The primary issue here, in my estimation, is that we are focusing on a subset of mental health issues as a measure for the effects of high dopamine hit childhoods. The dramatic claim of "rewiring" might be overly dramatic, but part of the childhood IS wiring the brain to adapt to what is encountered. I'm not sure why diagnosable mental health disorders would be presumed the best way to reject the null hypothesis besides the fact that sociological science is hard and/or expensive to dig deeper. An enchanted childhood followed by a delayed or disillusioned adulthood would be, to me, the more meaningful measure, but still unimaginably difficult to tease out cause and effect. Besides statistics isn't science when are reasoning under uncertainty. It's worth approaching with statistics ALSO, but it should have neither first nor last word.
@@SabineHossenfelder to what end would this be a relevant consideration? Is the default "inaction" until science makes a fine-tuned causal case? Are we to await someone "brave" enough to call for the longitudinal study of dopamine levels in children? Or is there perhaps sufficient research on what addiction looks like in adults to conclude that the behaviors of children with similar symptoms may be "addicted" in a way that is non-trivial, even if we find out later that it wasn't dopaminergic? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" does not combine well with "wait for longitudinal statisticsl science to tell you if something is broken" and the attitude in industry to "move fast and break things."
I agree, I'd be interested in studies of whether children were happier (self-reported) depending on whether they use social media or not. If it is left until it gets to a diagnosable disorder it is a bit late. Zukerberg was playing to the naive scientism of the audience - that the lack of a study means it isn't happening or the claim can be summarily dismissed. The same trick is played in climate "skepticism" as well ("no statistically significant warming since [cherry picked start date]"). But that is scientism, not science.
@@SabineHossenfelder I strongly disagree with you on this. As someone who teaches kids, teenagers and adults I can tell you 99% of the time that anytime you put a cell phone in the mix that has access to social media it’s usually Game Over. Mark Zuckerberg is amongst the the top 20 richest men on the planet. He is a man whose reach in power and money is far greater than one can imagine. I see everyday a difference in behavior with and without a social media influence. The focus is stripped away, the isolation is amplified. It’s not a matter of storytelling. For the past 6 months Biden and Harris were claiming that the economy was great and everyone was doing fine. They had statistics, leading expert, all claim that all was well. But everyone felt diffrent because they know what they were experiencing. That’s one of the reason why Biden/Harris loss to Trump. Now what surprised me the most about this video is how it contradicts the message you have been pushing lately . You did a whole Series of Claiming that Science was compromised and gone down the toilet. But somehow, in this instance, science is right and on the side of a Technocratic Oligarch who would sale 100s of millions of of peoples personal information for a few million bucks. I love your content by the way. Just had to call you out on this one.
An industry doesn't spend millions or more to understand how to use it's tools to exploit or manipulate thinking because it fails. I learned to hate commercials in the 70's - nothing has changed except the format.
The spent that money to make it effective at engaging people. Worsening their mental health was never the goal. Whether that's happening as a side effect is what science is meant to find out, which is what this video covered.
Yes but you can't hate Murraymints Murraymints too good to hurry mints the 1st advert I heard about in 1955 because a Santa Claus sings it according to Peter Hawkins (I was too little and we couldn't afford a Telly, dirt poor).
Commercials were the worst! Jumping for the mute button on every ad break was routine. I almost miss free-to-air TV. :D But thank goodness for the modern post-ad world!
i don't think the studies mentioned are focusing on the 'right' mental health. Social media might not make you crazy, anxious, or give you a short attention span. But when you see SO MANY people prioritizing their phone OVER people. I would say THAT is damaging their mental health. We've all seen the group of young adults at a bar or restaurant, not talking to each other, but all looking at their phones. OR people choosing to look at their phones OVER THEIR OWN SAFETY while driving a car.
Yup. It's the same old thing, scientists not seeing the forest through the trees, or however the saying goes. I'm only 53 and the difference is glaring to me. Most of the problem is in the definition of "health".
...and comic books were bad for children's mental heath ...and rock music was bad for children's mental heath ...and Dungeons and Dragons was bad for children's mental heath ...and video games were bad for children's mental heath _Hint: None of them were bad children's mental heath. Every so often adults realize their children are not like them and without proof try to invent some external malevolent force to explain it._ You know what magnifies stress? The feeling that you are helpless to do anything about it. Personally I think today's parents have coddled their children so much, that their kids haven't learned the tools to deal with adversity. It's become a learned helplessness, where everything that goes wrong in their life must be the result of external forces beyond their control. The best kids think they can do is complain and hope somebody fixes their problems for them... and that feeling of helplessness is very stressful. Btw, there is no spike in the car accident death rate to coincide with the rise in social media use.
@@KenMathis1 that's a lot of words to be wrong. No one ever sat in a restaurant with group of friends and put on headphones and played rock music to tune them out. No one ever read a comic book while driving (and yes, cell phone cause a lot of car accidents). And video games to ruin lives.. many a widow from the xbox.
Psychedelics are just an exceptional mental health breakthrough. It's quite fascinating how effective they are against depression and anxiety. Saved my life.
Can you help with the reliable source I would really appreciate it. Many people talk about mushrooms and psychedelics but nobody talks about where to get them. Very hard to get a reliable source here in Australia. Really need!
Steve_porss1 is the man, l share similar experiences with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and addiction. Psilocybin mushrooms have been a game-changer for me, aiding greatly in my recovery and sobriety."
I wish those were more easily accessible where I live. Microdosing was my next step for my husband. He's 59 & dealing with lots of mental health challenges, possible CTE & a TBI that put him in a coma for 8 days. Unfortunately, I had to get a TPO since he's 6'6, over 300 pounds, and showing violent behavior, constantly talking about harming others. He's aggressive. To anyone reading this, if you're familiar with BPD, is it common to have an obsession with violence?
I’m sorry but I reject the premise of this entire video… this is inappropriately comparing the real world general impact to a child’s social development, wellbeing , and ability to deal with future events with the very specific term of “mental illness”. Don’t be tricked into Zuckerberg’s very carefully chosen phrasing. There have been no studies whether drinking small amounts of petrol 10 times a day causes causes stomach cancer either. It hasn’t been proven, but it’s still a good idea not to do it. The point of the claim is that social media disrupts normal human behavior. I think it’s ridiculous that this isn’t seen as completely self evident. Of course it has a significant impact. Are humans resilient enough to be able to successfully continue to exist while being exposed to this additional continual stimulus? Yes. Should they? Is it a good idea? That is the real question. To pretend that we must answer only the most extreme and limited question of “does it directly CAUSE mental illness” in order to render judgment and take action, is disingenuous self righteous academic snobbery.
I was thinking along very similar lines. Often these studies can be very biased in some way simply by not defining their terms correctly, straw manning, etc. As they say, there are lies, d***** lies, and statistics.
There is no arguing that it consumes a large percentage of available time. There is also no arguing that time spent on social media is time not spent improving ones physical health nor intelligence. The kids are not running around in the park, going to the gym, or doing their homework. These time wasters have been around in various forms for generations, but I can't imagine that the shear volume of wasted time hasn't drastically increased because of the near constant availability of social media. And we do have a very statistically significant obesity epidemic. And we have a very statistically significant drop in average test scores. Mental health is harder to measure, but do we even need to prove a decline in mental health before recognizing the harm of social media when we already have these other issues?
The obesity has to do with labour saving white goods. Before the washing machine, you had to have a copper basin with a fireplace under it, you had to hand-wring or roller-wring your clothes dry, peg them up, iron them. You had to walk to the nearest corner store, or grocer. You caught the news by swapping gossip in the marketplace, more walking. If you were lucky, you read a newspaper. You socialised in the local Park. Your labour chopped wood, hammered nails, stacked boxes, packed goods, washed dishes, chopped vegetables, planted them, gathered resources, cared for your elderly, and the young. In short, we have become more inactive on several fronts, not just socialisation mediated immediacy.
@@santyclause8034 In 1980, childhood obesity rate was 5%. Today it is above 20%. In the 80's we did not chop wood to heat our house, go to the river to wash our clothes, walk to the store, or get our news by hunting down the town crier. What has changed is being entertained by pixels instead of the real world. Social media being the latest and most addictive iteration.
Perhaps? My favorite author David Feintuch - he is the master of the age - my sons loved me reading it to them in childhood. I introduced more than a few friends who equally love the books. I set up on Book club on Facebook - there are only a dozen or so members, who from around the globe. We would never have been able to share our joy of this book otherwise.
I'm seeing "not enough evidence", not "strong evidence against". I recall similar debates around the harms of secondhand smoke. The US did legislate against that before there were compelling studies, and they turned out to be right. Any phenomenon affecting childhood needs longitudinal studies to truly understand its effect. Let's be real, those are 15 years away.
Very well said. Plus Nature screwed up with this: Note: in the USA there has been a large increase in the suicide rate for young people: www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db464.htm
Effects of social media do not come directly from the screen, they come from the systemic change in the social environment of teen when their communication migrates to Snap, Insta, Tiktok and the like. Participation becomes almost mandatory while the platforms change the dynamics and perception of friendships, relationships, your body, etc. Getting causal evidence of all this is difficult, one way or another. There is no real counterfactual and experimental manipulations are hard on small scale.
The parents can decide for their kids if they don't want to wait 15 years to find out. I'd support government and corporate measures to help aid parental supervision, but not to replace it.
@@RayG817 That is kind of a slippery slope... We do perceive the impacts of the introduction of new technologies in social structures way before science can came up with reliable experiments to assess these impacts excluding all the other variables. Should we not talk about our perception until a scinetifical consensus has been reached? I get it that one should not publish a paper without data to back it up, but writting a book to discuss your point of view seems fair game to me (btw, there is clearly a huge impact in the children well being to be exposed to social media, I wouldnt go as far as saying that it is re-writing children's brains, but it is certainly detrimental to the children).
I will accept (for now) your challenge that there are not studies demonstrating a strong causal relation between social media and mental health. But the book does make a strong case for a correlation that needs to be looked at. And in the end, I do not see how the recommendations he makes are harmful - he advocates good, healthy things - things that certainly at the anecdotal level appear to need reinvigorating (playing outside, building trust and confidence, etc)
The problem with social media is that the majority of people aren’t logical, rational, or emotionally intelligent enough to use it responsibly. The ones who fall victim to it (such as those complaining of fake news or falling prey to scams) are already at high risk to scams or manipulation. Preying on the fears and anxieties of people has never been more effective due to the speed and ease with which they spread
I don't know to what extent social media causes mental health issues, but it does prey on them and exacerbate them, training you to pull out your phone and scroll every time you feel bad. In my experience as a young person (storytelling, whatever), this has wasted many thousands of hours of my life and trained me to avoid difficult things for cheap dopamine. It feels horrible, but you keep doing it. It's an addiction. I have missed out on many beautiful things in life because of it. I do agree though that the issue is how social media is designed, rather than the technology of social media itself. It doesn't have to be addictive, but it's designed that way, and the companies behind it are too huge to be regulated.
I just gave you a like and this comment for your cheap dopamine hit. I hope it meets expectations and you are able to move on 🤭 (I'm trolling. I agree with you. Thanks for the reminder.)
From what I have experienced in the real world, the constant scrolling of tiktoks or reels seems to be significantly decreasing the attention span of kids. I hold my hands up at not having done any statistical analysis of this or anything, but I remember that a group of kids I was teaching at a summer camp place with no wifi had downloaded thousands of tiktoks onto their phones to watch, as they couldn't go one week without it. I find this very concerning.
Yes, I recall just how much of my childhood was spent being bored. Sitting for hours waiting to see a doctor. Sitting for hours waiting for a haircut. Standing for hours in shops while my mum looked at clothes. Dull tedium, but it gave you the ability to (a) Think and (b) Do nothing for hours at a time. And I guess as someone who started using computers in 1981 when I got a ZX81 and have pretty much sat looking at screens pretty much every day, or the vast majority of days since that date, I'd suggest the big difference is that this social media is a distraction from that. It's like I'd sit for hours writing code and much of that time you'd be sat scratching your chin and thinking about whatever code you were writing and that's kind of tedious. Usually what happens is, you figure it out, write the code, it works and you feel a sense of achievement. That's what is rewarding about writing code you get lots of little 'wins' as you go along. But today it's so tempting to immediately relieve that tedium of struggling with something by being distracted by something else. You check your messages, start watching youtube etc, and when you get onto youtube shorts they are really just nothing but you're scrolling down and down. So outwardly it appears the same behaviour - "You sit for hours every day staring at a screen too!" - but it's a very different thing. And I have the capacity because of my childhood to leave the phone or to just sit for 2 or 3 hours waiting for something without a phone or anything. I think it's much harder for people who have never experienced not having a smartphone.
@@michael1 Exactly the same experience but with an MSX1 instead of a ZX81 (long live the Z80 CPU that got discontinued this year, btw). I also find very disturbing that the effects of microwave radiation on the CNS are constantly overlooked when considering these issues.
@@squeakypistonproductions2228 Dirty Genes by ben lynch is a good little book on human detox pathways, an eye opener for learning how to self protect healthy longevity. American processed food supply drives nuerotransmitter and thyroid problems. Processed foods destroy gut integrity. Hello autoimmune leaky gut and nuerotransmitter cray cray which quickly becomes insulin/histamine resistance from all the SUGAR in our food. Unchecked, this becomes Parkinsonism as early as 30's and 40's. Remember Michael J Fox? EAT real wholefoods and watch sugar intake. Sugar is a drug 7x more addictive than cocaine, big food knows and has proprietary 'bliss points' to hook you on products, FDA could care less. 😢
Search the dirty super 7 online to see what resonates. If they all do... you have serious health work to do BEFORE you take metabolic damage. See a functional med endocrinologist. NOT a pharma MD. Pharma is symptom suppression therapy, great in the ER but useless for inflammatory disease. ALL disease drives deadly inflammation.
I don’t have kids + I’ve not read one syllable of any of the research you’ve mentioned. But I have to believe it bears repeating a fundamental of research + fact-based assessment: “these conclusions are the best work based on what we know at this very moment, the data + its limitations + biases at this very moment in a very new field of human experience + information consumption”. I agree that social media, like a pistol or a Big Mac is not inherently bad or good on its own. I’d like us to continue to push the boundaries + rigor of data analysis in our fact free world to keep learning. You’ve certainly been my best teacher of that of the quantum world
@@anatolytsinker5317 I don't have kids because my Father hated me, and I did not want to propagate that subliminal training. I was more than happy to terminate that branch of the Brown family. My wife also had the same experience. We married having discussed early on that there will be no children. Plus I got to retire REAL early.
I'll take the experience of my family and other families I know in the real world over the artificial reality of academic stats reports any day. There are tons of ways stats can be manipulated, suppressed or fabricated either by design, bias, or badly collected data in the first place, especially in the realm of psychology (which isn't even a science in the traditional sense as it doesn't conform to quantitative measurement). We were lied to en masse about the dangers of sugar, smoking, thalidomide, among other things. And many issues are left out of stat collecting all together as the results don't conform with the agendas of those who fund scientific studies. One of the problems I've been seeing with kids (actual kids I've interacted with as opposed to hearsay) is that social media is massively encouraging quick fix, instant stimulation content and discouraging engagement with more intellectually challenging formats such as documentaries, books and movies. Actually, we're seeing this a lot with adults as well - just look at the cmmon adult preoccupation with superhero movies, a realm that used to be appropriately grouped in with kids' cartoons.
