The purpose of this Substack newsletter was always criticism -- not the defense of tech. This is why its focus may shift for a while away from 'enemies' of tech to 'defenders' of tech.
Agreed in upholding searching for the "wounded truth." Now, what is the basis for your numbers (or speculations?) holding social media responsible for one-fifth of the 150% increase, or 30% of the growth, in girls’ depression? Regression analyses of the few multi-factorial surveys/studies consistently find screen time’s association with girls’ depression is more like 1% to 2% (R=.122, R-squared=0.015, ABES). (You know this, but for readers who don’t, the R-value is simply a factor’s raw correlation, while the R-squared-value determines the factor’s explanatory and causal potential.)
Screen time, explaining just 1.5% of girls’ (and 1.1% of ‘tween girls’) depression in 2021 – after girls’ depression increased – could not possibly explain any significant proportion of the 2011-21 increase. It is highly unlikely from the evidence we have that “social media” is “inflicting terrible harm on teen girls.”
You are correct that childhood trauma is the major known associate. The ABES’s biggest associate with teen girls’ depression is parental abuse (R=.437, R-squared=.190), 13 times larger than screen time’s. Adding a few other significant factors boosts the multi-factor R-squared to around 0.25, which means we don’t know what causes 75% of teen depression.
More interesting is evidence of reverse association: troubled teens go online more, where some find personal contacts, groups, and services that help deter them from overt self-destructive acts. 65% of the girls most abused by parents/adults use screens 5+ hours a day, compared to just 46% of non-abused girls, and, of the 1,067 girls reporting both parental abuse and sadness, 14% of those with little/no screen time self-harmed and 41% attempted suicide, compared to 7% and 29%, respectively, of girls with 5+ hours/day of screen time.
Teens, like adults, experience both benefits and stresses accompanying online school, work, friends, family, news, etc., while those not online, or during vacations from screens, may report less stress and depression but are more isolated from personal connections that can "help them get through tough times." Pew and CDC find solid evidence for this.
Bluntly, those who blame social media decree, in effect, that no teens have any legitimate reason to be unhappy beyond being online too much, so unhappy teens (particularly girls) are just incompetent, fragile, mentally-disturbed victims of their own screen “addictions.” That ignores both complex survey evidence and the empirical fact that teen girls are vastly less self-destructive (girls age 12-17, 713 suicide and overdose deaths in 2022) than teen boys (1,434), their mothers (women age 42-47, 5,083), and fathers (men age 42-47, 13,864). Adults should be learning from girls’ coping strategies, not interfering with them.
As long as we nitpick incomplete information while letting the Big Interests dictate that huge issues like parental abuses/addictions and survey complexities are off the table, we will not be able to produce the objective, comprehensive statistical analyses on teen and adult depression and suicide we need.
Well-said, David. You are probably the most unbiased and objective voice there is in this whole entire debate. I am glad that you clarified that you do NOT support mandatory age verification or broad-stroke bans based on age. And neither do I. We need to FIX social media (and the internet more generally), as the Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends. At the same time, I am certainly no friend of Big Tech either.
Indeed, it is important NOT to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Social media (and smartphones) do indeed have a dark side, for all ages in fact. But they also have significant benefits as well.
Passing comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages, and especially banning the practice of surveillance advertising would basically throw the proverbial One Ring into the fire for good.
Agreed in upholding searching for the "wounded truth." Now, what is the basis for your numbers (or speculations?) holding social media responsible for one-fifth of the 150% increase, or 30% of the growth, in girls’ depression? Regression analyses of the few multi-factorial surveys/studies consistently find screen time’s association with girls’ depression is more like 1% to 2% (R=.122, R-squared=0.015, ABES). (You know this, but for readers who don’t, the R-value is simply a factor’s raw correlation, while the R-squared-value determines the factor’s explanatory and causal potential.)
Screen time, explaining just 1.5% of girls’ (and 1.1% of ‘tween girls’) depression in 2021 – after girls’ depression increased – could not possibly explain any significant proportion of the 2011-21 increase. It is highly unlikely from the evidence we have that “social media” is “inflicting terrible harm on teen girls.”
You are correct that childhood trauma is the major known associate. The ABES’s biggest associate with teen girls’ depression is parental abuse (R=.437, R-squared=.190), 13 times larger than screen time’s. Adding a few other significant factors boosts the multi-factor R-squared to around 0.25, which means we don’t know what causes 75% of teen depression.
More interesting is evidence of reverse association: troubled teens go online more, where some find personal contacts, groups, and services that help deter them from overt self-destructive acts. 65% of the girls most abused by parents/adults use screens 5+ hours a day, compared to just 46% of non-abused girls, and, of the 1,067 girls reporting both parental abuse and sadness, 14% of those with little/no screen time self-harmed and 41% attempted suicide, compared to 7% and 29%, respectively, of girls with 5+ hours/day of screen time.
Teens, like adults, experience both benefits and stresses accompanying online school, work, friends, family, news, etc., while those not online, or during vacations from screens, may report less stress and depression but are more isolated from personal connections that can "help them get through tough times." Pew and CDC find solid evidence for this.
Bluntly, those who blame social media decree, in effect, that no teens have any legitimate reason to be unhappy beyond being online too much, so unhappy teens (particularly girls) are just incompetent, fragile, mentally-disturbed victims of their own screen “addictions.” That ignores both complex survey evidence and the empirical fact that teen girls are vastly less self-destructive (girls age 12-17, 713 suicide and overdose deaths in 2022) than teen boys (1,434), their mothers (women age 42-47, 5,083), and fathers (men age 42-47, 13,864). Adults should be learning from girls’ coping strategies, not interfering with them.
As long as we nitpick incomplete information while letting the Big Interests dictate that huge issues like parental abuses/addictions and survey complexities are off the table, we will not be able to produce the objective, comprehensive statistical analyses on teen and adult depression and suicide we need.
ICYMI, David has made a few more posts since then as well. Please check them out and comment on them too. Thanks :)
Well-said as usual, Mike.
Bravo, David. Your work is very inspiring. Challenging us all.
Well-said, David. You are probably the most unbiased and objective voice there is in this whole entire debate. I am glad that you clarified that you do NOT support mandatory age verification or broad-stroke bans based on age. And neither do I. We need to FIX social media (and the internet more generally), as the Electronic Frontier Foundation recommends. At the same time, I am certainly no friend of Big Tech either.
Indeed, it is important NOT to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Social media (and smartphones) do indeed have a dark side, for all ages in fact. But they also have significant benefits as well.
Passing comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages, and especially banning the practice of surveillance advertising would basically throw the proverbial One Ring into the fire for good.
https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms
Big Tech can go EFF off!