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Yes, Social Media Really Is a Cause of the Epidemic of Teenage Mental Illness (www.afterbabel.com)

submitted 7 months ago by nithinj@sh.itjust.works to c/science@lemmy.ml

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[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

asdfasfasf

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

You've forgotten what we're talking about in the first place. To explain the rise in mental illnesses, you have to find what changed in people's environment that could affect the health situation. If nothing in the environment has changed, the expected result would be that there would be no change in the outcomes either. If the discrimination has been roughly the same for the last few decades, why would it suddenly start resulting in different rates of mental illnesses?

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

asdfasfasf

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What are some of those assumptions? Maybe it is reductionist, but I haven't seen you or the Nature article present a more nuanced approach (or an approach at all). And personally this isn't a topic that I find myself emotionally very invested in, and I'm far from an expert on sociology, so I really would be interested in learning about better approaches. Do your and the Nature article make fewer assumptions for your framing to work?

Haidt articulated his points and methods very clearly and you shifted away from them without any explanation, as far as I can see. This isn't just disagreement within the conversation, but a disagreement on what the discussion is supposed to be about. Only now have you actually addressed what is an essental part of Haidt's argumentation, but still very vaguely.

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

To add to my other comment, I noticed I failed to address this earlier comment of yours: https://kbin.social/m/science@lemmy.ml/t/954121/-/comment/6137667

Here you do exactly what Haidt criticises, IMO entirely correctly - focusing only and exclusively on the situation in the USA. Which absolutely looks narrow and reductonist.

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It’s kind of shitty to call me out about “failing to address” something then disappear like a fart in the wind when I take the time to respond.

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

He specifically mentioned Obama and the economic recovery in the US. How is my responding directly to the thing he brought up somehow ignoring the rest of the world, unless you want to say he was ignoring the rest of the world from the get-go?

Either we both made it US-centric or I responded to his specific claim that was citing the US economic situation to talk about kids in the US. The latter is far more sensible, but if you want to be difficult then sure we can go with the former. In which case the critique begins with him.

The second major problem with Odgers’ review is that she proposes an alternative to my “great rewiring” theory that does not fit the known facts. Odgers claims that the “real causes” of the crisis, from which my book “might distract us from effectively responding,” are longstanding social ills such as “structural discrimination and racism, sexism and sexual abuse, the opioid epidemic, economic hardship and social isolation.” She proposes that the specific timing of the epidemic, beginning around 2012, might be linked to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, which had lasting effects on “families in the bottom 20% of the income distribution,” who were “also growing up at the time of an opioid crisis, school shootings, and increasing unrest because of racial and sexual discrimination and violence.”

I agree that those things are all bad for human development, but Odgers’ theory cannot explain why rates of anxiety and depression were generally flat in the 2000s and then suddenly shot upward roughly four years after the start of the Global Financial Crisis. Did life in America suddenly get that much worse during President Obama’s second term, as the economy was steadily improving?

You asked for an example. This is an example. I am also assuming you didn’t read Odgers’ piece because it’s clearly US-centric as well (the portion he’s referring to).

It’s clearly about the US. Blame Haidt and Odgers.