Yes, people are far too quick to trust "The science", that could very easily be wrong or paid off, over what they see right in front of them. I have seen kids with Ipads and constant internet access since age 3 and they are functionally retarded. It's really sad because you know they could be interesting, smart, and active little kids if they were not glued to a screen 12 hours a day. And if the Ipad went away maybe they could still be those kids, but they will be years behind kids who never wasted that much time online.
Yeah speaking of personal experiences, I deleted all social media basically almost a year ago at this point, and my mental health substantially improved since then. Because all it really ever showed me was about stuff related to how screwed up the world currently is. And honestly I am embarrassed to admit that I didn't exactly make the job hard for the algorithms, to pick up on the fact that such content affected me in such a manner lol. That being said, while I can agree with you at least purely from the objective viewpoint, simply about that "There literally currently are, at least no widely popular and comprehensive research papers highlighting such things" which would make sense given how almost everything I've heard regarding this stuff has been personal experiences and anecdotes, but part of me also feels like when zuckerberg said that, he didn't exactly have the most altruistic intentions or desire to point out such simple truths in mind lol. One thing is for certain though, there ABSOLUTELY needs to be significant, extensive research put into this, that doesn't lean too heavily on either side, even if my personal biases kind of wish to see social media crash and burn as a whole. But this is personally what I feel / see about it all though.
It's funny, I've had the opposite experience. I used to avoid social media as a kid like the plague, everyone used it, and I thought it was stupid. This was back during the MySpace era, when Facebook was just released and most people still used MySpace. When I finally started using social media as an adult, I found that so many of my world views, thoughts, and problems became explainable. I was able to relate with people more, and understand others where-as before I just didn't get people.
I've spent decades as a volunteer with people who have problems from in jails, treatment centers, etc. What I have observed is that it is becoming more difficult to talk face-to-face with people to discuss fears, PTSD issues, etc. There's also watching so many drivers looking at phones instead of outside their vehicles. I enjoy the outside world which is why I don't pay much attention to social media. I revel in the personal interaction with people and nature.
I live in Japan. No one stares at a phone except on the boring Metro. Unfortunately its impractical to navigate the Tokyo Metro without a smart phone. I wish I could get rid of the damned thing. It's addictive.
Good points. The states that have passed laws against using cell phones while driving did so for a demonstrable, quantifiable reason... cell phone usage--like driving while intxociated--causes traffic accidents and fatalities. Addictive social media literally causes deaths. Arguing against this, or pretending that this isn't settled science, is a serious disservice to the public.
22 and I agree that short form content seems parricularly problematic. I was on Tumblr and Instagram in the old school days of social contagions (IYKYK) and that felt like a different issue to the one I think short-form content poses. Something about the rapid nature of consumption and feedback makes these short-form algorightms feel particularly hazardous in my estimation.
I first 'tried' short form content via UA-cam shorts or whatever, and 3 hours later after 'waking up' from a shorts-a-thon realized, hell no no no no no. A few times a year as a 'treat' at most :-p
Thanks for sticking your head above the parapet. I am not a psychologist but this seems like a reason to stop and think about whether social media is as dangerous as we've all been told.
That is literally not the case here. The whole point of the original article was to cite numerous scientific sources debunking this claim. There simply are no facts backing up the idea that social media is causing childhood depression. The most that can be shown is that depressed children tend to use social media more, but that's like saying people tend to use umbrellas when it rains. That does not mean umbrellas cause it to rain.
@@KenMathis1 a simple alternative to a claim that nothing proves an assumption true is a claim that the proof has yet to be found or even discussed. To say that I don't know of a solution does not prove that one does not exist. That should be a basic component of a paper making the claim that a solution does exist. The search for other sources to prove the original claim is just an effort to find...other solutions to prove the original claim. Duplicating the original work should be sufficient. It then becomes a question of the validity of the original work. You can find 20 papers that "prove" that an original paper is wrong, or false. What does that do other than inspire more doubt? Do any of those papers convincingly prove that the original paper is wrong? Then why would one need 20 different papers to prove that conclusively? That would just be "science by numbers". 500 papers would not prove a theory wrong if they all say the same thing and make the same mistakes. Proof or disproof, what matters is logical integrity.
Glad you've seen that data contradicts your prior world view and therefore discounted the data. You've opted for the literal opposite of science. Strange you spend time listening to a science communicator while dismissing science.
@@tHebUm18 ...skepticism is not immune to skepticism... after all, what is the difference between scientific fact and science-fiction? Science-fiction is a view into a possible future in which a viewpoint on scientific knowledge is true. It reinforces the odds of such a viewpoint becoming actual scientific fact. Calling it science-fiction doesn't mean that it's unrealistic. Just unrealized. We do not grow as scientific beings by dismissing the possible simply because it isn't concrete yet. How does one imprison the mind other than by declaring that everything is known and there is no hope for change from what is known?
@@touristguy87 * There is no evidence proving claim that social media causes depression * There is ample evidence showing social media does not cause depression. Even the few studies showing a link between the two _(note a link is not causation),_ only show it as a small or inconsistent effect. On the other hand, the best argument you could come up with to support your _blind hope_ that social media causes depression is that there is too much evidence proving you wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The reality is likely similar to peanut allergies. The core issue is the heightened susceptibility of the person, not the external thing that triggers it, and the vast majority can use that thing just fine. Btw the burden of proof is on those advancing a new claim, not in disproving it. Just because there are no studies disproving that bad breathed hippos secretly control the world's supply of pencils doesn't mean anyone has to take such a claim seriously. Likewise, just because for some reason you want to believe social media causes depression in the general public doesn't mean anyone has to take you seriously until you can prove it... and explain away all the existing evidence showing that it does not.
I’ve been a high school teacher for 35 years so I started well before social media was a thing. Teenagers today spend most of their time on social media; at lunch, they stand around in groups, absorbed in their phones, not even talking to each other, except to share images. But the social media companies are very, very wealthy and influential, much like the tobacco companies of old. It will take many many years for researchers to come up with a proof/measurement of any harm that social media is causing. And of course they’ll be hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on ‘researchers’ who will defend social media for the money, just like with big tobacco. Rather than waiting decades before the harm is discovered/admitted/accepted, why don’t we curtail the use of social media now until we’ve proved it safe? If not, all we’re working towards is ‘ closing the barn door after the horses have escaped’ scenario. I love your podcast and I follow it daily to keep up with the news in science, but this is one of the rare times you’ve wandered out of your area of expertise.
Kids mental health is also affected by absentee parenting and schoolyard bullying. What about the adverse effects of putting kids under too much academic pressure from a young age to turn them into ‘successful adults’? What about toxic parenting or home environments. All of those factors have profound affects on children’s mental health too. Why not talk about those issues too?
School yard bullying today doesn't stop when you go home for the day if you have social media. It's not the only factor, but you don't need a study to acknowledge bullying has extended effects when intruding into the last few remaining safe spaces. That makes SM unique.
@sabinehossenfelder, respectfully, your portrayal of Haidt’s argument feels as if his focus was entirely entirely on social media, which it was not in the book. Social media certainly has a focus at times, but he walks through multiple other influences that have lead to the reality our kids face today and makes the argument that time spent in isolation staring at screens during key developmental phased adolescence is the root cause. Social media just one contributing aspect. Regardless, the observed behaviors of our kids are real and better understanding the root cause is worth the scrutiny. I look forward to reading through the sources you referenced. Cheers to you.
As a rather geeky child I had all sorts of problems with finding friends, trying to avoid the bullies, wondering if people liked me, struggling with my looks, would I ever have a girlfriend, am I wearing the right clothes and a myriad of other things. Some of which I hung onto into early adulthood, others have disappeared and this was in the 1960's. I don't think I had mental health issues, I had growing up issues. The same issues now true for many kids, just amplified on a different medium. Social media has exposed children to adult content and problems before their ready to deal with them, which needs attention. But, it is an easy target for pundits to talk about Social media damaging children's mental health as it sounds reasonable, but sounding reasonable isn't the same as proof that it's actually happening.
So you don't believe in the increase rates of mental health related drug prescriptions, or suicides, or self reported rates of loneliness? You honestly believe everything is just a coincidence and has nothing to do with the significant changes in human interaction over the past 15 years? What correlation between what statistics would convince you? These number crunchers are just taking a pay check. You can say anything with statistics, specifically in this context trying to draw conclusions about differemt trends in a population
I remember reading a while ago about a debate concerning social media focusing on highlighting posts that are more likely to generate a response. Here we are with what would be a post that social media isn’t generating the responses people expect. That is not getting the attention it deserves. This seems unsurprising to me.
You know what destroyed my mental health when I was a teenager? Finding a lunch table where I was welcome. Socializing as a kid is traumatizing whether it's online or off. Cutting off a 15-year-old from social media is an extreme position when there's no evidence of harm. Kids have social lives on the internet, just as they do at lunch, on the playground, or at a party. But people are still trying to ban video games even though the median gamer is something like 40 years old now.
@@jpt3640 My body and brain has many choices of addiction, substances, such as the five major food groups: sugar, salt, fat, alcohol and caffeine, behaviors, such as but not limited to: exercise, gambling, reading, watching TV, listening to radio, working, sex. This gaming addiction is a real thing, as is media addiction, social or video, or political. My point is navigating an environment that attempts to take my agency is my daily experience.
This is what I like from this channel: facts, and opinions based on facts. Peer pressure and "vibes" of the people are very powerful, and I dont need any videos to help me feel more of that. I need the inconvenient truth.
So why weren't the cartoon characters I watched as a kid 60 years ago banned? They showed very bad characters we all loved. No problems. That means our children are stupid?
The amount of young people with diagnosed mental problems is incredible. My child was the only person in her classes not on medicine for some mental problem. That was the 20-teens. They tell me things certainly has not improved with the people entering the their workplace since graduating. Is it too obvious a connection? I do not think so.
The APA is a political association that is one of the most anti-science organizations in existence. I'm a long-time teacher. I have directly observed this problem hundreds of times. All these psychologists who observe no mental health problems, no problems in education, haven't even defined mental health. How can you treat them as scientists? When one of them does define mental health, it is usually in some disgusting way, e.g. ignores increased suicidal ideation so that they can falsely claim anti-depressants work. They are each selling their profession, which has a better living through pharmaceuticals ideology. The answer is known ahead of time. You are sick. Buy these drugs. Don't try to get healthy. There is no industry profit in that. Don't avoid the pollution, the poison, or the propaganda. It's good for you. The kids are not ok. They will survive, of course, but society will be significantly affected in the negative by the way they survive.
To be fair, radio was probably the worst one of all. "The medium is the message". It's the first one tk properly turn all households into passive listeners of whatever the elite wanted to tell them.
If children were glued to the radio 24/7 and went outside far less and forgot how to socialise as a result, they'd be right. Not what happened there, but is what's happening now. Talk to teachers.
When smartphones and social media became popular, suddenly children disappeared. When once there were children playing, screaming, playing soccer, now you see abandoned playgrounds, soccer fields being overgrew on with weeds (not the funny kind) and there are no children running around blocks. On the other hand, children amount changed and people are not letting children roam freely, which is sad. Back in my childhood days, the stressful was school or simply playground, because children are unsensitive and aggressive, which could cause more tangible troubles. Social media has its own problems, but children replaced one stress with another. However, I do agree that it was more healthy to fight with other kids on playground rather than stressing out how do you look, what is popular, scrolling mindlessly for hours, etc.
I call it *anti-social media.* I say that because I've seen what's on there and how people present themselves and talk to one another on it. I say that because I'm old enough to remember how people interacted with one another before its advent. Lenny Kravitz music Video for *Human* made me nod sagely. It's not just the anti-social nature of it, its the perpetual access to it. These are just observations and I do have amazing powers of observation. The effect is very real. I dallied with its first incarnations and rejected what I saw. I've yet to own a smart phone. We didn't evolve to interact with one another in this way. It is dehumanizing.
I think there are two separable issues which you mushed together in your analysis: 1. My generation is addicted to phones, which really does matter for our development and relationships 2. Social media gives false impressions that lead to insecurity, which is also bad but much less important and doesn’t show up in the mental health data because those of high social stature in my generation tend to use social media Huge fan of your work
Children are definitely raised different than in the past. However, social media is but one of many factors and I am not sure it is the most important negative factor. Rather, I think it is a product that fills a need, otherwise it would not be popular. Video games were very controversial as well but we have to gravitate to the newest threat to children, all the while not addressing the void these things platforms fill. I doubt social media is as much of problem in children who have active involvement from their parents, and are engaged in outside activities such as competitive sports, chess club, training to be an Olympic gymnast, whatever. Something has to fill the void of too much time on their hands.
I think this a lot. "Social media displaces in person intereaction", but it's harder than ever to interact in person for kids. My local mall recently banned minors without parental supervision. Depending on local laws, these days letting your kid go to the park on their own can get you in trouble for neglect. Everyone has less money, and fewer spaces are free to hang out in. Social media has caught on so much because in-person interaction is so logistically challenging these days.
@LB-vf2hm well I intentionally didn't go there, but governmental policy plays a huge role. Mother's are literally being convicted for trying to raise children the same way that they themselves were raised. The US is safer than ever for children, and the laws to protect them from who knows what are more oppressive than ever
"I think it is a product that fills a need, otherwise it would not be popular... I doubt social media is as much of problem in children who have active involvement from their parents" -- exactly. We in the west are living in a capitalist society which is inherently debilitating. We don't know how to interact with our children. We don't know how to live. Everything is made to support our capitalistic system. Material wealth uber alles. As Krishnamurti said "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." That profoundly sick society is US. And the money makers will continually try to exploit the mental health issues of human beings trying to live in a world that wasn't created for their well being, but was created for the express purpose of exploitation.
@@AjayKukreja-g2s nobody here said social media was good. Most things are neither particularly good or bad for you. Weed is also better for you than alcohol by and large (can't cause overdose, chronic use is less damaging to the body, etc), which most people don't seem to consider especially bad, so it's an odd example to make your point.
Anecdote: I've been teaching middle grades for 5 years now, and I typically run a casual poll in my classes (during the chapter on stats). It's not uncommon for a subset of kids to say that their screen-time is 6 - 8 hours. How's this possible? Well, for instance, if you observe students getting picked up by parents, some subset of them enter their vehicles to leave school and *immediately* they are glued to their device. My current school does not allow devices (which I'm incredibly thankful for as a teacher) during school hours, but once the bell rings students immediately have their phones out in their hands. I can't help but think social media use is having negative effects on my students development. Auf jeden Fall, dankeschön Frau Hossenfelder! Ich genieße ihre Videos.
The issue with the media vs science is that people are generally drawn to good storytelling, one that invokes an emotional response, especially negative Science is often more inclined to "tell a story" via logic, rather than emotion Therefore, no matter how correct science is compared to the media, science will more often than not lose the battle and misinformation will stay popular Even if a person is knowledgeable about how media can often misrepresent information, it requires mental strength for skepticism and more mental strength to do some research to find the truth (and don't even get me started on how the truth is often subjective), which is way more computationally expensive for the brain than simply sharing a news article/X post that invokes a negative emotional response
What I know from personal experience is that it makes me anxious. Social media is indeed not inherently bad, but the algorithms make them bad. I don’t know who designs them, and to what end, but as an example, there is a clear difference on kids feeds in China and the western countries. While in China, the feed is all about maths and various educational content, in the western side of the world are dumb/dangerous challenges and anxiety fuelling content, like “how rich and beautiful I am” kinda stuff. Also, there is an excellent video on the dangerous effects of the Coccomellon content on YT which is designed for toddlers. It’s addictive and fuels the instant gratification response with its short (5sec or less) cuts and no story line. Just like TikTok, which is designed for teenagers. I’m not saying it’s all bad, but at the moment it’s badly designed and used.
