The report by the Committee on the Impact of Social Media on Adolescent Health uses factors like 'fun' and 'community' to offset harms such as depression, suicide, and sexual abuse.
How do you explain the CDC's 2021 survey numbers clearly showing teens who use social media heavily (4+ hours per day) are 29% LESS likely to attempt suicide, and 31% LESS likely to be injured in a suicide attempt, than teens who use social media sparingly (<1 hour per day) or not at all?
Standard multivariate analysis of the CDC survey shows teens who suffer the most violent and/or emotional abuses by parents/household adults are 6 times more likely to be depressed, 7 times more likely to be bullied (at much lower levels) online or at school, and 25 times more likely to attempt suicide than non-abused teens. Parent-abused LGBQ teens who use social media are 43% LESS likely to attempt suicide than LGBQ teens who rarely or never use social media.
Social media use is associated with a trivial 1% of teens’ depression (probably a reverse correlation, since depressed teens go online much more to get help), while parental abuses are associated with 13 times more teenage depression. Imagine if the CDC added survey questions on parents’ drug/alcohol abuse, sexual abuses, mental health troubles, and suicidal behaviors.
I invite those who find these points unbelievable to download and analyze the CDC survey yourselves, as well as the Pew survey – something almost no one seems to have done. The large majority of teens benefit from social media use, and the small fraction with problems also suffer serious troubles in other venues. Should we ban teens from church, Boy Scouts, school, athletics, youth programs, being with parents and adult relatives, etc., all associated with far more abuse and mental health damage than anything attributable to social media?
Well-said, Mike. Baby, meet bathwater, basically. And forest, meet trees. Game, set, match. I already know how Jon Haidt would respond to that, but let's see what Dave has to say.
Spoiler alert: both will likely answer some flavor of, it's the unholy "public health" trinity of "collective action problem", "prevention paradox", and "precautionary principle". Throw in "no safe level of exposure" and "non-monotonic dose response curve", and you get BINGO.
Thanks much. I did post a comment on this huge mystery in the CDC survey, one that pivotally addresses the issue of how teens use the internet with specific regard to suicide, directy to Dr. Haidt's substack, though it is buried:
I would like to hear explanations as to how the same 7,000 teens answering the same survey can report going online a lot (5+ hours per day) and being more depressed and more inclined to suicidal thoughts and planning, yet far LESS likely to actually attempt suicide or be hospitalized from a serious suicide attempt, compared to teens who go online rarely (<1 hour a day) or not at all. Teens who are rarely online are MUCH more likely to actually and seriously attempt suicide than teens who are regularly online. Something major intervenes to deter even depressed teens who spend a lot of time online from actually going on to attempt suicide, something that does not occur for teens who are not online. The Pew study finds teens' online contacts are a major help. But we clearly need closer analysis of the CDC and Pew surveys and attention to contradictions like this that offer volumes on how teens actually use social media.
Pro-corporate bias aside, I still think that balance is important to this debate. The illberal hysteria by the zealots needs to be countered by something, after all.
I must say I am a bit disappointed in you lately, David. Until recently, you were a great corrective and foil to Jon Haidt, and provided excellent criticism, but now you seem to be converging towards his POV. Thus on Substack, Mike Males (and myself) remains the lone dissenter voice in the ever-growing wilderness.
Broad stroke bans are NOT the answer. Not only do they throw out the baby with the bathwater, but they are also far too downstream to actually solve any problem. What we need is the Electronic Frontier Foundation's idea of Privacy First. That is, comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages that bans surveillance advertising, before we even consider doing anything more heavy-handed. That is, force Big Tech to go on the DuckDuckGo model, which will disincentivize nearly all of their dark side.
(I am clearly NO friend of Big Tech by any stretch of the imagination, even if occasionally a proverbial stopped clock may be right twice a day. And Big Tech would HATE with the EFF proposes, as that would throw their proverbial One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom for good.)
Also, the only way to enforce broad stroke bans (with or without exceptions) for young people under some arbitrary age (and literally any age limit is arbitrary for something like this) would be mandatory age verification. That opens up a major can of worms to say the least, for ALL ages, in terms of privacy, cybersecurity, and the free and open internet as we knew it. That is, there does not currently exist any proven technology that would be both effective and also secure and private enough at the same time, and that would not also infringe on the rights of the general population of all ages.
How do you explain the CDC's 2021 survey numbers clearly showing teens who use social media heavily (4+ hours per day) are 29% LESS likely to attempt suicide, and 31% LESS likely to be injured in a suicide attempt, than teens who use social media sparingly (<1 hour per day) or not at all?
