The Committee on the Impact of Social Media on Adolescent Health meticulously omitted from their report findings of higher risks of mental health problems associated with heavy social media use.
Unfortunately, the Gallup survey you cite mashes “suicidal thoughts” with much-rarer self-harm into one number and then miscites its own numbers; actual suicide attempts and self-harm should be shown separately. The CDC survey clearly shows teens who are NOT online are more at risk, by far, than online teens for suicide, self-harm, and other major dangers.
In contrast, no one provides evidence for social media harm beyond “correlation equals causation”. Instead, Twenge and Haidt correctly acknowledge the “correlation between social media” use and teens’ unhappiness is “small,” but then state a “positive correlation” is all that matters. Of course, small correlates don’t prove causation; they can be in reverse and cannot cause big effects or changes.
Then, presenting no evidence of causality – not even correlation – all sweepingly blame social media for the 2011-2021 teen suicide increase. When 55% of teens (including 62% of girls and 74% of LGBQs) report abuse by parents, and parent/grownup abuse is associated with 13 times more depression and infinitely more suicide and self-harm by teens than anything attributable to social media, we should clearly prioritize analyzing parents’ abuses and soaring drug-alcohol crises across the Anglo world. From 2011 through 2021, when teen depression and suicide rose, an appalling 722,000 US adults ages 30-59 died from overdoses and suicides, like the entire middle-aged population of Nebraska gone.
Yet, bizarrely, major commentators refuse to touch parental issues beyond Twenge’s astonishing insistence that we "don’t... want to know" the larger causes of teen depression. Do you see a Surgeon General’s alert or major analyses of parental abuse/addiction and teen depression/suicide? That dereliction abrogates science and fundamental responsibility for adolescents’ safety.
The evidence does not support Haidt's sweeping “no social media before 16,” or your support for “broad-stroke bans." Rather, the best evidence (with some inexcusable gaps) indicates that teens’ unhappiness and suicide are functions of larger social forces such as rising all-ages addiction, the pandemic, growing awareness of crises such as global injustices and climate change, and today’s more difficult adults, and that social media helps teens deal with that unhappiness.
I do not support “broad-stroke bans" -- extreme misreadings like this is why I'm apprehensive about further communication as I do not have the time to wade through long diatribes to find and correct such absurd accusations.
Your comments on the Gallup report make no sense to me at all.
I've already provided tons, and tons, and tons, of criticism of Haidt. I do not need to be lectured on the importance of parenting when I've been raising this issue for years. I really don't have time to waste.
Here, David, is what you wrote: “The potential harms include exposure of vulnerable kids to suicide and eating disorders indoctrination; massive public shaming or embarrassment that can last indefinitely; and sexual exploitation online by adult strangers — experiences likely to have severe effects on the mental health of kids. Furthermore, these particular risks can be considerably mitigated if minors have no access to most social media (broad-stroke bans). Statistical evidence also contradicts the notion of a balance at population level: key indicators of mental health among kids, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal conduct, are strongly associated with frequent social media use, so much so that heavy users have double or more the risks of moderate users.”
If you say that despite the above comments, you really don’t support such bans, recognize the need for troubled teens to have access to social media, and support “moderate” teen social media use, fine. But your claim that problems “can be seriously mitigated if minors had no access to social media” is flatly contradicted by CDC findings that teens who are not online suffer far more serious problems – suicide attempt, self-harm, rape, gun carrying, fights, school and dating violence, increased alcohol/drug use, poor exercise and sleep regimens, missing school due to fear, etc. – than either moderate or heavy social media users.
Although I don’t see how anyone can seriously comment on teen suicide levels and trends without prominently citing parental/grownup suicide, addiction, and abuses, my criticisms have been directed at Haidt, Twenge, the Surgeon General, and others who treat parental crises as taboo topics forbidden from discussion, not you. While there is no one-size-fits-every-family remedy, the best things parents in general can do to help their troubled teens are (a) don’t be abusive toward them, (b) attend to your own serious grownup issues, and (c) leave teens free to find connections both in the real and virtual worlds.