If it wasn't social media making you feel anxious, it would have been something else. You have a problem, blaming it on social media won't make it go away.
@@mariusvanc Oh marius, you may be wrong about that. Just imagine it. You may not know a thing about that commenter, but feel entititled to comment about them.
I assume you know that algorithms work on feeding content you initially searched for! I would find dangling over the edge of a cliff would make me nervous, so i avoid doing that.
As someone who is relatively young and grew up with social media (2003) I think the anxiety is more caused by the informations you get access to. You quite soon relize how big is the world and complex. You get access to the wisdom some people got after longer time of living in pretty young years.
I don't put much stock in (modern) psychology research because of its well known issues with reproducibility and the lack of concern over it. That said, whether or not social media has a statistical negative effect on people, there should be protections to keep bad things from happening there, such as the promotion of dangerous activities (like subway surfing) which have come to people's attention and also harm that people can do to others on it (doxing, cyberbullying, romance scams, other types of scams).
I can think of a couple of reasons, including the one mentioned in the OP's post about reproducibility... not to trust anything coming from the APA. They *know* that "social contagion" is a real thing... and yet they decided to... ah... encourage a certain trend. They were so desirous to "help" a very small group of people, that they were willing to inflict the same problem (thru social contagion) on a much larger group... and inflict related (secondary) other problems on basically everyone.
Happened to my friend's kid who wanted to be a scientist but searched one day on social media for images of the 'large hardon collider' and was scarred for life. Facebook and Google both refused to accept they were to blame.
"There is an independent association between problematic use of social media/internet and suicide attempts in young people. However, the direction of causality, if any, remains unclear. Further evaluation through longitudinal studies is needed." US National Library of Medicine
@bobaldo2339 You said it yourself, the cause for the suicide was probably the bullying itself. Furthermore, it might not even be the only cause (health, environment, history/trauma). We are not denying social media can be used in innapropriate and hurtful ways, it's just an exercice in rigor so we stay grounded in facts in all of their nuance.
It is very hard to conduct an experiment today where you can accurately evaluate the effects of social media. The problem is that, even if you ask participants to stop using social media, they still live in an environment where most of their friends use it and society in general is constructed around its use. A meaningful study would have to target an entire population over a longer time. However, one thing you can be sure of. Every hour spent using social media is an hour not spent moving, and data on decreased physical activity among kids is crystal clear. As an example, the Finnish military has dropped pull-ups from physical tests because so many are no longer able to do one single pull-up.
@@T1Oracle I always love how so many people blame parents as though parents exist in a vacuum and completely ignore that parenting and parenting style is an outcome of social values, culture, education, work, etc. It's easy to blame parents (who often aren't taught how to parent) instead of looking at the lack of support, over-work, societal issues, childism, etc.
I appreciate your take on the topic, especially as someone who recognizes the flaws in modern research yet still values scientific inquiry. I think the key issue might be less about whether social media directly causes 'mental illness' and more about how it reshapes the social and psychological development of young people. Maybe the question isn't about damage but about how it impacts 'mental fitness', their ability to navigate relationships, self perception, and resilience in a world increasingly mediated by technology. It seems like our terms and understanding need to evolve to better grasp these nuanced effects.
@@bikebudha01 No, you absolutely are part of the problem: transmission of stupidity. You just said you don't watch fox news, but you openly bashed it in front of everyone. So what are you criticizing? Nothing, you just felt political and wanted to insert your opinion where it was unwanted and unnecessary. You are an active contributor to many of the internet's problems.
I literally witnessed the change with my kids and a few others at a mountain camp where they were unable to have access to iPhones, etc. for several weeks. They came back much more calm, and even said that they felt more aware of other people’s moods and behavior. Basically, being more conscientious. I realize that this is a tiny sample size, but it was dramatic none the less.
It's hard to say that they had poor mental health before the mountain camp, so your experience wouldn't be captured in a study trying to prove the negative mental health effects of social media.
This reminds me of a similar problem from my youth (1950s). Back then the alarmists were frightened of the damage to America's children from, of all things, comic books. (This was wayyyy before the contemporary term "graphic novel".) Then, as always, the demand was for the government to "do something". Frankly, the best thing the government could have done is what it usually does: nothing. But no, this time there was a whole new bureaucracy of demands placed on writers and artists, in total violation of the First Amendment. From a young age kids were taught that criminals were always caught, nobody ever really got hurt, etc., causing kids to grow up learning all sorts of BS unrelated to the real world. Scatman Crothers said it best to little Danny in "The Shining"..."Over the years a lot of things happened here in the Overlook Hotel, and not all of them were good." To be fair, youngsters like stories where justice is always swift, sure and error-free. That's just not real. In the long run maybe that's best. Or not.
I've worked internally at big tech with research and know people who do research at Meta. Tons of internal and non-public research shows it's definitely impacting kid's mental health in negative ways. Science is showing this, just not your public science studies. Tech companies don't spend millions on research that is completely wrong, especially when it tells them something they don't like. I trust this much more because of the money.
Hey, Sabine. We really appreciate your thoughtful approach to addressing the narrative around social media use and its purported harms. Your critique is a timely reminder of the importance of careful, evidence-based analysis, especially in a world where stories and emotions often outpace empirical data. We resonate with your skepticism about simplistic, fear-driven conclusions and find value in your call for rigor. However, we’d like to offer an additional perspective that might expand this conversation-one that considers a systems-level view of the impact of social media on children and adolescents. While it's true that much of the current research on social media is correlational and lacks clean causal lines, perhaps a focus solely on direct, isolated harm misses the broader, emergent dynamics at play. From a systems-level perspective, the effects of social media use cannot be understood by only looking at isolated variables or by focusing on individual outcomes alone. Instead, these effects are emergent properties of a complex network of interconnected elements. Social media doesn’t just influence an individual's mood or anxiety level in a vacuum; it reshapes social norms, values, and developmental contexts at a collective level. It shifts the cultural narratives that young people internalize about worth, connection, and identity. These changes are subtle, cumulative, and interdependent, creating feedback loops that can lead to significant long-term impacts-even if such impacts aren't always measurable in the short-term, clinical studies that have so far been conducted. We also noticed the irony that your critique of the storytelling around social media harm itself participates in storytelling. You present a narrative about the primacy of rational, evidence-based inquiry over emotional narratives. This is an important story, one that challenges reactionary thinking. But it’s still a story-one that frames the current discourse as a kind of rationality-versus-emotionality battle. Perhaps the real challenge is not about whether storytelling beats facts, but about understanding the kind of stories we are crafting with the facts we have, and whether they are helping us better navigate the complexity of our shared human experience. Moreover, social media’s effects aren’t just about individual harm but about the erosion of natural boundaries-between public and private, between self and other, between embodied presence and mediated representation. These boundary shifts are not easily quantifiable, but their impact is profound. They shape how adolescents develop their sense of self, how they experience belonging, and how they relate to others. A systems approach sees these boundary dissolutions as altering the collective field of connection, affecting not just individuals but the very fabric of how we relate as a society. We appreciate your skepticism-it’s crucial in an age where narratives can take on lives of their own. But we also wonder if, in this case, skepticism might benefit from a broader frame, one that integrates not only empirical evidence but also systems dynamics, cultural context, and the power of emergent, collective change. In doing so, we might better understand the full scope of what social media is doing-not just to individual brains, but to the living system of human connection. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Perhaps there’s a middle path where storytelling and facts aren’t pitted against one another but are instead woven together to illuminate the complexity of the systems we’re navigating.
I didn't worry about much as a teenager. Not even exams. As I got older and stressful situations became more common in my life, I became more anxious. Social media is a small part of that stress. Covid, war, relatives, jerks, job pressures, moving house, relationships, money, etc. etc. Eventually they grind some of us down until we can't cooe well with anything much. For some poor souls, they opt out altogether either through suicide or abandoning their previous lives.
I've come to believe that funding affects the conclusions of research more than we'd like to believe. So who funded this research that failed to find an impact on mental health by social media?
It's "interesting" how funding results in the *desired* results being "discovered"... and of course papers being published... which also ties in with the current "publish or p3ri5h" paradigm.
It's a reason to doubt but it's not a clearcut reason to say the science is wrong. Even research with conflicts of interest can be right and research without conflicts of interest can be wrong, for similar or related reasons to why conflicts are a problem. It's not black and white and it's not good critical to state that conflict of interest means bad science. You need a lot more critical appraisal than that to come to such a conclusion.
@@emiel89 I didn't say that the research is definitely bad. But I'm, shall we say, suspicious of research that finds exactly the desired conclusions of a mult-billion-dollar company. There are a lot of ways to achieve this, from deciding what data to collect to the methods used to analyze it.
@@JohnSmith-b4w it's good to be skeptical of research which has obvious conflicts of interests. But most research done in this field is done by independent researchers. And you should be at least as skeptical of researchers that sell books on their favorite topics and have a lot of scientific research that refutes it. Books in psychology tend to be a big conflict of interest as well. As does the researcher allegiance bias. Until you have good reason to say that the best research that refutes Haidt's pet theory actually has conflicts of interest because they are paid by Facebook, Elon musk or tiktok, I don't really see how it then is more than a hunch? As it leaves a lot open to anecdotes or a sort of David vs goliath bias. Do you have strong reasons to believe that the research that refutes this theory has a conflict of interest that overrides Hiadt's own biases and conflicts of interest?
Reminds me of child psychologist Fredric Wertham's 1950's book "Seduction of the Innocent" claiming harm from comic books. I think social media or the internet can be used to educate or waste time. Its how you use it.
@@Onceayoungidiotthe work Haidt has done in this area is substantial, unless there is something offered more detailed that Sabine's fly-over strafing, I'm not convinced he's wrong.
@@Onceayoungidiotnever heard of him and know he is a charltan in the same sentence . Maybe do a little research before just blabbering whatever bs just comes to your mind .
Speaking as someone who has worked with thousands of kids in instructional settings over the decades, and as someone with a child of their own (no, my child does not use social media), I agree that these services are in general not a good thing, especially for young minds. Part of the problem with Psychology is that it's not really an objective science -- it's an art/practice (and the underlying assumptions and motives of its practitioners must be addressed); and a very high percentage of psychologist & therapists over the past 20 years or so have come to view as normal or O.K. (even if acknowledged as not normal) things that are not good, and in some cases very detrimental. This terribly skews the research data, and as their screwed up ideas make their way into the broader culture it screws that up too.
I am homeless right now (hopefully not for long) and I endure the high stress of noise, sleeping on the floor, constant discrimination and marginalization and stuff like that thanks to the fact that I have a tablet and that I have access to social media. If at all, the device is helping me HAVE A BETTER MENTAL HEALTH
Here's the problem with the homeless claiming discrimination; While that's what it may look like to you, the people you are referring to are just trying to keep themselves safe from another high probability mentally ill/ druggie with nothing left to lose... You make people in public uncomfortable and don't like seeing it happen, Isn't that more your issue than theirs? I'm glad you have free access to social media to point out all the hardships you face, though... "I'm lazy, in an economy where there is a job for anyone who really wants to do something, BOO HOO!!!"
@@andrewworth7574 I think it's good to remember that nuance exists, and just because social media is bad for some, doesn't mean it's bad for everyone. Also I hope OP gets out of their situation soon.
For many people, children especially, social media can be a source of stress, especially if they have nothing better to do. That comes down to guidance and personal judgment. Many children and adults lack guidance and personal judgment and are potentially vulnerable to the stresses available on social media.
COMPLETELY different situation. Rock, videogames, hippy movement etc, whatever trendy things young people hopped on to back in the day, is entirely different from something that specifically targets in such a wholly unique data driven way. It also doesn't help that companies like Facebook actually have data that can show that it may negatively affect people/youth, but choose to bury that data, much like oil companies or tobacco companies did back in the day.
_'' Rock, videogames, hippy movement etc, whatever trendy things young people hopped on to back in the day, is entirely different from something that specifically targets in such a wholly unique data driven way.''_ I suppose you are using that old ineficient _educator's stratagem_ on the battle ''comic books (Superman flies everytime) X literature (Alice gets back to home)'' , where the goal was to point out that Superman could ''trigger damagingly actions'' . But, what's up? Today some books has ''trigger warnigs'', a kinda of safe place for an irreal world...
Social media causes distress in youth owing to their parents' disregard for their (well) being. I know what I'm talking about as a father and grammar school teacher of past 15 years. Talk to them. And don't stop paying attention to them even if they tell you to buzz off a hundred times a day. You as parent can be their only hope.
One big problem experienced nationwide is social media addiction for teens in school. Teachers constantly complain of the distraction of allowing phones in school and the anger that occurs when trying to take the phones away. Our school district of 30,000 students has tired of the problem, no matter what science papers may say, and banned them from being in classrooms during school hours. The only exception is that high school students may use them for 20 minutes during lunch break. After a few weeks of withdrawal, the students became more attentive and less argumentative. I consider that part of mental health, something most teens are in short supply.
As you said, it is entirely plausible that social media is impacting childrens’ development in a negative way. But Haidt’s work is underwhelming and he a bit of a media hog. I dont trust him or his research
I think the lack of stress caused by "real" problems in childhood is our biggest problem. Growing up fighting makes someone insulting you completely irrelevant. You just keep kicking arse and out working the competition.
Kids used to be able to go out and play with other kids in the nieghborhood everyday, now they're forced to stay enclosed unless a parent can be with them at all times. This isn't because the neighborhood is more dangerous, it's because social workers, police and moral busy-bodies will call the parents 'neglectful' and put the kids in foster prisons because that's how they get a budget increase for their departments.
The loudest virtue signallers tend to the ones that want authority. Weird huh, they also get richer faster than the next guy, are quickest to condemn, and least likely to have a prepared alternative.
I agree that kids should get out more,but not about neighbourhoods.They are more dangerous these days.Violent crime is on the rise all over Europe. We know why.
so true ... my brother and I's favorite place to play was the adjoining railway line ... not all of our friends survived youth to be able to make "in my day" retorts. And my children played sports, pursued art, cycled places ... the difference was unlike my parents, I engaged in such with them. It is hard work being parents. My own parents wee lazy in comparison.
@@ravenmad9225 or is it the reports of crime that are up .. we actually do little epidemiological studies on such matters as they are complex and very costly ... However, indicators such as AoD hospitalisation, homicides and childrens education attainment don't suggest the incidence of crime is any worse.
Key point: Correlation does not prove causation--and even if there is a causal relationship, there are several possible cases: 1) A causes B; 2) B causes A; 3) C causes both A and B; and finally 4) A and B (and perhaps also C) cause each other (there's a feedback loop.)
This seems to be to be an obtuse, pedantic examination of this situation. "Rewiring" is used in a metaphorical sense - they used to use "rewiring people's brains" to refer to the effects of propaganda, even though it didn't literally cause physical changes to the brain. There is no question that short form content and algorithm-driven feeds have an affect on people's ability to concentrate and accurately parse information. This may not be causing physiological changes to the brain but the behavioural changes would definitely fit that metaphorical use of the word rewiring. Zuckerberg has a massive financial interest in social media having a good public image and I'm suspecting the presence of his hand in getting these anally-retentive pronouncements from these scientists who are completely missing the point being made here
When referring to the brain, "rewiring" refers to changing neuronal connections. And yes, propaganda does literally cause physical changes to the brain. We know very little about the brain yet - but we do know that experience of all kinds causes physical changes to its pathways. Your brain is constantly rewiring as you move through life.
