to be both more effective and easier to maintain over time.

P.S. Yes, this is even true for introverts. Even if interaction is draining and has to be limited, there's still a difference between low-quality vs. high-quality interaction.

If the final 2 hrs before sleep were a time for non-screen activities (reading, board games or just general family talk), that might be a good compromise between letting him keep it and taking it away entirely.

I think that taking it away from me would have made things worse instead of me suddenly becoming very good socially. Next year, I went to college, met new people and stopped caring about League.

Social media / instagram / etc allow the other party to feel human to you, at which point you can easily get into the thought of "They're not really better than me, are they? Why is their life so gilded"..

It's not. It's just your daily anti-facebook/social media propaganda. Every day there is something about the "evils of social media".

It's the new gangsta rap or violent video games. The news media spreads fear in order to sell ads.

It wasn't too long ago when the news media hyped up violent videos to sell ads. Violent video games were blamed for everything from school shootings to depression to anti-social behavior and everything in between. It wasn't too long ago that gangsta rap had to have parental advisory notices.

Nothing new under the sun.

Don't you mean so little radiation? The sun puts out far more radiation than a phone, and now people are getting less sun, and thus less radiation.

Many people in their 30's and 40's are now finding out that this isn't the case and it's talked about a lot, so teenagers are more likely aware. There's also a better chance that they're coming from a family that has never owned a home.

Over time I learnt that I'd feel better if I made the effort to spend time around people and develop relationships. I'm still not great at this and would like to get better. But it's kind of like exercise yeah some people naturally enjoy it and some hate it but most will feel better for it.

Perhaps this is not true of everyone. But I'd be surprised if it wasn't true for a very significant proportion of the population.

I can see it contributing. Humans are tribal animals and teenagers are the extreme of this with all sorts of cliques and clubs that form in high schools. Imagine being a teenager and discovering that your in the wrong tribe, then imagine that the tribe you like is "at war" with your tribe. Even with modern communications it would be easy to feel isolated without that face to face interaction.

Why do you think racism / anti-Semitism / anti-Muslim sentiment is so prominent online and so much less prominent in real life? Why does so much research show that actual, in-person interactions with people of other backgrounds reduces the strength of racist stereotypes in people's minds?

But I don't really know, just playing the devils advocate.

That's not what he's doing at all.

But it is also true that religion is largely the underpinning of morality for most people in the world and early exposure to the idea that morality is relative and malleable and that actually the only real motivator is self-preservation is probably unhealthy for adolescents.

>Solving my problems actually seems to be the solution to my happiness, not to believe or have faith in anything. On the other side, a big part of many religions seems to involve thinking about death and guilt

A big part of religions is also charity work and the idea that you aren't just doing things for yourself or solving your own problems but solving the problems of others because they are your equals (at least in Abrahamic traditions, I am familiar with these).

I don't see where you can pull that out of atheism.

>What happens when this child learns that there have been wars about such things as religions when the claim is that they are about tolerence?

What a silly thing to say. Religions would not need to preach tolerance if mankind were inherently tolerant, no? If mankind is not inherently tolerant, why will a child be shaken to understand that that inherent intolerance causes wars over nearly everything (from religion to culture to language to land).

I mean someone who is a nihilist might think that but it’s not a logical consequence of, or foundational feature of, nihilism.

That is existential nihilism.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Existential_nihilism

> According to the theory, each individual is an isolated being born into the universe, barred from knowing "why", yet compelled to invent meaning.

> The common thread in the literature of the existentialists is coping with the emotional anguish arising from our confrontation with nothingness, and they expended great energy responding to the question of whether surviving it was possible. Their answer was a qualified "Yes," advocating a formula of passionate commitment and impassive stoicism.

Last I knew, kids were still largely growing up in schools where being smart is dumb and prosecuted through bullying. That’s sufficient for mass depression to climb when the rest of life becomes more stressful. I.e. people really are having a hard time finding actually good work that provides health care and a steady paycheck and decent work environment. The opioid crisis has fallouts, in addition.

Most of what I just said was said by the hippies in the 60s.

Children like to think they're special. Parents of children like to think their child is special. And we're doing more than ever to try to convince children that they're special. But reality is not so kind. The vast majority of people, by definition, are not special and never will be. The internet emphasizes this truism. Whether your personal desire is intelligence, strength, beauty, music, or some other skill - the internet will emphasize that, even for your age, you suck.

That explains the useless part at least. As for joyless, I think the huge number of apps designed to give you that constant burst of something, ostensibly dopamine, that gives that feeling of joy (and more importantly from their perspective, addiction) is something that I think will have, almost with complete certainty, unforeseen consequences. Look at casinos and you see people that who are 'happily' inserting their pennies and pulling the rod - yet they look, and mostly are, completely miserable. Their addiction we consider negative because money is directly involved, yet is the addition to notifications, numbers, and all the sort of bells and whistles modern social sites use to trigger addiction truly that different? If anything, the insidious nature of it all makes it seem even worse.

"What is the meaning of life?" - a nihilist would answer 'mu'.

"Is there any intrinsic meaning to life?" - a nihilist would answer 'no', and it seems to me that 'mu' would be an obvious copout.

Is your point that the word 'meaning' itself is meaningless?

--Edit--

Interesting, people didn't seem to realize this was true. Here [1] is a study from Gallup on peoples' views on wealth. There is a strong inverse correlation between the number of people that expect to become "rich" and age. For ages 18-29 it's 51%. That decreases down to 8% by the time people are 65, which is still unrealistic.

That study is from 2003, yet its results have been replicated with minimal change in other more recent studies as well (though not from Gallup). It's part of the reason that education loans are simultaneously so overtly predatory, but also phenomenally successful (from the point of view of lenders). Young people are completely unrealistic about their chances for success and so the implications of taking on mountains of debt with often poor interest rates, when you're young, is something they cannot accurately assess.

[1] - http://news.gallup.com/poll/7981/Half-Young-People-Expect-St...

It’s true that correlation does not imply causation. But it’s a stupid middlebrow dismissal to throw out there.

“Two followed people over time, with both studies finding that spending more time on social media led to unhappiness, while unhappiness did not lead to more social media use. A third randomly assigned participants to give up Facebook for a week versus continuing their usual use. Those who avoided Facebook reported feeling less depressed at the end of the week.”