That passage points out flaws in an argument that concerns harms specific to active participation by kids on SM, such as use of SM for sexual exploitation. The fact that some argument against broad bans is flawed is NOT sufficient to justify broad bans.
What you left out was this CRUCIAL passage:
----
Note that my criticism is not meant as an argument that broad-stroke bans are necessary — there are various reasons why such legislation could be ineffective or harmful even if current social media use is overall substantially detrimental to most teens.
One concern is that preventing active participation on social media will not dent the massive amounts of time teens spend using it passively, such as by watching YouTube and Tik Tok videos. Another concern is that preventing illegitimate contacts with strangers may require banning kids from using all communications utilities, even Skype or Zoom or email. Yet another concern is that over-protection online could just embolden potential harms caused by over-protections of kids offline. As to enforcement, there are concerns that mandatory age verification would undermine free speech. And so on.
---
Note that my post is about SCIENCE so I do not impose my POLITICAL views (opposing MAV). I did declare my opposition to MAV in my Intro post when I admitted I'm a priori biased against Haidt due to my politics but I'm not going to yell about it in every post since again these are about science and not my politics.
I reread the entire post and still find your position confusing (broad-stroke bans might help, might not be good, might be feasible with controls, etc.). However, you resolve my confusion by stating that you do not support broad-stroke bans, so I removed that phrase from my post.
Yes, it is a very nuanced issue indeed. And all three of us at least can agree that broad stroke bans (a la Haidt, Twenge, DeSantis, et al.) are a bad idea that will most likely do more harm than good, and grossly infringe on the civil rights of both teens and adults. The problem calls for a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.
The real elephant in the room is that the *adults* are NOT alright. Anyone who thinks that arbitrary age gating and other such band-aids are on philosophically stable ground will soon find themselves eating crow. So if we really want to solve this all-ages collective action problem, how about we officially declare a state of emergency and quarantine all social media for "just two weeks". Also have a smartphone buyback program like they do for guns. I am only half-joking about that.
(As for phone-free schools, fine. And how about phone-free workplaces as well?)
Of course, those are not permanent solutions, only enough to break the spell that Big Tech has over We the People. We actually need to FIX the internet for good. We need to throw the proverbial One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom by passing comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages, and especially banning surveillance advertising. We need to audit the algorithms and make them public. We need to rein in the deliberately addictive features and "frictionless sharing" of these platforms. And of course, we need to go antitrust on Big Tech as well. Yesterday.
To the adults in the room: the life you save may very well be your own.
The point of *this* article is that censorship in science is inexcusable and corrosive. Until people oppose such censorship no matter what the issue is, the future of science will be in deep trouble.
That post has nothing to do with my criticism of the National Academies report or, really, with anything else that I ever wrote on Substack.
I did leave a comment under it:
===
This is not online time, it is screen time that includes watching TV and Netflix and playing video games etc.
The entire analysis depends on barely 1% of the sample (depressed teens with close to zero screen time). Associations with such tiny fractions of the sample are utterly unreliable on surveys since they can get overwhelmed by erroneous responses.
Even if these result were not just illusory, they would not present much of a challenge to Haidt. If a large portion of kids who are already severely depressed respond by withdrawing from teen activities, including entertainment (TV and games), then of course you'd expect such kids to be the most suicidal ones.
Of interest is that once controlled for depression, screen time seems irrelevant for suicide. Question is, was this true only during the pandemic?
BTW, people will start avoiding you if you go on insinuating that everyone who ever investigated screen time is an incompetent idiot while you are a towering genius who just resolved a complex matter with a single post.
There have always been tons of people who have argued that online access is important for isolated teens, and for many teens during the pandemic. I never saw Haidt or really anyone argue we should ban kids from using Zoom etc. The controversy is over kids spending hours a day on Tik-Tok etc.
David -- one other matter. I understand your speculation that depressed teens may withdraw from social media, but that is not the case: teens who never/rarely use social media report being LESS depressed and less sad, not more, compared to teens who regularly or frequently go online. The big puzzle is that those same teens who never/rarely go online, despite reporting being less depressed, also report MORE suicide attempts and more self-harm (as well as more risky behaviors in general), than do online teens. How do you (and Haidt, Twenge, and Murtha) explain that?