5:40 Sabine, this is a silly conclusion. Of course technology like social media isn't inherently good or bad. Like you said it depends on how we use it. Given the methods and data we have, as well as our collective understanding of how social media has been used, its clear that the way we are using social media is bad. That is Haidt's point and why his recommendations follow -- not that social media is inherently dangerous in a vacuum. The fact you totally miss this POV in your analysis is an epitome of why "scientific thinking" is being more challenged.
your logic is undeniable, but you cannot deny that staring blank at trash content in a screen 10 hours per day does not impact negatively a developing brain
Try and measure the “trash to helpful” scale of every action you do. I think you’ll find humans spend a huge amount of time wasting time on trash/social content that has no direct obvious benefit. How many generations spent time fishing without bringing the fish home, but just doing catch and release? People can’t be “on” 100% of the time and I don’t really want the government telling people what the mandated fun times are and what we can do during them, which is the solution when people start deciding for everyone what is “trash”
The fact that there are no conclusive studies in this area doesn't cancel the negative impact of social media. How do you even "measure" this impact? Doing comprehensive research is hard because you cannot isolate this single factor (using social media) and make a satisfying conclusion. The lack of quality research is also not the evidence that those statements social media being harmful not true. The lack of evidence is not the evidence of lack.
Television and phones are in completely different scales, bot quality and quantity wise. They can pickup a phone anytime, anywhere, they are suggested a million short videos with different thrash just by opening one app, decreasing their attention span significantly, and the quality of the content they consume since there's massive amounts of content online and it's not regulated by anyone. instead of cartoons which are meant for kids, regulated, and each episode last a fair amount of time. You can make sure your kid watches decent stuff more easily than with a phone, by choosing your cable affiliations, and they also have less variety and a limited amount of content at a time, so there's no endless scrolling, which ultimately evolves into one of the worst addictions of modern day. You can't argue phones vs tv. @@johnburn8031
I have a hypothesis based on my personal experience, not science. I noticed that a lot of my interest in this world in my adulthood came from my childhood experiences as well as associations and emotions they created and I notice more often that I kind of come back and try to recreate them and they are mostly responsible for my drive to pursue music, traveling, cooking, reading and many more things. I just imagine if there was something more stimulating than this reality that would distract me from the real world and interactions with it like smartphones and computers and how that would impact me. I would probably be a totally different person with a totally different life. I would maybe keep coming back to those experiences with smartphones and computers and try to recreate the "high" that I felt using them. It's a big question for me, would it make me more interested in the digital world throughout my life and more desensitized to the reality or not? I just remember that last year I visited Switzerland for the first time and it was my dream for a very long time because in my childhood I loved the mystery of nature and discovering something new in the forest nearby my house and I always wanted to see mountains, and while I was on that famous glacier express going through the most beautiful places on this planet I saw that all of the kids of all ages there were on their phones not caring even a bit. I thought to myself that I had this experience back in my childhood in the same place it would have probably given me the drive and emotions that would last a lifetime that I would love to recreate and come back to but for them it will be smartphones and the digital reality. Well, it can be good too, i don't know, maybe they will have a better life, but personally for myself, I wouldn't want the fundament of my life to be built on the digital stimulus.
Interesting. I'm immediately skeptical of claims that blame social media platforms for the content there on. How much credit should UA-cam get for telling us the dark matter model isn't being supported by the data from Webb? In general, I'm skeptical of anyone telling us we're the victims and not ones responsible when it's usually just people being people that makes institutions and organizations the bad guys.
Yes, it's a tricky question, who is actually responsible for this. I think that in the case of protecting minors from content that isn't age-suitable it's a fairly obvious case. Probably why the discussion usually focuses on that. When it comes to general mental health it's much more difficult.
@@SabineHossenfelderI'm officially unsubscribing... Bye bye you are worthless propagandist cog in the machine... "All and all your just another Brick in the wall..."
@@AquarianSoulTimeTraveler, my respect for Sabine is raised ever so slightly when she receives criticism of this ilk, coming from a bubble inside a silo.
You know, Sabine, I have depression since 1992. (But I'm all good now.) I tried therapy for years, but in the end I only got better with medication. So... Yeah, the environment and things that happen can affect you. That's kinda obvious... But only if you let it affect you. (Of course there are exceptions, like losing a loved one and so on, but the rest depends on you.) And yes, I've been target of bullying my whole life. But it doesn't affect me anymore. And, sometimes, I use my brain and give a good response... When I activate the troll mode. 🤨 So, social media is easy to deal with. You can always block bullies and others, so... I can't really understand the argument. Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
People. It's about Science. Scientific method. You can't cherry pick when science is and isn't right. If you think this can be proven go ahead and fight for it. Design an experiment. Do some science. If science is saying one thing, it is what is saying. I still don't let my children use it but that's not science related.
It looks like that Nature article is cherry picking. For example it is looking at the effects of social media on they whole world. But there are a lot of countries where most people are too poor to be able to afford a smartphone for their children, and/or pay for internet access for their children for hours every day or be working too hard to have much time for social media. But an excellent petri dish for a correlational study would be the USA. America is the birth place of social media, and American children use social media much more than children in most other countries. This study looks at the suicide rate in the USA by age group from 10-14 and 15-24 which does show a big increase in suicide rates 2001-2021. www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db464.htm This Nature article also argues that because the experimental studies were small that they should be ignored. Is this argument good Science? Here are some experiments looking at what happens when people stop using social media. Note everyone was happier without social media: www.cnn.com/2019/01/31/tech/facebook-deactivation-study-happiness-informed/index.html phys.org/news/2023-12-social-media-happier-efficient.html#google_vignette www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2021.0324 www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/11/social-media-quit-loneliness/ Also to take into consideration are the effects of social media on Democracy: www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/22/18177076/social-media-facebook-far-right-authoritarian-populism
Science is not one monolithic thing that just works when applied to a given problem, a scientist(especially dealing with statistical methods and models) can very easily determine the outcome of their experiments either intentionally or unintentionally by how they set up the experiment. For instance, another commenter pointed out that they were looking for "Mental illness caused by social media" and saying that there was no correlation between mental illness and social media use. That is probably 100% true, and just as irrelevant. It's a straw man. The negatives associated with social media are often not permanent but rather opportunity cost, social stunting, and addiction... Which we can very easily measure scientifically. I think the average kid spends something like 8 hours on a screen every day. That will have negative effects.
Number of high schools around the world banned use of mobile phones (hence social media), data from those schools is showing that mental health is improving after ban - so there is that.
But we should not wait for scientific certitude to make decisions. Plenty of people figured out that smoking was bad before there was scientific certitude, and those people lived happier healthier lives by avoiding cigarettes.
Did you even watch the video? When a study of over 70 countries didn't find any conclusive evidence, that means something. Good luck finding an equivalently large study claiming cigarettes have no negative effect.
@@SaHaRaSquad Cut the cr*p will you. The tobacco industry financed all these fake studies. That is why they were sentenced these huge fines in the USA in the 90s. It was a huge scandal back then. If you're European just Google the Arte Docu elaborating on it.
Well there is no actually moderate or good evidence pointing to Haidt being right and a lot of better science that refutes it. So no need to wait for it. Smoking was entirely different and the effects were strong and obvious and consistent over pretty most types of science, adheres to most of not all criteria of Bradford-Hill. So that comparison is not a good one. As the effect that Haidt is pointing to shows none of those criteria, shows many hallmarks of questionable research practices and many larger and better studies refutes his claims. None of this means that there are no negative effects of social media on kids, but it's most likely not what Haidt is claiming, and most likely not the biggest problem that kids have.
I had to deal with the Moral Panic of the 80s as a player of Dungeons & Dragons. While stationed on an Army post in Germany as a USAF weather specialist, we had three rooms in one of the brigades on post. One night, in the wee hours of the morning, I'm woken up by my station chief knocking on the door with an exasperated look on his face. He tells us there's a surprise barracks inspection and we're to go to the day room. I'm called back to my room as they search. I'm standing there and an Army Lt notices my D&D books on the shelf (1st and 2nd ed AD&D) and asked me if I was a Satanist. Before I could make a retort, I caught my station chief's head shaking 'no'. I then changed my comment to a simple, "no, sir".
Q) Who could have guessed that humans would be gullible AF and so full of confirmation bias that they legit congratulate each other over a "clever" comment that boils down to swapping Rupert Murdoch for Mark Zuckerberg. A) Me. Because I lost faith in you knuckle dragging mfrs years ago. #cancelhumanity
@@andreilucasgoncalves1416 Apples and oranges? Social media is far more complex and offers more functions than traditional media. For example, children and adolescents exhibit similar levels of aggression, but the way they express it differs between genders. "Boys will be boys," as the saying goes, but girls often resort to social aggression-which, in today's world, can be as simple as pulling out a phone from their pocket. This shift likely contributes to the rise in suicide attempts among teenage girls. Don't you think that's newsworthy?
Something that I would like to share is that although I personally feel better after ditching social media for a while it also backlashes due to me being completely unaware of trendy memes and news and thus get ironically isolated from irl conversations. "Hey, have you heard about this celeb/game/issue/movie/event/etc?" "No" "Do you live under a rock?" Social sciences are extremely difficult to be done right due to the excessive amounts of unknown variables and given that they often rely on empiricism. I sympathise with their challenges.
I mean, for some things you don’t need studies to know it’s true but it does feel good when after years or even decades studies come out to validate the things you’ve been saying for years.
Here's a _plausible_ antithesis to the moral panic claim: We evolved in small, close, tribal communities in which there was little more impediment to socializing with _anyone at any time_ than to elevate the volume of one's voice slightly. We probably socialized constantly. In the modern West, though, those impediments have grown tremendously, separating us from our evolutionary condition with regard to the ability to easily socialize. This has particularly affected women who occupied rural households alone all day every day. Thus, while the socialization via social media is probably not ideal, it may yet be better than the _absence_ of socialization that constituted its market niche. But _changes_ in social behavior are almost _always,_ in _every_ generation, interpreted as bad. No generation ever said, 'the kids seem very different from us, _and that's great!'_ Thus, I expect the hysterics are correctly seeing a _change_ in youth behavior after the advent of social media, and are, due to inherent human bias, noticing the negative aspects of those changes, and not whatever positive aspects there may be. Personally, I do see some positive changes. For example, when I was growing up, bullying in school was very bad. But try bullying on social media, and the world condemns you quickly. You might expect then, that bullying had diminished in gens Z and A. And from what I hear, that is exactly true. Bullying has almost vanished like Polio from the schoolhouse culture. The kids are saying it simply doesn't happen anymore. (Maybe they're lying; I don't know.) Beyond that, and more generally, it is a tenet of modern intelligence that the dialectical exchange of ideas is _good,_ and promotes and disseminates, overall, _better_ values and concepts. And social media facilitates that. Indeed it seems the _only_ way we can still have a lively 'town-square' for a population of billions spread across the globe. But none of this really tells us anything; nor can science inform us on the matter, even post-future-studies, unless we come up with a clear and sensible definition of 'mental illness,' which we don't have. Currently it's just _'anything that makes it difficult for you to thrive in your current culture.'_ But that's entirely circumstantial and subjective. It describes a conflict between the individual and the culture; but it cannot say whether the individual or the culture is at fault, or both. For example, did Ayan Hirsi Alli have a 'mental illness' for not wanting to get her clitoris chopped off and be forced into an arranged marriage? By the current way of defining 'mental illness,' yes, that was a mental illness she had.
The primary issue here, in my estimation, is that we are focusing on a subset of mental health issues as a measure for the effects of high dopamine hit childhoods. The dramatic claim of "rewiring" might be overly dramatic, but part of the childhood IS wiring the brain to adapt to what is encountered. I'm not sure why diagnosable mental health disorders would be presumed the best way to reject the null hypothesis besides the fact that sociological science is hard and/or expensive to dig deeper.
An enchanted childhood followed by a delayed or disillusioned adulthood would be, to me, the more meaningful measure, but still unimaginably difficult to tease out cause and effect.
Besides statistics isn't science when are reasoning under uncertainty. It's worth approaching with statistics ALSO, but it should have neither first nor last word.
I don't think there is any evidence that children's dopamine levels are significantly different now than they used to be.
@@SabineHossenfelderwho's today's sponsor for this video Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg lol 🤣
@@SabineHossenfelder to what end would this be a relevant consideration? Is the default "inaction" until science makes a fine-tuned causal case? Are we to await someone "brave" enough to call for the longitudinal study of dopamine levels in children?
Or is there perhaps sufficient research on what addiction looks like in adults to conclude that the behaviors of children with similar symptoms may be "addicted" in a way that is non-trivial, even if we find out later that it wasn't dopaminergic?
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" does not combine well with "wait for longitudinal statisticsl science to tell you if something is broken" and the attitude in industry to "move fast and break things."
I agree, I'd be interested in studies of whether children were happier (self-reported) depending on whether they use social media or not. If it is left until it gets to a diagnosable disorder it is a bit late. Zukerberg was playing to the naive scientism of the audience - that the lack of a study means it isn't happening or the claim can be summarily dismissed. The same trick is played in climate "skepticism" as well ("no statistically significant warming since [cherry picked start date]"). But that is scientism, not science.
@@SabineHossenfelder I strongly disagree with you on this. As someone who teaches kids, teenagers and adults I can tell you 99% of the time that anytime you put a cell phone in the mix that has access to social media it’s usually Game Over. Mark Zuckerberg is amongst the the top 20 richest men on the planet. He is a man whose reach in power and money is far greater than one can imagine. I see everyday a difference in behavior with and without a social media influence. The focus is stripped away, the isolation is amplified. It’s not a matter of storytelling. For the past 6 months Biden and Harris were claiming that the economy was great and everyone was doing fine. They had statistics, leading expert, all claim that all was well. But everyone felt diffrent because they know what they were experiencing. That’s one of the reason why Biden/Harris loss to Trump.
Now what surprised me the most about this video is how it contradicts the message you have been pushing lately . You did a whole Series of Claiming that Science was compromised and gone down the toilet. But somehow, in this instance, science is right and on the side of a Technocratic Oligarch who would sale 100s of millions of of peoples personal information for a few million bucks.
I love your content by the way. Just had to call you out on this one.
An industry doesn't spend millions or more to understand how to use it's tools to exploit or manipulate thinking because it fails. I learned to hate commercials in the 70's - nothing has changed except the format.
They pull no punches.
the studies are about mental health, not about the influence of propaganda
The spent that money to make it effective at engaging people. Worsening their mental health was never the goal. Whether that's happening as a side effect is what science is meant to find out, which is what this video covered.
Yes but you can't hate Murraymints Murraymints too good to hurry mints the 1st advert I heard about in 1955 because a Santa Claus sings it according to Peter Hawkins (I was too little and we couldn't afford a Telly, dirt poor).
Commercials were the worst!
Jumping for the mute button on every ad break was routine.
I almost miss free-to-air TV. :D
But thank goodness for the modern post-ad world!
i don't think the studies mentioned are focusing on the 'right' mental health. Social media might not make you crazy, anxious, or give you a short attention span. But when you see SO MANY people prioritizing their phone OVER people. I would say THAT is damaging their mental health. We've all seen the group of young adults at a bar or restaurant, not talking to each other, but all looking at their phones. OR people choosing to look at their phones OVER THEIR OWN SAFETY while driving a car.
Valid points.
Yup. It's the same old thing, scientists not seeing the forest through the trees, or however the saying goes. I'm only 53 and the difference is glaring to me. Most of the problem is in the definition of "health".
