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I understand the prudence of "hold on there, pardner..." with respect to Haidt's extrapolations. However, there exists a preponderance of evidence for the power of social learning theory to explain social impact on behavior. It seems to me a very small leap to imagine that social learning occurs through social media (not just semantically), and not simply through direct observation of another child punching Bobo Clown. The recent riot in New York precipitated by some off-handed comment of a social media leader seems to be a good but unfortunate natural experiment example.

Thank God some people have resistance to social influence (although some have too much resistance), hence we have a stochastic dispersion of these phenomena. But my hunch is that some of this resistance for the influence of social media on some youth is some "good enough" parenting.

I greatly appreciate your work, which makes us all think more clearly.

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