I said "severely depressed" -- not just having a symptom (sad for 2 weeks). This all is a 'mystery' only if you assume complete homogeneity; again, you can have lower rate of 'sadness' and yet higher rates of severe depression. And again, these are likely illusory associations based on errors in responses disproportionately affecting tiny (1%) populations.
Also, this is NOT the proper thread for this discussion! That should be under your own article.
I did respond on my Substack. I (generally) appreciate David Stein's posts, and whether the fact that teens who are NOT online are more at risk of suicide attempt and self-harm (and a dozen other serious dangers) than online teens is yet another warning sign that we should not rush ahead with the kinds of sweeping bans Jonathan Haidt and others are pushing. See https://mikemales.substack.com/p/how-social-media-access-prevents/comments#comment-53055134
I'm already on the record for opposing such broad bans and being adamantly against mandatory age verification. You need to take up this issue with other people instead of hijacking an article that is about censorship in science.
Until we oppose such censorship NO MATTER how convenient it may be to out views, the future of science is doomed.
Agreed 100% with what you just posted, David. I do think you need to rethink your blaming of social media for teen suicide, but otherwise, you are right that my dispute is overwhelmingly with others.
I do NOT blame social media for teen suicides. Of course *people* spreading suicidal indoctrination on social media is a problem, but that is true no matter what media is used. I blame the indoctrination, NOT the medium -- which does include SM.
In fact I think corporate news media coverage of girl suicides has a far greater harmful impact than the stuff produced on SM.
Very well-said, Mike. Indeed, rushing ahead with Haidt's or similar proposals is not a wise idea, lest those pushing for it end up with blood on their hands.
Thanks for reporting on this. There are no words to express how insane it all seems
Unfortunately, the Gallup survey you cite mashes “suicidal thoughts” with much-rarer self-harm into one number and then miscites its own numbers; actual suicide attempts and self-harm should be shown separately. The CDC survey clearly shows teens who are NOT online are more at risk, by far, than online teens for suicide, self-harm, and other major dangers.
In contrast, no one provides evidence for social media harm beyond “correlation equals causation”. Instead, Twenge and Haidt correctly acknowledge the “correlation between social media” use and teens’ unhappiness is “small,” but then state a “positive correlation” is all that matters. Of course, small correlates don’t prove causation; they can be in reverse and cannot cause big effects or changes.
Then, presenting no evidence of causality – not even correlation – all sweepingly blame social media for the 2011-2021 teen suicide increase. When 55% of teens (including 62% of girls and 74% of LGBQs) report abuse by parents, and parent/grownup abuse is associated with 13 times more depression and infinitely more suicide and self-harm by teens than anything attributable to social media, we should clearly prioritize analyzing parents’ abuses and soaring drug-alcohol crises across the Anglo world. From 2011 through 2021, when teen depression and suicide rose, an appalling 722,000 US adults ages 30-59 died from overdoses and suicides, like the entire middle-aged population of Nebraska gone.
Yet, bizarrely, major commentators refuse to touch parental issues beyond Twenge’s astonishing insistence that we "don’t... want to know" the larger causes of teen depression. Do you see a Surgeon General’s alert or major analyses of parental abuse/addiction and teen depression/suicide? That dereliction abrogates science and fundamental responsibility for adolescents’ safety.
The evidence does not support Haidt's sweeping “no social media before 16,” or your support for “broad-stroke bans." Rather, the best evidence (with some inexcusable gaps) indicates that teens’ unhappiness and suicide are functions of larger social forces such as rising all-ages addiction, the pandemic, growing awareness of crises such as global injustices and climate change, and today’s more difficult adults, and that social media helps teens deal with that unhappiness.
I do not support “broad-stroke bans" -- extreme misreadings like this is why I'm apprehensive about further communication as I do not have the time to wade through long diatribes to find and correct such absurd accusations.
Your comments on the Gallup report make no sense to me at all.