...and comic books were bad for children's mental heath
...and rock music was bad for children's mental heath
...and Dungeons and Dragons was bad for children's mental heath
...and video games were bad for children's mental heath
_Hint: None of them were bad children's mental heath. Every so often adults realize their children are not like them and without proof try to invent some external malevolent force to explain it._
You know what magnifies stress? The feeling that you are helpless to do anything about it. Personally I think today's parents have coddled their children so much, that their kids haven't learned the tools to deal with adversity. It's become a learned helplessness, where everything that goes wrong in their life must be the result of external forces beyond their control. The best kids think they can do is complain and hope somebody fixes their problems for them... and that feeling of helplessness is very stressful.
Btw, there is no spike in the car accident death rate to coincide with the rise in social media use.
And you are right, in the USA there has been a large increase in the suicide rate for young people:
www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db464.htm
@@KenMathis1 that's a lot of words to be wrong. No one ever sat in a restaurant with group of friends and put on headphones and played rock music to tune them out. No one ever read a comic book while driving (and yes, cell phone cause a lot of car accidents). And video games to ruin lives.. many a widow from the xbox.
Psychedelics are just an exceptional mental health breakthrough. It's quite fascinating how effective they are against depression and anxiety. Saved my life.
Can you help with the reliable source I would really appreciate it. Many people talk about mushrooms and psychedelics but nobody talks about where to get them. Very hard to get a reliable source here in Australia. Really need!
Steve_porss1 is the man, l share similar experiences with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and addiction.
Psilocybin mushrooms have been a game-changer for me, aiding greatly in my recovery and sobriety."
I wish those were more easily accessible where I live.
Microdosing was my next step for my husband. He's 59 & dealing with lots of mental health challenges, possible CTE & a TBI that put him in a coma for 8 days. Unfortunately, I had to get a TPO since he's 6'6, over 300 pounds, and showing violent behavior, constantly talking about harming others. He's aggressive. To anyone reading this, if you're familiar with BPD, is it common to have an obsession with violence?
Is he on instagram?
On Instagram?
I’m sorry but I reject the premise of this entire video… this is inappropriately comparing the real world general impact to a child’s social development, wellbeing , and ability to deal with future events with the very specific term of “mental illness”.
Don’t be tricked into Zuckerberg’s very carefully chosen phrasing. There have been no studies whether drinking small amounts of petrol 10 times a day causes causes stomach cancer either. It hasn’t been proven, but it’s still a good idea not to do it. The point of the claim is that social media disrupts normal human behavior. I think it’s ridiculous that this isn’t seen as completely self evident. Of course it has a significant impact. Are humans resilient enough to be able to successfully continue to exist while being exposed to this additional continual stimulus? Yes. Should they? Is it a good idea?
That is the real question. To pretend that we must answer only the most extreme and limited question of “does it directly CAUSE mental illness” in order to render judgment and take action, is disingenuous self righteous academic snobbery.
Great analysis
I was thinking along very similar lines. Often these studies can be very biased in some way simply by not defining their terms correctly, straw manning, etc. As they say, there are lies, d***** lies, and statistics.
There is no arguing that it consumes a large percentage of available time. There is also no arguing that time spent on social media is time not spent improving ones physical health nor intelligence. The kids are not running around in the park, going to the gym, or doing their homework. These time wasters have been around in various forms for generations, but I can't imagine that the shear volume of wasted time hasn't drastically increased because of the near constant availability of social media. And we do have a very statistically significant obesity epidemic. And we have a very statistically significant drop in average test scores. Mental health is harder to measure, but do we even need to prove a decline in mental health before recognizing the harm of social media when we already have these other issues?
The obesity has to do with labour saving white goods. Before the washing machine, you had to have a copper basin with a fireplace under it, you had to hand-wring or roller-wring your clothes dry, peg them up, iron them. You had to walk to the nearest corner store, or grocer. You caught the news by swapping gossip in the marketplace, more walking. If you were lucky, you read a newspaper. You socialised in the local Park. Your labour chopped wood, hammered nails, stacked boxes, packed goods, washed dishes, chopped vegetables, planted them, gathered resources, cared for your elderly, and the young. In short, we have become more inactive on several fronts, not just socialisation mediated immediacy.
@@santyclause8034 In 1980, childhood obesity rate was 5%. Today it is above 20%. In the 80's we did not chop wood to heat our house, go to the river to wash our clothes, walk to the store, or get our news by hunting down the town crier. What has changed is being entertained by pixels instead of the real world. Social media being the latest and most addictive iteration.
@@santyclause8034 nah, motor vehicles
The answer is yes, you do have to prove that social media IS THE DIRECT CAUSE of these issues. Which has not been proven, and in many cases refuted.
And you are right, in the USA there has been a large increase in the suicide rate for young people:
www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db464.htm
The main problem with social media is that it speeds up the transmission of stupidity between individuals.
Perhaps?
My favorite author David Feintuch - he is the master of the age - my sons loved me reading it to them in childhood. I introduced more than a few friends who equally love the books. I set up on Book club on Facebook - there are only a dozen or so members, who from around the globe. We would never have been able to share our joy of this book otherwise.
Good one!
I see it as a training ground for the Darwin Awards.
That's a good way to put it.
Aptly put.
I'm seeing "not enough evidence", not "strong evidence against". I recall similar debates around the harms of secondhand smoke. The US did legislate against that before there were compelling studies, and they turned out to be right. Any phenomenon affecting childhood needs longitudinal studies to truly understand its effect. Let's be real, those are 15 years away.
Very well said. Plus Nature screwed up with this:
Note: in the USA there has been a large increase in the suicide rate for young people:
www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db464.htm
Effects of social media do not come directly from the screen, they come from the systemic change in the social environment of teen when their communication migrates to Snap, Insta, Tiktok and the like. Participation becomes almost mandatory while the platforms change the dynamics and perception of friendships, relationships, your body, etc.
Getting causal evidence of all this is difficult, one way or another. There is no real counterfactual and experimental manipulations are hard on small scale.
The parents can decide for their kids if they don't want to wait 15 years to find out. I'd support government and corporate measures to help aid parental supervision, but not to replace it.
Then Haidt should have waited 15 years when he had some data to back him up. That's the difference between science and pseudoscience.
@@RayG817 That is kind of a slippery slope... We do perceive the impacts of the introduction of new technologies in social structures way before science can came up with reliable experiments to assess these impacts excluding all the other variables. Should we not talk about our perception until a scinetifical consensus has been reached? I get it that one should not publish a paper without data to back it up, but writting a book to discuss your point of view seems fair game to me (btw, there is clearly a huge impact in the children well being to be exposed to social media, I wouldnt go as far as saying that it is re-writing children's brains, but it is certainly detrimental to the children).
I will accept (for now) your challenge that there are not studies demonstrating a strong causal relation between social media and mental health. But the book does make a strong case for a correlation that needs to be looked at. And in the end, I do not see how the recommendations he makes are harmful - he advocates good, healthy things - things that certainly at the anecdotal level appear to need reinvigorating (playing outside, building trust and confidence, etc)
Note: in the USA there has been a large increase in the suicide rate for young people:
www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db464.htm
The problem with social media is that the majority of people aren’t logical, rational, or emotionally intelligent enough to use it responsibly. The ones who fall victim to it (such as those complaining of fake news or falling prey to scams) are already at high risk to scams or manipulation. Preying on the fears and anxieties of people has never been more effective due to the speed and ease with which they spread
I don't know to what extent social media causes mental health issues, but it does prey on them and exacerbate them, training you to pull out your phone and scroll every time you feel bad. In my experience as a young person (storytelling, whatever), this has wasted many thousands of hours of my life and trained me to avoid difficult things for cheap dopamine. It feels horrible, but you keep doing it. It's an addiction. I have missed out on many beautiful things in life because of it. I do agree though that the issue is how social media is designed, rather than the technology of social media itself. It doesn't have to be addictive, but it's designed that way, and the companies behind it are too huge to be regulated.
I just gave you a like and this comment for your cheap dopamine hit. I hope it meets expectations and you are able to move on 🤭 (I'm trolling. I agree with you. Thanks for the reminder.)
@@IOJFJM Thank you hahaha it exceeded my expectations :) have a great day
Note, in the USA there has been a large increase in the suicide rate for young people:
www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db464.htm
companies are never too huge to be regulated, or confiscated. It's just that our politicians have been bought and sold.
From what I have experienced in the real world, the constant scrolling of tiktoks or reels seems to be significantly decreasing the attention span of kids. I hold my hands up at not having done any statistical analysis of this or anything, but I remember that a group of kids I was teaching at a summer camp place with no wifi had downloaded thousands of tiktoks onto their phones to watch, as they couldn't go one week without it. I find this very concerning.
Yes, I recall just how much of my childhood was spent being bored. Sitting for hours waiting to see a doctor. Sitting for hours waiting for a haircut. Standing for hours in shops while my mum looked at clothes. Dull tedium, but it gave you the ability to (a) Think and (b) Do nothing for hours at a time. And I guess as someone who started using computers in 1981 when I got a ZX81 and have pretty much sat looking at screens pretty much every day, or the vast majority of days since that date, I'd suggest the big difference is that this social media is a distraction from that. It's like I'd sit for hours writing code and much of that time you'd be sat scratching your chin and thinking about whatever code you were writing and that's kind of tedious. Usually what happens is, you figure it out, write the code, it works and you feel a sense of achievement. That's what is rewarding about writing code you get lots of little 'wins' as you go along. But today it's so tempting to immediately relieve that tedium of struggling with something by being distracted by something else. You check your messages, start watching youtube etc, and when you get onto youtube shorts they are really just nothing but you're scrolling down and down. So outwardly it appears the same behaviour - "You sit for hours every day staring at a screen too!" - but it's a very different thing. And I have the capacity because of my childhood to leave the phone or to just sit for 2 or 3 hours waiting for something without a phone or anything. I think it's much harder for people who have never experienced not having a smartphone.
@@michael1 Exactly the same experience but with an MSX1 instead of a ZX81 (long live the Z80 CPU that got discontinued this year, btw).
I also find very disturbing that the effects of microwave radiation on the CNS are constantly overlooked when considering these issues.
The inattention leading to overuse of tiktok could have another source other than tiktok. For example fetal programming or food sensitivities.
@@squeakypistonproductions2228
Dirty Genes by ben lynch is a good little book on human detox pathways, an eye opener for learning how to self protect healthy longevity. American processed food supply drives nuerotransmitter and thyroid problems. Processed foods destroy gut integrity. Hello autoimmune leaky gut and nuerotransmitter cray cray which quickly becomes insulin/histamine resistance from all the SUGAR in our food.
Unchecked, this becomes Parkinsonism as early as 30's and 40's. Remember Michael J Fox? EAT real wholefoods and watch sugar intake. Sugar is a drug 7x more addictive than cocaine, big food knows and has proprietary 'bliss points' to hook you on products, FDA could care less. 😢
Search the dirty super 7 online to see what resonates. If they all do... you have serious health work to do BEFORE you take metabolic damage. See a functional med endocrinologist. NOT a pharma MD. Pharma is symptom suppression therapy, great in the ER but useless for inflammatory disease. ALL disease drives deadly inflammation.
I don’t have kids + I’ve not read one syllable of any of the research you’ve mentioned. But I have to believe it bears repeating a fundamental of research + fact-based assessment: “these conclusions are the best work based on what we know at this very moment, the data + its limitations + biases at this very moment in a very new field of human experience + information consumption”. I agree that social media, like a pistol or a Big Mac is not inherently bad or good on its own. I’d like us to continue to push the boundaries + rigor of data analysis in our fact free world to keep learning. You’ve certainly been my best teacher of that of the quantum world
Why don’t you have kids. What’s wrong with you
Not married, sterile, too young, doesn't want to have children (not everyone should). Take your pick.@@anatolytsinker5317
@@anatolytsinker5317 For one there might be a multitude of reasons?
@@anatolytsinker5317 I don't have kids because my Father hated me,
and I did not want to propagate that subliminal training.
I was more than happy to terminate that branch
of the Brown family.
My wife also had the same experience.
We married having discussed early on that
there will be no children.
Plus I got to retire REAL early.
You know "," and "and" exist, right?
Well said, Sabine. Your voice of reason is very much appreciated.
Well, at least we have now stopped worrying all about those hoards of children wasting their youth on watching TV, or spinning 45's!!!
OMG and the dancing that came with music, thank god he stopped that.
I'll take the experience of my family and other families I know in the real world over the artificial reality of academic stats reports any day. There are tons of ways stats can be manipulated, suppressed or fabricated either by design, bias, or badly collected data in the first place, especially in the realm of psychology (which isn't even a science in the traditional sense as it doesn't conform to quantitative measurement). We were lied to en masse about the dangers of sugar, smoking, thalidomide, among other things. And many issues are left out of stat collecting all together as the results don't conform with the agendas of those who fund scientific studies.
One of the problems I've been seeing with kids (actual kids I've interacted with as opposed to hearsay) is that social media is massively encouraging quick fix, instant stimulation content and discouraging engagement with more intellectually challenging formats such as documentaries, books and movies. Actually, we're seeing this a lot with adults as well - just look at the cmmon adult preoccupation with superhero movies, a realm that used to be appropriately grouped in with kids' cartoons.
Yes, people are far too quick to trust "The science", that could very easily be wrong or paid off, over what they see right in front of them. I have seen kids with Ipads and constant internet access since age 3 and they are functionally retarded. It's really sad because you know they could be interesting, smart, and active little kids if they were not glued to a screen 12 hours a day. And if the Ipad went away maybe they could still be those kids, but they will be years behind kids who never wasted that much time online.
Yeah speaking of personal experiences, I deleted all social media basically almost a year ago at this point, and my mental health substantially improved since then. Because all it really ever showed me was about stuff related to how screwed up the world currently is. And honestly I am embarrassed to admit that I didn't exactly make the job hard for the algorithms, to pick up on the fact that such content affected me in such a manner lol.
That being said, while I can agree with you at least purely from the objective viewpoint, simply about that "There literally currently are, at least no widely popular and comprehensive research papers highlighting such things" which would make sense given how almost everything I've heard regarding this stuff has been personal experiences and anecdotes, but part of me also feels like when zuckerberg said that, he didn't exactly have the most altruistic intentions or desire to point out such simple truths in mind lol. One thing is for certain though, there ABSOLUTELY needs to be significant, extensive research put into this, that doesn't lean too heavily on either side, even if my personal biases kind of wish to see social media crash and burn as a whole. But this is personally what I feel / see about it all though.
It's funny, I've had the opposite experience. I used to avoid social media as a kid like the plague, everyone used it, and I thought it was stupid. This was back during the MySpace era, when Facebook was just released and most people still used MySpace. When I finally started using social media as an adult, I found that so many of my world views, thoughts, and problems became explainable. I was able to relate with people more, and understand others where-as before I just didn't get people.
@@Ristaak It's sad to hear that someone needs social media to become social. Real life didn't work out for you?
@@domsob92 I'm not sure whether you intended it, but your comments comes across as condescending and contemptuous.
@@domsob92 Anyone ever told you that you're a prick?
@@howtoappearincompletely9739 I am actually really curious about the answer, even if I didn't sugarcoat the question.
I've spent decades as a volunteer with people who have problems from in jails, treatment centers, etc. What I have observed is that it is becoming more difficult to talk face-to-face with people to discuss fears, PTSD issues, etc.
There's also watching so many drivers looking at phones instead of outside their vehicles.
