Comment by WarOnPrivacy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by WarOnPrivacy | Hacker News Reader

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> Undoubtedly it’s the social media effect.

I have some doubt.

Eight-in-ten teens say that what they see on social media makes them feel more connected to what's going on in their friends' lives, while 71% say it makes them feel like they have a place where they can show their creative side. And 67% say these platforms make them feel as if they have people who can support them through tough times. A smaller share - though still a majority – say the same for feeling more accepted. These positive sentiments are expressed by teens across demographic groups.

When asked about the overall impact of social media on them personally, more teens say its effect has been mostly positive (32%) than say it has been mostly negative (9%). The largest share describes its impact in neutral terms: 59% believe social media has had neither a positive nor a negative effect on them. For teens who view social media's effect on them as mostly positive, many describe maintaining friendships, building connections, or accessing information as main reasons they feel this way, with one teen saying:

"It connects me with the world, provides an outlet to learn things I otherwise wouldn't have access to, and allows me to discover and explore interests." - Teen girl

ref:https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/11/16/connection-c...

For a few years we've had studies come out about teen mental health and social media. They'll read something like 33% report harm, 33% report benefit while 33% show neither. The headlines nearly unanimously read as "33% of youth report varying levels of harm while another third show no benefit at all." The remaining third doesn't even get a squeak in the articles.

I have no love for social media and the odd HN post is about as close as I get. But I also have no love for the snipe hunt that is One Single Cause for long-building, complex, multi-faceted problems.

While this is interesting, we know that self-reported “how does X make you feel” effects can be inconsistent with the delta self-reported feeling while being exposed to X and self-reported feeling when isolated from X, and there’s a very good reason to think that the former is the less-reliable because it requires not only assessment of feeling (which people are probably fairly reliable on) but assessment of causality (which they are less likely to be reliable on).

Particularly, things that people exposed to them perceive as relieving certain negative feelings (whether of disconnection, etc.) can sometimes be relieving them only compared to an elevated baseline that they create (for, e.g., cults, this create-and-then-be-seen-as-needed-through-partial-relief–for-problem effect is often a deliberate strategy, and it may be for social media either deliberate or just a commercial optimum locked into by A/B testing engagement (creating both an elevated feeling of social isolation and need for connection and then a partial relief for that need).

Or maybe the self-reported effect is correct, and the perception social media is problematic on those points is wrong. But there is at least a plausible way the user-perceived effect could be wrong that is consistent with effects seen elsewhere.

Self reported effects seem questionable to me. Having two kids, I know that they think sitting in bed all day, every day on their screens is often what they want to do. But that doesn't mean its healthy.

As another example, I doubt as a teenager that I would have acknowledge, even to myself, that my - admittedly mild - alcohol use was bad for me.

> Self reported effects seem questionable to me.

Youth mental health studies are typically based on self-reported data because the person who is in a place to report on that head - is the person with that head.

> Having two kids, I know that they think sitting in bed all day, every day on their screens is often what they want to do

What else is there for youth to do? Over a few generations, adults have systematically erased every sq foot of free-range land. In it's place are 2 ft wide walking strips lined by 40mph 2 ton death blocks.

We've pumped every head full of fully-false stranger risk. We've positioned kids and parents alike to make sure kids have 0 minutes a year of ability-building, unsupervised time. We've fairly well wiped out extended families and insured every kid is raised by never more than two adults who work full time, with anyone who might have better parenting experience buffered safely away from the people who need it.

In short, we've wiped out everything that built self-sufficiency in kids and replaced it with systems that repeatedly punish for kid-level transgressions and make sure those penalties harm them as much as possible.

And for good measure there's always a ton of adults going on endlessly about how much today's youth suck.

>Over a few generations, adults have systematically erased every sq foot of free-range land. In it's place are 2 ft wide walking strips lined by 40mph 2 ton death blocks.

This is largely an American problem, but it's worth noting that in many places in America, these "walking strips" actually don't exist at all! So depending on where you are and where you want to walk, there might be no safe way to do so; sidewalks are frequently haphazardly placed or an afterthought, if they're there at all. In many municipalities, homeowners actively petition the city to not have any sidewalks, because they don't want to deal with the legal liabilities that result from having them in one's yard.

Anyway, overall I agree. In America, there really is nothing else for youth to do, so they should just stay home and play video games. Prospective parents who don't want this for their kids should either abstain from having children until the country gets its act together, or move to a country that's better for raising children.

Many addictions make you feel good in the moment but are net-negative for your psychology and/or body.

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