I've already provided tons, and tons, and tons, of criticism of Haidt. I do not need to be lectured on the importance of parenting when I've been raising this issue for years. I really don't have time to waste.
Here, David, is what you wrote: “The potential harms include exposure of vulnerable kids to suicide and eating disorders indoctrination; massive public shaming or embarrassment that can last indefinitely; and sexual exploitation online by adult strangers — experiences likely to have severe effects on the mental health of kids. Furthermore, these particular risks can be considerably mitigated if minors have no access to most social media (broad-stroke bans). Statistical evidence also contradicts the notion of a balance at population level: key indicators of mental health among kids, such as anxiety, depression, and suicidal conduct, are strongly associated with frequent social media use, so much so that heavy users have double or more the risks of moderate users.”
If you say that despite the above comments, you really don’t support such bans, recognize the need for troubled teens to have access to social media, and support “moderate” teen social media use, fine. But your claim that problems “can be seriously mitigated if minors had no access to social media” is flatly contradicted by CDC findings that teens who are not online suffer far more serious problems – suicide attempt, self-harm, rape, gun carrying, fights, school and dating violence, increased alcohol/drug use, poor exercise and sleep regimens, missing school due to fear, etc. – than either moderate or heavy social media users.
Although I don’t see how anyone can seriously comment on teen suicide levels and trends without prominently citing parental/grownup suicide, addiction, and abuses, my criticisms have been directed at Haidt, Twenge, the Surgeon General, and others who treat parental crises as taboo topics forbidden from discussion, not you. While there is no one-size-fits-every-family remedy, the best things parents in general can do to help their troubled teens are (a) don’t be abusive toward them, (b) attend to your own serious grownup issues, and (c) leave teens free to find connections both in the real and virtual worlds.
That passage points out flaws in an argument that concerns harms specific to active participation by kids on SM, such as use of SM for sexual exploitation. The fact that some argument against broad bans is flawed is NOT sufficient to justify broad bans.
What you left out was this CRUCIAL passage:
----
Note that my criticism is not meant as an argument that broad-stroke bans are necessary — there are various reasons why such legislation could be ineffective or harmful even if current social media use is overall substantially detrimental to most teens.
One concern is that preventing active participation on social media will not dent the massive amounts of time teens spend using it passively, such as by watching YouTube and Tik Tok videos. Another concern is that preventing illegitimate contacts with strangers may require banning kids from using all communications utilities, even Skype or Zoom or email. Yet another concern is that over-protection online could just embolden potential harms caused by over-protections of kids offline. As to enforcement, there are concerns that mandatory age verification would undermine free speech. And so on.
---
Note that my post is about SCIENCE so I do not impose my POLITICAL views (opposing MAV). I did declare my opposition to MAV in my Intro post when I admitted I'm a priori biased against Haidt due to my politics but I'm not going to yell about it in every post since again these are about science and not my politics.
I reread the entire post and still find your position confusing (broad-stroke bans might help, might not be good, might be feasible with controls, etc.). However, you resolve my confusion by stating that you do not support broad-stroke bans, so I removed that phrase from my post.
Yes, it is a very nuanced issue indeed. And all three of us at least can agree that broad stroke bans (a la Haidt, Twenge, DeSantis, et al.) are a bad idea that will most likely do more harm than good, and grossly infringe on the civil rights of both teens and adults. The problem calls for a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.
The real elephant in the room is that the *adults* are NOT alright. Anyone who thinks that arbitrary age gating and other such band-aids are on philosophically stable ground will soon find themselves eating crow. So if we really want to solve this all-ages collective action problem, how about we officially declare a state of emergency and quarantine all social media for "just two weeks". Also have a smartphone buyback program like they do for guns. I am only half-joking about that.
(As for phone-free schools, fine. And how about phone-free workplaces as well?)
Of course, those are not permanent solutions, only enough to break the spell that Big Tech has over We the People. We actually need to FIX the internet for good. We need to throw the proverbial One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom by passing comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages, and especially banning surveillance advertising. We need to audit the algorithms and make them public. We need to rein in the deliberately addictive features and "frictionless sharing" of these platforms. And of course, we need to go antitrust on Big Tech as well. Yesterday.