I enjoy the outside world which is why I don't pay much attention to social media. I revel in the personal interaction with people and nature.
yet, with road trauma deaths the lowest they have ever been ... maybe social media is a good thing?
I live in Japan. No one stares at a phone except on the boring Metro.
Unfortunately its impractical to navigate the Tokyo Metro without a smart phone. I wish I could get rid of the damned thing. It's addictive.
Good points. The states that have passed laws against using cell phones while driving did so for a demonstrable, quantifiable reason... cell phone usage--like driving while intxociated--causes traffic accidents and fatalities. Addictive social media literally causes deaths. Arguing against this, or pretending that this isn't settled science, is a serious disservice to the public.
19 years old and i really believe when instagram implemented their "reels" version of tiktok it drastically affected my life in a negative way
22 and I agree that short form content seems parricularly problematic.
I was on Tumblr and Instagram in the old school days of social contagions (IYKYK) and that felt like a different issue to the one I think short-form content poses. Something about the rapid nature of consumption and feedback makes these short-form algorightms feel particularly hazardous in my estimation.
watch longer content, I get bored with instagram reels or yt shorts, and do not watch random crap, or political debate in reels or shorts
33 here and yes, agreed.
47 years here
I first 'tried' short form content via UA-cam shorts or whatever, and 3 hours later after 'waking up' from a shorts-a-thon realized, hell no no no no no. A few times a year as a 'treat' at most :-p
Thanks for sticking your head above the parapet. I am not a psychologist but this seems like a reason to stop and think about whether social media is as dangerous as we've all been told.
And sometimes stories point to facts. And sometimes problems can resist quantification beyond the breaking point.
That is literally not the case here. The whole point of the original article was to cite numerous scientific sources debunking this claim. There simply are no facts backing up the idea that social media is causing childhood depression. The most that can be shown is that depressed children tend to use social media more, but that's like saying people tend to use umbrellas when it rains. That does not mean umbrellas cause it to rain.
@@KenMathis1 a simple alternative to a claim that nothing proves an assumption true is a claim that the proof has yet to be found or even discussed.
To say that I don't know of a solution does not prove that one does not exist. That should be a basic component of a paper making the claim that a solution does exist. The search for other sources to prove the original claim is just an effort to find...other solutions to prove the original claim. Duplicating the original work should be sufficient. It then becomes a question of the validity of the original work.
You can find 20 papers that "prove" that an original paper is wrong, or false. What does that do other than inspire more doubt? Do any of those papers convincingly prove that the original paper is wrong? Then why would one need 20 different papers to prove that conclusively? That would just be "science by numbers". 500 papers would not prove a theory wrong if they all say the same thing and make the same mistakes. Proof or disproof, what matters is logical integrity.
Glad you've seen that data contradicts your prior world view and therefore discounted the data. You've opted for the literal opposite of science. Strange you spend time listening to a science communicator while dismissing science.
@@tHebUm18 ...skepticism is not immune to skepticism...
after all, what is the difference between scientific fact and science-fiction?
Science-fiction is a view into a possible future in which a viewpoint on scientific knowledge is true. It reinforces the odds of such a viewpoint becoming actual scientific fact. Calling it science-fiction doesn't mean that it's unrealistic. Just unrealized.
We do not grow as scientific beings by dismissing the possible simply because it isn't concrete yet. How does one imprison the mind other than by declaring that everything is known and there is no hope for change from what is known?
@@touristguy87
* There is no evidence proving claim that social media causes depression
* There is ample evidence showing social media does not cause depression. Even the few studies showing a link between the two _(note a link is not causation),_ only show it as a small or inconsistent effect.
On the other hand, the best argument you could come up with to support your _blind hope_ that social media causes depression is that there is too much evidence proving you wrong.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The reality is likely similar to peanut allergies. The core issue is the heightened susceptibility of the person, not the external thing that triggers it, and the vast majority can use that thing just fine.
Btw the burden of proof is on those advancing a new claim, not in disproving it. Just because there are no studies disproving that bad breathed hippos secretly control the world's supply of pencils doesn't mean anyone has to take such a claim seriously. Likewise, just because for some reason you want to believe social media causes depression in the general public doesn't mean anyone has to take you seriously until you can prove it... and explain away all the existing evidence showing that it does not.
I’ve been a high school teacher for 35 years so I started well before social media was a thing. Teenagers today spend most of their time on social media; at lunch, they stand around in groups, absorbed in their phones, not even talking to each other, except to share images. But the social media companies are very, very wealthy and influential, much like the tobacco companies of old. It will take many many years for researchers to come up with a proof/measurement of any harm that social media is causing. And of course they’ll be hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on ‘researchers’ who will defend social media for the money, just like with big tobacco.
Rather than waiting decades before the harm is discovered/admitted/accepted, why don’t we curtail the use of social media now until we’ve proved it safe? If not, all we’re working towards is ‘ closing the barn door after the horses have escaped’ scenario.
I love your podcast and I follow it daily to keep up with the news in science, but this is one of the rare times you’ve wandered out of your area of expertise.
nah she goes outside her area all the time, why wouldn't she?
Kids mental health is also affected by absentee parenting and schoolyard bullying. What about the adverse effects of putting kids under too much academic pressure from a young age to turn them into ‘successful adults’? What about toxic parenting or home environments. All of those factors have profound affects on children’s mental health too. Why not talk about those issues too?
They are being discussed, "You're in the wrong forum." but the youtube equivalent.
School yard bullying today doesn't stop when you go home for the day if you have social media. It's not the only factor, but you don't need a study to acknowledge bullying has extended effects when intruding into the last few remaining safe spaces. That makes SM unique.
Very clear and informative. Thank you.
@sabinehossenfelder, respectfully, your portrayal of Haidt’s argument feels as if his focus was entirely entirely on social media, which it was not in the book. Social media certainly has a focus at times, but he walks through multiple other influences that have lead to the reality our kids face today and makes the argument that time spent in isolation staring at screens during key developmental phased adolescence is the root cause. Social media just one contributing aspect. Regardless, the observed behaviors of our kids are real and better understanding the root cause is worth the scrutiny. I look forward to reading through the sources you referenced. Cheers to you.
Note: in the USA there has been a large increase in the suicide rate for young people:
www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db464.htm
As a rather geeky child I had all sorts of problems with finding friends, trying to avoid the bullies, wondering if people liked me, struggling with my looks, would I ever have a girlfriend, am I wearing the right clothes and a myriad of other things. Some of which I hung onto into early adulthood, others have disappeared and this was in the 1960's. I don't think I had mental health issues, I had growing up issues. The same issues now true for many kids, just amplified on a different medium. Social media has exposed children to adult content and problems before their ready to deal with them, which needs attention. But, it is an easy target for pundits to talk about Social media damaging children's mental health as it sounds reasonable, but sounding reasonable isn't the same as proof that it's actually happening.
So you don't believe in the increase rates of mental health related drug prescriptions, or suicides, or self reported rates of loneliness?
You honestly believe everything is just a coincidence and has nothing to do with the significant changes in human interaction over the past 15 years?
What correlation between what statistics would convince you? These number crunchers are just taking a pay check. You can say anything with statistics, specifically in this context trying to draw conclusions about differemt trends in a population
I remember reading a while ago about a debate concerning social media focusing on highlighting posts that are more likely to generate a response. Here we are with what would be a post that social media isn’t generating the responses people expect. That is not getting the attention it deserves. This seems unsurprising to me.
the same debate about rock music, marijuana (reefer madness), and television ...
One by one, all my favourite UA-camrs have endorsed Ground News. This is good.
You know what destroyed my mental health when I was a teenager? Finding a lunch table where I was welcome. Socializing as a kid is traumatizing whether it's online or off. Cutting off a 15-year-old from social media is an extreme position when there's no evidence of harm. Kids have social lives on the internet, just as they do at lunch, on the playground, or at a party.
But people are still trying to ban video games even though the median gamer is something like 40 years old now.
exactly the same on my part man, I feel you
Well, the problem is not video games, the problem is addictive media.
@@jpt3640 My body and brain has many choices of addiction, substances, such as the five major food groups: sugar, salt, fat, alcohol and caffeine, behaviors, such as but not limited to: exercise, gambling, reading, watching TV, listening to radio, working, sex. This gaming addiction is a real thing, as is media addiction, social or video, or political. My point is navigating an environment that attempts to take my agency is my daily experience.
This is what I like from this channel: facts, and opinions based on facts. Peer pressure and "vibes" of the people are very powerful, and I dont need any videos to help me feel more of that. I need the inconvenient truth.
So why weren't the cartoon characters I watched as a kid 60 years ago banned? They showed very bad characters we all loved. No problems. That means our children are stupid?
The amount of young people with diagnosed mental problems is incredible. My child was the only person in her classes not on medicine for some mental problem. That was the 20-teens. They tell me things certainly has not improved with the people entering the their workplace since graduating. Is it too obvious a connection? I do not think so.
Social media gives bullies access to their victims 24/7, that'd have made me more unhappy as a kid.
You can block people on social media. You can't block them on the playground.
How?
The APA is a political association that is one of the most anti-science organizations in existence. I'm a long-time teacher. I have directly observed this problem hundreds of times. All these psychologists who observe no mental health problems, no problems in education, haven't even defined mental health. How can you treat them as scientists?
When one of them does define mental health, it is usually in some disgusting way, e.g. ignores increased suicidal ideation so that they can falsely claim anti-depressants work. They are each selling their profession, which has a better living through pharmaceuticals ideology. The answer is known ahead of time. You are sick. Buy these drugs.
Don't try to get healthy. There is no industry profit in that. Don't avoid the pollution, the poison, or the propaganda. It's good for you. The kids are not ok. They will survive, of course, but society will be significantly affected in the negative by the way they survive.
I'll never forget my grandparents' nostalgia for the good old times before radio destroyed family life. 🤣
To be fair, radio was probably the worst one of all. "The medium is the message". It's the first one tk properly turn all households into passive listeners of whatever the elite wanted to tell them.
Blamed it on the Rolling Stones?
@PterodactylusmusRex No, Elvis the Pelvis
Kids these days, all I had growing up was a stick and a hoop
If children were glued to the radio 24/7 and went outside far less and forgot how to socialise as a result, they'd be right.
Not what happened there, but is what's happening now. Talk to teachers.
When smartphones and social media became popular, suddenly children disappeared. When once there were children playing, screaming, playing soccer, now you see abandoned playgrounds, soccer fields being overgrew on with weeds (not the funny kind) and there are no children running around blocks. On the other hand, children amount changed and people are not letting children roam freely, which is sad. Back in my childhood days, the stressful was school or simply playground, because children are unsensitive and aggressive, which could cause more tangible troubles. Social media has its own problems, but children replaced one stress with another. However, I do agree that it was more healthy to fight with other kids on playground rather than stressing out how do you look, what is popular, scrolling mindlessly for hours, etc.
I call it *anti-social media.* I say that because I've seen what's on there and how people present themselves and talk to one another on it. I say that because I'm old enough to remember how people interacted with one another before its advent.
Lenny Kravitz music Video for *Human* made me nod sagely. It's not just the anti-social nature of it, its the perpetual access to it.
These are just observations and I do have amazing powers of observation. The effect is very real.
I dallied with its first incarnations and rejected what I saw. I've yet to own a smart phone. We didn't evolve to interact with one another in this way. It is dehumanizing.
I'm old enough to remember how people used to interact and find your "golden age" romanticism laughable.
I think there are two separable issues which you mushed together in your analysis:
1. My generation is addicted to phones, which really does matter for our development and relationships
2. Social media gives false impressions that lead to insecurity, which is also bad but much less important and doesn’t show up in the mental health data because those of high social stature in my generation tend to use social media
Huge fan of your work
Children are definitely raised different than in the past. However, social media is but one of many factors and I am not sure it is the most important negative factor. Rather, I think it is a product that fills a need, otherwise it would not be popular. Video games were very controversial as well but we have to gravitate to the newest threat to children, all the while not addressing the void these things platforms fill. I doubt social media is as much of problem in children who have active involvement from their parents, and are engaged in outside activities such as competitive sports, chess club, training to be an Olympic gymnast, whatever. Something has to fill the void of too much time on their hands.
I think this a lot. "Social media displaces in person intereaction", but it's harder than ever to interact in person for kids. My local mall recently banned minors without parental supervision. Depending on local laws, these days letting your kid go to the park on their own can get you in trouble for neglect. Everyone has less money, and fewer spaces are free to hang out in. Social media has caught on so much because in-person interaction is so logistically challenging these days.
@LB-vf2hm well I intentionally didn't go there, but governmental policy plays a huge role. Mother's are literally being convicted for trying to raise children the same way that they themselves were raised. The US is safer than ever for children, and the laws to protect them from who knows what are more oppressive than ever
"I think it is a product that fills a need, otherwise it would not be popular... I doubt social media is as much of problem in children who have active involvement from their parents" -- exactly. We in the west are living in a capitalist society which is inherently debilitating. We don't know how to interact with our children. We don't know how to live. Everything is made to support our capitalistic system. Material wealth uber alles. As Krishnamurti said "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." That profoundly sick society is US. And the money makers will continually try to exploit the mental health issues of human beings trying to live in a world that wasn't created for their well being, but was created for the express purpose of exploitation.
Even weed is popular , it also fills a need that doesn't make it good .
@@AjayKukreja-g2s nobody here said social media was good. Most things are neither particularly good or bad for you.
Weed is also better for you than alcohol by and large (can't cause overdose, chronic use is less damaging to the body, etc), which most people don't seem to consider especially bad, so it's an odd example to make your point.
Anecdote: I've been teaching middle grades for 5 years now, and I typically run a casual poll in my classes (during the chapter on stats). It's not uncommon for a subset of kids to say that their screen-time is 6 - 8 hours. How's this possible? Well, for instance, if you observe students getting picked up by parents, some subset of them enter their vehicles to leave school and *immediately* they are glued to their device. My current school does not allow devices (which I'm incredibly thankful for as a teacher) during school hours, but once the bell rings students immediately have their phones out in their hands. I can't help but think social media use is having negative effects on my students development.
Auf jeden Fall, dankeschön Frau Hossenfelder! Ich genieße ihre Videos.
The issue with the media vs science is that people are generally drawn to good storytelling, one that invokes an emotional response, especially negative
Science is often more inclined to "tell a story" via logic, rather than emotion
Therefore, no matter how correct science is compared to the media, science will more often than not lose the battle and misinformation will stay popular
Even if a person is knowledgeable about how media can often misrepresent information, it requires mental strength for skepticism and more mental strength to do some research to find the truth (and don't even get me started on how the truth is often subjective), which is way more computationally expensive for the brain than simply sharing a news article/X post that invokes a negative emotional response
Not causing mental health issue does not imply that its good.
It's not just kids, adults are affected too. There are a lot of adults on social media who are not mentally well.
What I know from personal experience is that it makes me anxious. Social media is indeed not inherently bad, but the algorithms make them bad. I don’t know who designs them, and to what end, but as an example, there is a clear difference on kids feeds in China and the western countries. While in China, the feed is all about maths and various educational content, in the western side of the world are dumb/dangerous challenges and anxiety fuelling content, like “how rich and beautiful I am” kinda stuff. Also, there is an excellent video on the dangerous effects of the Coccomellon content on YT which is designed for toddlers. It’s addictive and fuels the instant gratification response with its short (5sec or less) cuts and no story line. Just like TikTok, which is designed for teenagers. I’m not saying it’s all bad, but at the moment it’s badly designed and used.
If it wasn't social media making you feel anxious, it would have been something else. You have a problem, blaming it on social media won't make it go away.