Standard multivariate analysis of the CDC survey shows teens who suffer the most violent and/or emotional abuses by parents/household adults are 6 times more likely to be depressed, 7 times more likely to be bullied (at much lower levels) online or at school, and 25 times more likely to attempt suicide than non-abused teens. Parent-abused LGBQ teens who use social media are 43% LESS likely to attempt suicide than LGBQ teens who rarely or never use social media.
Social media use is associated with a trivial 1% of teens’ depression (probably a reverse correlation, since depressed teens go online much more to get help), while parental abuses are associated with 13 times more teenage depression. Imagine if the CDC added survey questions on parents’ drug/alcohol abuse, sexual abuses, mental health troubles, and suicidal behaviors.
I invite those who find these points unbelievable to download and analyze the CDC survey yourselves, as well as the Pew survey – something almost no one seems to have done. The large majority of teens benefit from social media use, and the small fraction with problems also suffer serious troubles in other venues. Should we ban teens from church, Boy Scouts, school, athletics, youth programs, being with parents and adult relatives, etc., all associated with far more abuse and mental health damage than anything attributable to social media?
Well-said, Mike. Baby, meet bathwater, basically. And forest, meet trees. Game, set, match. I already know how Jon Haidt would respond to that, but let's see what Dave has to say.
Spoiler alert: both will likely answer some flavor of, it's the unholy "public health" trinity of "collective action problem", "prevention paradox", and "precautionary principle". Throw in "no safe level of exposure" and "non-monotonic dose response curve", and you get BINGO.
Thanks much. I did post a comment on this huge mystery in the CDC survey, one that pivotally addresses the issue of how teens use the internet with specific regard to suicide, directy to Dr. Haidt's substack, though it is buried:
https://www.afterbabel.com/p/international-crisis-europe/comments
I would like to hear explanations as to how the same 7,000 teens answering the same survey can report going online a lot (5+ hours per day) and being more depressed and more inclined to suicidal thoughts and planning, yet far LESS likely to actually attempt suicide or be hospitalized from a serious suicide attempt, compared to teens who go online rarely (<1 hour a day) or not at all. Teens who are rarely online are MUCH more likely to actually and seriously attempt suicide than teens who are regularly online. Something major intervenes to deter even depressed teens who spend a lot of time online from actually going on to attempt suicide, something that does not occur for teens who are not online. The Pew study finds teens' online contacts are a major help. But we clearly need closer analysis of the CDC and Pew surveys and attention to contradictions like this that offer volumes on how teens actually use social media.
I also posted the full table on my substack
A major mystery on teens, suicide, and social media
CDC survey indicates banning teens from social media risks INCREASING teen suicide rates
MAR 4, 2024
https://substack.com/home/post/p-142303583?source=queue
Thanks, I shall check it out.
Well-said as usual, Mike!
Pro-corporate bias aside, I still think that balance is important to this debate. The illberal hysteria by the zealots needs to be countered by something, after all.
I must say I am a bit disappointed in you lately, David. Until recently, you were a great corrective and foil to Jon Haidt, and provided excellent criticism, but now you seem to be converging towards his POV. Thus on Substack, Mike Males (and myself) remains the lone dissenter voice in the ever-growing wilderness.
Broad stroke bans are NOT the answer. Not only do they throw out the baby with the bathwater, but they are also far too downstream to actually solve any problem. What we need is the Electronic Frontier Foundation's idea of Privacy First. That is, comprehensive data privacy legislation for all ages that bans surveillance advertising, before we even consider doing anything more heavy-handed. That is, force Big Tech to go on the DuckDuckGo model, which will disincentivize nearly all of their dark side.
(I am clearly NO friend of Big Tech by any stretch of the imagination, even if occasionally a proverbial stopped clock may be right twice a day. And Big Tech would HATE with the EFF proposes, as that would throw their proverbial One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom for good.)
Big Tech can go EFF off!
Also, the only way to enforce broad stroke bans (with or without exceptions) for young people under some arbitrary age (and literally any age limit is arbitrary for something like this) would be mandatory age verification. That opens up a major can of worms to say the least, for ALL ages, in terms of privacy, cybersecurity, and the free and open internet as we knew it. That is, there does not currently exist any proven technology that would be both effective and also secure and private enough at the same time, and that would not also infringe on the rights of the general population of all ages.
Food for thought:
https://www.eff.org/wp/privacy-first-better-way-address-online-harms