To the adults in the room: the life you save may very well be your own.
(Mic drop)
Comments like these should have appeared under my articles where I criticized bans on teen accounts (active participation) -- e.g. Senators on Social Media: The Screen Time Fallacy [https://shoresofacademia.substack.com/p/senators-on-social-media-the-screen].
The point of *this* article is that censorship in science is inexcusable and corrosive. Until people oppose such censorship no matter what the issue is, the future of science will be in deep trouble.
Fair enough. Thank you for clarifying. I shall put it in the comments of your other article now.
What is your response to Mike Males' latest counterargument?
https://mikemales.substack.com/p/how-social-media-access-prevents
That post has nothing to do with my criticism of the National Academies report or, really, with anything else that I ever wrote on Substack.
I did leave a comment under it:
===
This is not online time, it is screen time that includes watching TV and Netflix and playing video games etc.
The entire analysis depends on barely 1% of the sample (depressed teens with close to zero screen time). Associations with such tiny fractions of the sample are utterly unreliable on surveys since they can get overwhelmed by erroneous responses.
Even if these result were not just illusory, they would not present much of a challenge to Haidt. If a large portion of kids who are already severely depressed respond by withdrawing from teen activities, including entertainment (TV and games), then of course you'd expect such kids to be the most suicidal ones.
Of interest is that once controlled for depression, screen time seems irrelevant for suicide. Question is, was this true only during the pandemic?
BTW, people will start avoiding you if you go on insinuating that everyone who ever investigated screen time is an incompetent idiot while you are a towering genius who just resolved a complex matter with a single post.
There have always been tons of people who have argued that online access is important for isolated teens, and for many teens during the pandemic. I never saw Haidt or really anyone argue we should ban kids from using Zoom etc. The controversy is over kids spending hours a day on Tik-Tok etc.
===
David -- one other matter. I understand your speculation that depressed teens may withdraw from social media, but that is not the case: teens who never/rarely use social media report being LESS depressed and less sad, not more, compared to teens who regularly or frequently go online. The big puzzle is that those same teens who never/rarely go online, despite reporting being less depressed, also report MORE suicide attempts and more self-harm (as well as more risky behaviors in general), than do online teens. How do you (and Haidt, Twenge, and Murtha) explain that?
I said "severely depressed" -- not just having a symptom (sad for 2 weeks). This all is a 'mystery' only if you assume complete homogeneity; again, you can have lower rate of 'sadness' and yet higher rates of severe depression. And again, these are likely illusory associations based on errors in responses disproportionately affecting tiny (1%) populations.
Also, this is NOT the proper thread for this discussion! That should be under your own article.
Thanks for responding. Let's see how he responds to that.
I did respond on my Substack. I (generally) appreciate David Stein's posts, and whether the fact that teens who are NOT online are more at risk of suicide attempt and self-harm (and a dozen other serious dangers) than online teens is yet another warning sign that we should not rush ahead with the kinds of sweeping bans Jonathan Haidt and others are pushing. See https://mikemales.substack.com/p/how-social-media-access-prevents/comments#comment-53055134
I'm already on the record for opposing such broad bans and being adamantly against mandatory age verification. You need to take up this issue with other people instead of hijacking an article that is about censorship in science.
Until we oppose such censorship NO MATTER how convenient it may be to out views, the future of science is doomed.
Agreed 100% with what you just posted, David. I do think you need to rethink your blaming of social media for teen suicide, but otherwise, you are right that my dispute is overwhelmingly with others.
I do NOT blame social media for teen suicides. Of course *people* spreading suicidal indoctrination on social media is a problem, but that is true no matter what media is used. I blame the indoctrination, NOT the medium -- which does include SM.
In fact I think corporate news media coverage of girl suicides has a far greater harmful impact than the stuff produced on SM.
Very well-said, Mike. Indeed, rushing ahead with Haidt's or similar proposals is not a wise idea, lest those pushing for it end up with blood on their hands.