@ Dumb comments like yours are definitely a problem.
There is definitely a lot of attractive young women in little clothing on magazine covers.
@@mariusvanc Oh marius, you may be wrong about that. Just imagine it. You may not know a thing about that commenter, but feel entititled to comment about them.
I assume you know that algorithms work on feeding content you initially searched for! I would find dangling over the edge of a cliff would make me nervous, so i avoid doing that.
As someone who is relatively young and grew up with social media (2003) I think the anxiety is more caused by the informations you get access to. You quite soon relize how big is the world and complex. You get access to the wisdom some people got after longer time of living in pretty young years.
I don't put much stock in (modern) psychology research because of its well known issues with reproducibility and the lack of concern over it.
That said, whether or not social media has a statistical negative effect on people, there should be protections to keep bad things from happening there, such as the promotion of dangerous activities (like subway surfing) which have come to people's attention and also harm that people can do to others on it (doxing, cyberbullying, romance scams, other types of scams).
I can think of a couple of reasons, including the one mentioned in the OP's post about reproducibility... not to trust anything coming from the APA.
They *know* that "social contagion" is a real thing... and yet they decided to... ah... encourage a certain trend.
They were so desirous to "help" a very small group of people, that they were willing to inflict the same problem (thru social contagion) on a much larger group... and inflict related (secondary) other problems on basically everyone.
at the end of the day, any conversation that involves the discussion of psychology is tainted by the notion that it is barely a science
Happened to my friend's kid who wanted to be a scientist but searched one day on social media for images of the 'large hardon collider' and was scarred for life. Facebook and Google both refused to accept they were to blame.
Does teen suicide caused by online bullying count as a negative effect of social media?
Right!
The question is about the aggregate effect.
"There is an independent association between problematic use of social media/internet and suicide attempts in young people. However, the direction of causality, if any, remains unclear. Further evaluation through longitudinal studies is needed." US National Library of Medicine
Would the bullying have not happened if they weren’t on social media?
@bobaldo2339 You said it yourself, the cause for the suicide was probably the bullying itself.
Furthermore, it might not even be the only cause (health, environment, history/trauma). We are not denying social media can be used in innapropriate and hurtful ways, it's just an exercice in rigor so we stay grounded in facts in all of their nuance.
It is very hard to conduct an experiment today where you can accurately evaluate the effects of social media. The problem is that, even if you ask participants to stop using social media, they still live in an environment where most of their friends use it and society in general is constructed around its use. A meaningful study would have to target an entire population over a longer time.
However, one thing you can be sure of. Every hour spent using social media is an hour not spent moving, and data on decreased physical activity among kids is crystal clear. As an example, the Finnish military has dropped pull-ups from physical tests because so many are no longer able to do one single pull-up.
in all ages parents was in active search for something to be blamed for why they are really bad in parenting
It's not as if all the kids were born with phones in their hands😆
Parents bought the phone for the kid...parent responsible for kid, not the phone.
Word.
A lot of parents are bad parenting, because their lives are consumed by work. This is a deep seated cultural issue in the US.
@@T1Oracle I always love how so many people blame parents as though parents exist in a vacuum and completely ignore that parenting and parenting style is an outcome of social values, culture, education, work, etc. It's easy to blame parents (who often aren't taught how to parent) instead of looking at the lack of support, over-work, societal issues, childism, etc.
It’s true. My brain is basically mush thanks to hours upon hours of MTv
I appreciate your take on the topic, especially as someone who recognizes the flaws in modern research yet still values scientific inquiry. I think the key issue might be less about whether social media directly causes 'mental illness' and more about how it reshapes the social and psychological development of young people. Maybe the question isn't about damage but about how it impacts 'mental fitness', their ability to navigate relationships, self perception, and resilience in a world increasingly mediated by technology. It seems like our terms and understanding need to evolve to better grasp these nuanced effects.
I find the stronger argument is that cable news makes old people crazy.
or is it that mostly crazy old people watch cable news? hmmm... confounding.
you mean 'fox news'...
@@bikebudha01No, and you're a part of the problem.
@@thedog7494 I don't watch fox, so I'm not part of the problem...
@@bikebudha01 No, you absolutely are part of the problem: transmission of stupidity. You just said you don't watch fox news, but you openly bashed it in front of everyone. So what are you criticizing? Nothing, you just felt political and wanted to insert your opinion where it was unwanted and unnecessary. You are an active contributor to many of the internet's problems.
I literally witnessed the change with my kids and a few others at a mountain camp where they were unable to have access to iPhones, etc. for several weeks.
They came back much more calm, and even said that they felt more aware of other people’s moods and behavior. Basically, being more conscientious. I realize that this is a tiny sample size, but it was dramatic none the less.
It's hard to say that they had poor mental health before the mountain camp, so your experience wouldn't be captured in a study trying to prove the negative mental health effects of social media.
The Western civilization is obsessed with safety and “kindness”. It’s suffocating.
Oh no, not kindness, heavens forbid /s
@ you missed the “obsessed”.
True. Social media aren't threatening normal childhood development. Toxic people are.
When has the absence of data stood in the way of anyone who wanted to publish a paper or promote a view?
This reminds me of a similar problem from my youth (1950s). Back then the alarmists were frightened of the damage to America's children from, of all things, comic books. (This was wayyyy before the contemporary term "graphic novel".) Then, as always, the demand was for the government to "do something". Frankly, the best thing the government could have done is what it usually does: nothing. But no, this time there was a whole new bureaucracy of demands placed on writers and artists, in total violation of the First Amendment. From a young age kids were taught that criminals were always caught, nobody ever really got hurt, etc., causing kids to grow up learning all sorts of BS unrelated to the real world. Scatman Crothers said it best to little Danny in "The Shining"..."Over the years a lot of things happened here in the Overlook Hotel, and not all of them were good."
To be fair, youngsters like stories where justice is always swift, sure and error-free. That's just not real. In the long run maybe that's best. Or not.
"Storytelling Beats Facts"
Is really the point here.
I've worked internally at big tech with research and know people who do research at Meta. Tons of internal and non-public research shows it's definitely impacting kid's mental health in negative ways. Science is showing this, just not your public science studies.
Tech companies don't spend millions on research that is completely wrong, especially when it tells them something they don't like. I trust this much more because of the money.
Before you pick up a hammer and smash your phone, be sure to like and subscribe. 😂
Great video I had no idea the disconnect was so large
Hey, Sabine. We really appreciate your thoughtful approach to addressing the narrative around social media use and its purported harms. Your critique is a timely reminder of the importance of careful, evidence-based analysis, especially in a world where stories and emotions often outpace empirical data. We resonate with your skepticism about simplistic, fear-driven conclusions and find value in your call for rigor.
However, we’d like to offer an additional perspective that might expand this conversation-one that considers a systems-level view of the impact of social media on children and adolescents. While it's true that much of the current research on social media is correlational and lacks clean causal lines, perhaps a focus solely on direct, isolated harm misses the broader, emergent dynamics at play.
From a systems-level perspective, the effects of social media use cannot be understood by only looking at isolated variables or by focusing on individual outcomes alone. Instead, these effects are emergent properties of a complex network of interconnected elements. Social media doesn’t just influence an individual's mood or anxiety level in a vacuum; it reshapes social norms, values, and developmental contexts at a collective level. It shifts the cultural narratives that young people internalize about worth, connection, and identity. These changes are subtle, cumulative, and interdependent, creating feedback loops that can lead to significant long-term impacts-even if such impacts aren't always measurable in the short-term, clinical studies that have so far been conducted.
We also noticed the irony that your critique of the storytelling around social media harm itself participates in storytelling. You present a narrative about the primacy of rational, evidence-based inquiry over emotional narratives. This is an important story, one that challenges reactionary thinking. But it’s still a story-one that frames the current discourse as a kind of rationality-versus-emotionality battle. Perhaps the real challenge is not about whether storytelling beats facts, but about understanding the kind of stories we are crafting with the facts we have, and whether they are helping us better navigate the complexity of our shared human experience.
Moreover, social media’s effects aren’t just about individual harm but about the erosion of natural boundaries-between public and private, between self and other, between embodied presence and mediated representation. These boundary shifts are not easily quantifiable, but their impact is profound. They shape how adolescents develop their sense of self, how they experience belonging, and how they relate to others. A systems approach sees these boundary dissolutions as altering the collective field of connection, affecting not just individuals but the very fabric of how we relate as a society.
We appreciate your skepticism-it’s crucial in an age where narratives can take on lives of their own. But we also wonder if, in this case, skepticism might benefit from a broader frame, one that integrates not only empirical evidence but also systems dynamics, cultural context, and the power of emergent, collective change. In doing so, we might better understand the full scope of what social media is doing-not just to individual brains, but to the living system of human connection.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Perhaps there’s a middle path where storytelling and facts aren’t pitted against one another but are instead woven together to illuminate the complexity of the systems we’re navigating.
I didn't worry about much as a teenager. Not even exams. As I got older and stressful situations became more common in my life, I became more anxious. Social media is a small part of that stress. Covid, war, relatives, jerks, job pressures, moving house, relationships, money, etc. etc. Eventually they grind some of us down until we can't cooe well with anything much. For some poor souls, they opt out altogether either through suicide or abandoning their previous lives.
I've come to believe that funding affects the conclusions of research more than we'd like to believe. So who funded this research that failed to find an impact on mental health by social media?
It's "interesting" how funding results in the *desired* results being "discovered"... and of course papers being published... which also ties in with the current "publish or p3ri5h" paradigm.
It's a reason to doubt but it's not a clearcut reason to say the science is wrong. Even research with conflicts of interest can be right and research without conflicts of interest can be wrong, for similar or related reasons to why conflicts are a problem. It's not black and white and it's not good critical to state that conflict of interest means bad science. You need a lot more critical appraisal than that to come to such a conclusion.
while we're stating our opinions, I haven't come to believe that.
@@emiel89 I didn't say that the research is definitely bad. But I'm, shall we say, suspicious of research that finds exactly the desired conclusions of a mult-billion-dollar company. There are a lot of ways to achieve this, from deciding what data to collect to the methods used to analyze it.
@@JohnSmith-b4w it's good to be skeptical of research which has obvious conflicts of interests. But most research done in this field is done by independent researchers. And you should be at least as skeptical of researchers that sell books on their favorite topics and have a lot of scientific research that refutes it. Books in psychology tend to be a big conflict of interest as well. As does the researcher allegiance bias. Until you have good reason to say that the best research that refutes Haidt's pet theory actually has conflicts of interest because they are paid by Facebook, Elon musk or tiktok, I don't really see how it then is more than a hunch? As it leaves a lot open to anecdotes or a sort of David vs goliath bias. Do you have strong reasons to believe that the research that refutes this theory has a conflict of interest that overrides Hiadt's own biases and conflicts of interest?
Simply put. People, especially kids spend too much time and energy using their phones.
Reminds me of child psychologist Fredric Wertham's 1950's book "Seduction of the Innocent" claiming harm from comic books. I think social media or the internet can be used to educate or waste time. Its how you use it.
That's exactly right, but you kind of skipped over the most important part...how should we teach kids how to use it?
It's specifically engineered to waste your time, so that you get bored, and start spending money on things you don't need.
Look at the state of modern day comic book adults who grew up on them. You don't think there's a correlation?
Thank you, Sabine, for not being afraid of other’s fear.
Science shouldn’t pick sides, or mistakes will be the natural outcomes.
Sabine clashing with Haidt is a sad thing to watch, there are so many other people to clash with😢
Why? Are you a fanboi? I’d never heard of him, now I know he’s a self-promoting charlatan. Data rules.
@@Onceayoungidiotthe work Haidt has done in this area is substantial, unless there is something offered more detailed that Sabine's fly-over strafing, I'm not convinced he's wrong.
@@Onceayoungidiotnever heard of him and know he is a charltan in the same sentence . Maybe do a little research before just blabbering whatever bs just comes to your mind .
@@andrewworth7574 That "fly-over strafing" being citing studies that prove Haidt wrong, but yeah let's conveniently ignore that.
@SaHaRaSquad "prove"
You don't really understand how science works do you.
Speaking as someone who has worked with thousands of kids in instructional settings over the decades, and as someone with a child of their own (no, my child does not use social media), I agree that these services are in general not a good thing, especially for young minds. Part of the problem with Psychology is that it's not really an objective science -- it's an art/practice (and the underlying assumptions and motives of its practitioners must be addressed); and a very high percentage of psychologist & therapists over the past 20 years or so have come to view as normal or O.K. (even if acknowledged as not normal) things that are not good, and in some cases very detrimental. This terribly skews the research data, and as their screwed up ideas make their way into the broader culture it screws that up too.
I am homeless right now (hopefully not for long) and I endure the high stress of noise, sleeping on the floor, constant discrimination and marginalization and stuff like that thanks to the fact that I have a tablet and that I have access to social media. If at all, the device is helping me HAVE A BETTER MENTAL HEALTH
So, what you're saying is that you're under the impression that most teenagers are homeless.
Here's the problem with the homeless claiming discrimination; While that's what it may look like to you, the people you are referring to are just trying to keep themselves safe from another high probability mentally ill/ druggie with nothing left to lose... You make people in public uncomfortable and don't like seeing it happen, Isn't that more your issue than theirs?
I'm glad you have free access to social media to point out all the hardships you face, though... "I'm lazy, in an economy where there is a job for anyone who really wants to do something, BOO HOO!!!"
@@Haruchemy so social media is making you more comfortable as a homeless person.
This reminds me of one of the worst things maryjane does: creates complacency.
@@andrewworth7574 I think it's good to remember that nuance exists, and just because social media is bad for some, doesn't mean it's bad for everyone.
Also I hope OP gets out of their situation soon.
For many people, children especially, social media can be a source of stress, especially if they have nothing better to do. That comes down to guidance and personal judgment. Many children and adults lack guidance and personal judgment and are potentially vulnerable to the stresses available on social media.
doesn't every generation try to "protect the kids"? remember when rock'n'roll was what demoralized the teens?
The Satanic Panic comes to mind.
COMPLETELY different situation. Rock, videogames, hippy movement etc, whatever trendy things young people hopped on to back in the day, is entirely different from something that specifically targets in such a wholly unique data driven way. It also doesn't help that companies like Facebook actually have data that can show that it may negatively affect people/youth, but choose to bury that data, much like oil companies or tobacco companies did back in the day.
Additionally to the studies in this case, the teens themselves say, it is bad for them.
_'' Rock, videogames, hippy movement etc, whatever trendy things young people hopped on to back in the day, is entirely different from something that specifically targets in such a wholly unique data driven way.''_
I suppose you are using that old ineficient _educator's stratagem_ on the battle ''comic books (Superman flies everytime) X literature (Alice gets back to home)'' , where the goal was to point out that Superman could ''trigger damagingly actions'' . But, what's up? Today some books has ''trigger warnigs'', a kinda of safe place for an irreal world...
thats a bit too handwavey, social media is a totally different beast.
Social media causes distress in youth owing to their parents' disregard for their (well) being. I know what I'm talking about as a father and grammar school teacher of past 15 years. Talk to them. And don't stop paying attention to them even if they tell you to buzz off a hundred times a day. You as parent can be their only hope.
I blame social media for the bad quality of the studies.
One big problem experienced nationwide is social media addiction for teens in school. Teachers constantly complain of the distraction of allowing phones in school and the anger that occurs when trying to take the phones away. Our school district of 30,000 students has tired of the problem, no matter what science papers may say, and banned them from being in classrooms during school hours. The only exception is that high school students may use them for 20 minutes during lunch break. After a few weeks of withdrawal, the students became more attentive and less argumentative. I consider that part of mental health, something most teens are in short supply.
