science

It might be? Then it might also not be. What a nothing headline

The conclusion in the headline is a correlation not causation, and I think it is honestly lazy that these narratives are getting repeated by scientists without proper skepticism. The related study is far more illuminating in my opinion.

While it’s unclear why social media increases [WITH] depressive symptoms, prior research points to risks such as cyberbullying and disrupted sleep. In fact, Nagata and team just published a separate study in The Lancet Regional Health - Americas looking at the same cohort of participants, focusing instead on the effects of cyberbullying.

The study found kids aged 11 to 12 years who were cyberbullied were 2.62 times more likely to report suicidal ideation or a suicide attempt one year later. Additionally, those kids were also 2.31 times more likely to experiment with a substance (4.65 times more likely with marijuana, 3.37 with nicotine, and 1.92 with alcohol) in the following year.

To me this doesn't point to the fact that social media is bad for health, it points to the fact that handwaving social media as all equally bad is a stupid move and we need to be more curious and engaged about the communities younger people inhabit online... and actively desire to make them positive spaces for younger people. What people need to get through their thick skulls is that even if we could cut kids out of social media and even if there are negative impacts, that doesn't justify taking it away from kids until we understand what we are potentially taking away from kids that might be crucial for their wellbeing. What right do we really even have to make such choices past a certain point?

Increasingly, the youngest generations find themselves facing a catch-22, with growing evidence that social media is associated with depressive symptoms and risky behavior yet also a primary area for them to connect and communicate with friends.

What bothers me is scientists that are experts in this area have a very narrow interest in studying their topic of research and advancing their careers, but I don't think they understand how much of a moral panic we are in right now and how their research will be used to justify draconian and unhelpful policies even if they state publicly over and over again they aren't in support of those policies or in the conclusions the public draws from only reading the headline of their research.

What determines whether social media is healthy for people or not are the choices that are made in the architecture of social media and this is EXACTLY why the ruling class wants us to be distracted by the idea that social media is inherently a sinful vice so we don't start asking problematic questions about whether rightwing billionaires should have a stranglehold and monopoly over our digital lives. We can fall back on a judgement of individuals taking the drug of social media and the moral failure of doing so and condescend them instead of thinking harder about the structures our digital lives rely on and are shaped by.

Isn’t there a fairly robust body of research demonstrating a causal link between excessive social media use and increased anxiety at this point? Increased anxiety over a prolonged period of time can certainly cause depression, so I see it as a secondary effect.

We will never fix any real problems.

Every few years there will be a new technology boogie man (newspapers, tv, phones, etc.) that we use to pretend our society and the pedophiles that control it aren't the ones making us all depressed and sick.

Every few years we will prove beyond any reasonable doubt that this is not how humans work and not how they will ever work.

And the fucking smoothbrains lap it up like dogs every time so they can hate their own children instead of learning about the new technology every time.

Don't have kids

Yes, guns might be killing people.