As you said, it is entirely plausible that social media is impacting childrens’ development in a negative way. But Haidt’s work is underwhelming and he a bit of a media hog. I dont trust him or his research
or in a positive way - probably both
I think the lack of stress caused by "real" problems in childhood is our biggest problem. Growing up fighting makes someone insulting you completely irrelevant. You just keep kicking arse and out working the competition.
Kids used to be able to go out and play with other kids in the nieghborhood everyday, now they're forced to stay enclosed unless a parent can be with them at all times. This isn't because the neighborhood is more dangerous, it's because social workers, police and moral busy-bodies will call the parents 'neglectful' and put the kids in foster prisons because that's how they get a budget increase for their departments.
The loudest virtue signallers tend to the ones that want authority. Weird huh, they also get richer faster than the next guy, are quickest to condemn, and least likely to have a prepared alternative.
I agree that kids should get out more,but not about neighbourhoods.They are more dangerous these days.Violent crime is on the rise all over Europe.
We know why.
so true ... my brother and I's favorite place to play was the adjoining railway line ... not all of our friends survived youth to be able to make "in my day" retorts.
And my children played sports, pursued art, cycled places ... the difference was unlike my parents, I engaged in such with them. It is hard work being parents. My own parents wee lazy in comparison.
It's because the whole world is changing. They go towards things interest them, which is not something they have interest.
@@ravenmad9225 or is it the reports of crime that are up .. we actually do little epidemiological studies on such matters as they are complex and very costly ... However, indicators such as AoD hospitalisation, homicides and childrens education attainment don't suggest the incidence of crime is any worse.
Key point: Correlation does not prove causation--and even if there is a causal relationship, there are several possible cases: 1) A causes B; 2) B causes A; 3) C causes both A and B; and finally 4) A and B (and perhaps also C) cause each other (there's a feedback loop.)
This seems to be to be an obtuse, pedantic examination of this situation. "Rewiring" is used in a metaphorical sense - they used to use "rewiring people's brains" to refer to the effects of propaganda, even though it didn't literally cause physical changes to the brain.
There is no question that short form content and algorithm-driven feeds have an affect on people's ability to concentrate and accurately parse information. This may not be causing physiological changes to the brain but the behavioural changes would definitely fit that metaphorical use of the word rewiring.
Zuckerberg has a massive financial interest in social media having a good public image and I'm suspecting the presence of his hand in getting these anally-retentive pronouncements from these scientists who are completely missing the point being made here
When referring to the brain, "rewiring" refers to changing neuronal connections. And yes, propaganda does literally cause physical changes to the brain. We know very little about the brain yet - but we do know that experience of all kinds causes physical changes to its pathways. Your brain is constantly rewiring as you move through life.
Thank you Sabine.
5:40 Sabine, this is a silly conclusion.
Of course technology like social media isn't inherently good or bad. Like you said it depends on how we use it.
Given the methods and data we have, as well as our collective understanding of how social media has been used, its clear that the way we are using social media is bad.
That is Haidt's point and why his recommendations follow -- not that social media is inherently dangerous in a vacuum.
The fact you totally miss this POV in your analysis is an epitome of why "scientific thinking" is being more challenged.
Perfectly said. 👍🍻
You definitely should talk with Jonathan Haidt about that topic. I would love to see you discuss that topic!!!
your logic is undeniable, but you cannot deny that staring blank at trash content in a screen 10 hours per day does not impact negatively a developing brain
As opposed to watching trash on the television for hours, like we did in the 80s?
Try and measure the “trash to helpful” scale of every action you do. I think you’ll find humans spend a huge amount of time wasting time on trash/social content that has no direct obvious benefit. How many generations spent time fishing without bringing the fish home, but just doing catch and release? People can’t be “on” 100% of the time and I don’t really want the government telling people what the mandated fun times are and what we can do during them, which is the solution when people start deciding for everyone what is “trash”
The fact that there are no conclusive studies in this area doesn't cancel the negative impact of social media. How do you even "measure" this impact? Doing comprehensive research is hard because you cannot isolate this single factor (using social media) and make a satisfying conclusion. The lack of quality research is also not the evidence that those statements social media being harmful not true. The lack of evidence is not the evidence of lack.
Television and phones are in completely different scales, bot quality and quantity wise. They can pickup a phone anytime, anywhere, they are suggested a million short videos with different thrash just by opening one app, decreasing their attention span significantly, and the quality of the content they consume since there's massive amounts of content online and it's not regulated by anyone. instead of cartoons which are meant for kids, regulated, and each episode last a fair amount of time. You can make sure your kid watches decent stuff more easily than with a phone, by choosing your cable affiliations, and they also have less variety and a limited amount of content at a time, so there's no endless scrolling, which ultimately evolves into one of the worst addictions of modern day. You can't argue phones vs tv. @@johnburn8031
@@johnburn8031 The difference is in the magnitude
I have a hypothesis based on my personal experience, not science. I noticed that a lot of my interest in this world in my adulthood came from my childhood experiences as well as associations and emotions they created and I notice more often that I kind of come back and try to recreate them and they are mostly responsible for my drive to pursue music, traveling, cooking, reading and many more things. I just imagine if there was something more stimulating than this reality that would distract me from the real world and interactions with it like smartphones and computers and how that would impact me. I would probably be a totally different person with a totally different life. I would maybe keep coming back to those experiences with smartphones and computers and try to recreate the "high" that I felt using them. It's a big question for me, would it make me more interested in the digital world throughout my life and more desensitized to the reality or not?
I just remember that last year I visited Switzerland for the first time and it was my dream for a very long time because in my childhood I loved the mystery of nature and discovering something new in the forest nearby my house and I always wanted to see mountains, and while I was on that famous glacier express going through the most beautiful places on this planet I saw that all of the kids of all ages there were on their phones not caring even a bit.
I thought to myself that I had this experience back in my childhood in the same place it would have probably given me the drive and emotions that would last a lifetime that I would love to recreate and come back to but for them it will be smartphones and the digital reality. Well, it can be good too, i don't know, maybe they will have a better life, but personally for myself, I wouldn't want the fundament of my life to be built on the digital stimulus.
Interesting. I'm immediately skeptical of claims that blame social media platforms for the content there on. How much credit should UA-cam get for telling us the dark matter model isn't being supported by the data from Webb? In general, I'm skeptical of anyone telling us we're the victims and not ones responsible when it's usually just people being people that makes institutions and organizations the bad guys.
Yes, it's a tricky question, who is actually responsible for this. I think that in the case of protecting minors from content that isn't age-suitable it's a fairly obvious case. Probably why the discussion usually focuses on that. When it comes to general mental health it's much more difficult.
@@SabineHossenfelderI'm officially unsubscribing... Bye bye you are worthless propagandist cog in the machine... "All and all your just another Brick in the wall..."
@@AquarianSoulTimeTraveler She's just being principled and consistent.
@@AquarianSoulTimeTraveler, my respect for Sabine is raised ever so slightly when she receives criticism of this ilk, coming from a bubble inside a silo.
@@SabineHossenfelderMrs Sabine, I'm from Sweden, did you work at KTH in sthlm? What did you work with, if you don't mind me asking?
You know, Sabine, I have depression since 1992. (But I'm all good now.) I tried therapy for years, but in the end I only got better with medication.
So... Yeah, the environment and things that happen can affect you. That's kinda obvious... But only if you let it affect you. (Of course there are exceptions, like losing a loved one and so on, but the rest depends on you.)
And yes, I've been target of bullying my whole life. But it doesn't affect me anymore. And, sometimes, I use my brain and give a good response... When I activate the troll mode. 🤨
So, social media is easy to deal with. You can always block bullies and others, so... I can't really understand the argument.
Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
People. It's about Science. Scientific method. You can't cherry pick when science is and isn't right. If you think this can be proven go ahead and fight for it. Design an experiment. Do some science. If science is saying one thing, it is what is saying. I still don't let my children use it but that's not science related.
It looks like that Nature article is cherry picking. For example
it is looking at the effects of social media on they whole world.
But there are a lot of countries where most people are too poor to be able to afford a smartphone for their children, and/or pay for internet access for their children for hours every day or be working too hard to have much time for social media.
But an excellent petri dish for a correlational study would be the USA.
America is the birth place of social media, and American children use social media
much more than children in most other countries.
This study looks at the suicide rate in the USA by age group from 10-14
and 15-24 which does show a big increase in suicide rates 2001-2021.
www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db464.htm
This Nature article also argues that because the experimental studies were
small that they should be ignored. Is this argument good Science?
Here are some experiments looking at what happens when people
stop using social media. Note everyone was happier without social media:
www.cnn.com/2019/01/31/tech/facebook-deactivation-study-happiness-informed/index.html
phys.org/news/2023-12-social-media-happier-efficient.html#google_vignette
www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cyber.2021.0324
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/11/social-media-quit-loneliness/
Also to take into consideration are the effects of social media on Democracy:
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/22/18177076/social-media-facebook-far-right-authoritarian-populism
Science is not one monolithic thing that just works when applied to a given problem, a scientist(especially dealing with statistical methods and models) can very easily determine the outcome of their experiments either intentionally or unintentionally by how they set up the experiment.
For instance, another commenter pointed out that they were looking for "Mental illness caused by social media" and saying that there was no correlation between mental illness and social media use. That is probably 100% true, and just as irrelevant. It's a straw man. The negatives associated with social media are often not permanent but rather opportunity cost, social stunting, and addiction... Which we can very easily measure scientifically. I think the average kid spends something like 8 hours on a screen every day. That will have negative effects.
Number of high schools around the world banned use of mobile phones (hence social media), data from those schools is showing that mental health is improving after ban - so there is that.
But we should not wait for scientific certitude to make decisions. Plenty of people figured out that smoking was bad before there was scientific certitude, and those people lived happier healthier lives by avoiding cigarettes.
Did you even watch the video? When a study of over 70 countries didn't find any conclusive evidence, that means something. Good luck finding an equivalently large study claiming cigarettes have no negative effect.
@@SaHaRaSquad Cut the cr*p will you. The tobacco industry financed all these fake studies. That is why they were sentenced these huge fines in the USA in the 90s. It was a huge scandal back then. If you're European just Google the Arte Docu elaborating on it.
Well there is no actually moderate or good evidence pointing to Haidt being right and a lot of better science that refutes it. So no need to wait for it. Smoking was entirely different and the effects were strong and obvious and consistent over pretty most types of science, adheres to most of not all criteria of Bradford-Hill. So that comparison is not a good one. As the effect that Haidt is pointing to shows none of those criteria, shows many hallmarks of questionable research practices and many larger and better studies refutes his claims. None of this means that there are no negative effects of social media on kids, but it's most likely not what Haidt is claiming, and most likely not the biggest problem that kids have.
Nice. This is an interesting addition to the debate. Good work!
Tsk tsk Sabine with all your scientific data, I prefer my stories
I had to deal with the Moral Panic of the 80s as a player of Dungeons & Dragons. While stationed on an Army post in Germany as a USAF weather specialist, we had three rooms in one of the brigades on post. One night, in the wee hours of the morning, I'm woken up by my station chief knocking on the door with an exasperated look on his face. He tells us there's a surprise barracks inspection and we're to go to the day room. I'm called back to my room as they search. I'm standing there and an Army Lt notices my D&D books on the shelf (1st and 2nd ed AD&D) and asked me if I was a Satanist. Before I could make a retort, I caught my station chief's head shaking 'no'. I then changed my comment to a simple, "no, sir".
Who could have guessed that traditional media thinks social media is a bad thing.
Exactly what I was thinking, they want children to stop using social media, but keep watching TV
In Australia it's Murdoch's idea & they are pushing it hard & has recruited both major parties to force it on us.
@@apersonlikeanyother6895 This debate is all about introducing digital IDs for everyone.
... to save the children of course.
Q) Who could have guessed that humans would be gullible AF and so full of confirmation bias that they legit congratulate each other over a "clever" comment that boils down to swapping Rupert Murdoch for Mark Zuckerberg.
A) Me. Because I lost faith in you knuckle dragging mfrs years ago. #cancelhumanity
@@andreilucasgoncalves1416 Apples and oranges? Social media is far more complex and offers more functions than traditional media.
For example, children and adolescents exhibit similar levels of aggression, but the way they express it differs between genders. "Boys will be boys," as the saying goes, but girls often resort to social aggression-which, in today's world, can be as simple as pulling out a phone from their pocket. This shift likely contributes to the rise in suicide attempts among teenage girls. Don't you think that's newsworthy?
My personal experience disagrees. :/
I've seen Johnathan Haights graphs of teen suicides, which shows a significant increase. i disagree with sabine.
So you choose to believe one person who used sources that disagree with him, instead of the consensus of the scientific community?
@SaHaRaSquad its not believing 1 personally. its believing the data.
@@DougSchofield You mean the data that were shown in the video?
Something that I would like to share is that although I personally feel better after ditching social media for a while it also backlashes due to me being completely unaware of trendy memes and news and thus get ironically isolated from irl conversations.
"Hey, have you heard about this celeb/game/issue/movie/event/etc?"
"No"
"Do you live under a rock?"
Social sciences are extremely difficult to be done right due to the excessive amounts of unknown variables and given that they often rely on empiricism. I sympathise with their challenges.
I mean, for some things you don’t need studies to know it’s true but it does feel good when after years or even decades studies come out to validate the things you’ve been saying for years.
Here's a _plausible_ antithesis to the moral panic claim:
We evolved in small, close, tribal communities in which there was little more impediment to socializing with _anyone at any time_ than to elevate the volume of one's voice slightly. We probably socialized constantly. In the modern West, though, those impediments have grown tremendously, separating us from our evolutionary condition with regard to the ability to easily socialize. This has particularly affected women who occupied rural households alone all day every day.
Thus, while the socialization via social media is probably not ideal, it may yet be better than the _absence_ of socialization that constituted its market niche.
But _changes_ in social behavior are almost _always,_ in _every_ generation, interpreted as bad. No generation ever said, 'the kids seem very different from us, _and that's great!'_ Thus, I expect the hysterics are correctly seeing a _change_ in youth behavior after the advent of social media, and are, due to inherent human bias, noticing the negative aspects of those changes, and not whatever positive aspects there may be.
Personally, I do see some positive changes. For example, when I was growing up, bullying in school was very bad. But try bullying on social media, and the world condemns you quickly. You might expect then, that bullying had diminished in gens Z and A. And from what I hear, that is exactly true. Bullying has almost vanished like Polio from the schoolhouse culture. The kids are saying it simply doesn't happen anymore. (Maybe they're lying; I don't know.)
Beyond that, and more generally, it is a tenet of modern intelligence that the dialectical exchange of ideas is _good,_ and promotes and disseminates, overall, _better_ values and concepts. And social media facilitates that. Indeed it seems the _only_ way we can still have a lively 'town-square' for a population of billions spread across the globe.
But none of this really tells us anything; nor can science inform us on the matter, even post-future-studies, unless we come up with a clear and sensible definition of 'mental illness,' which we don't have. Currently it's just _'anything that makes it difficult for you to thrive in your current culture.'_ But that's entirely circumstantial and subjective. It describes a conflict between the individual and the culture; but it cannot say whether the individual or the culture is at fault, or both.
For example, did Ayan Hirsi Alli have a 'mental illness' for not wanting to get her clitoris chopped off and be forced into an arranged marriage? By the current way of defining 'mental illness,' yes, that was a mental illness she had.