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Subjectively, when I'm at my worst I just end up mindlessly scrolling through whatever is around. It's a connection to the outside world.

I think the causality here will turn out to be complicated and will be different for different people.

Isn't this a classic ethical problem in psychological research?

You can measure the correlation all you want, but to prove causation you have to be able to control the source (creteris paribus).

It's hard to get a study approved that intents to expose subjects to something you know is harmful.(?)

With sigarettes, researcher could just prove the material harm, and conclude causation, but proving purely psychological harm seems hard to prove

(creteris paribus)

nb it's ceteris, same root used in et cetera.

Facebook may not cause depression but they seem to be cigarette-maker defensive about it.

Villagers coming at you with torches and pitchforks can make anyone defensive.

Or educated researchers with empirical studies and legit concerns

Indeed, it has something to do with cigarettes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498

Correlation does not deny causation, either. It's reasonable to postulate that it's a cause, and then study further to learn more.

I agree that from a scientific standpoint, of course correlation isn't causation and more evidence is needed.

But emphasizing this point feels uselessly contrarian. There's not a doubt in my mind that social media is a disaster for mental health, especially in kids growing up with it, especially on platforms like Instagram that emphasize projecting an image of a perfect trendy life. It's ridiculous to ask to wait for more evidence instead of figuring out how to act now.

Social media profits from being addictive and divisive, and is therefore incentived to hurt mental health. Facebook's R&D budget is larger than the NSF, I'm sure they have tons of internal knowledge about exactly how they manipulate users' mental health, and I doubt much of it is good.

> Stepping back, it appears that screen time is correlated with depressive symptoms, with or without social media

You might have some other study to back it up, but from the study you've cited we can't conclude that, because they measure screen time without any such breakdown. Social media could as well be the most important hidden variable.

It seems likely though, doesn't it? If you take away their social media, where would you expect the depressed users to go next? TV in particular is something that has surely been researched, as it was probably the biggest sedentary "escape" prior to the internet, and the linked study would surely cite other research which eventually includes this.

The lit review cites two prior studies, both are quite interesting:

> People who spend > 4 h of screen time such as: TV watching and computer use, are at higher risk of developing depression (de Wit et al., 2011, Hamer et al., 2013). While, it is also reported that people with depressive symptoms spend significantly more hours in a day, watching TV and using computer (de Wit et al., 2011).

From the abstract of the first reference (de Wit et al):

> Our study sample consisted of 2353 participants (age 18–65) of whom 1701 had a current anxiety and/or depressive diagnosis and 652 were healthy controls. Anxiety and depression diagnoses were conducted using the DSM-IV based Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Controlling for sociodemographics and physical activity level we found that persons with a major depressive disorder (MDD) spend significantly more leisure time using the computer. We found that persons with dysthymia, panic disorder and agoraphobia spend significantly more daily hours watching television compared to controls.

So interestingly, the choice seems to correlate with severity of depression.

The other study was looked at possible causal mechanism between sedentary behavior (as defined by TV time) and depression. Since they focused on TV you can look at their own lit review and find TV-specific studies such as:

Lucas, M., Mekary, R., Pan, A., Mirzaei, F., O’Reilly, E.J., Willett, W.C., Koenen, K., Okereke, O.I., Ascherio, A., 2011. Relation between clinical depression risk and physical activity and time spent watching television in older women: a 10-year prospective follow-up study. Am. J. Epidemiol. 174, 1017–1027.

it's true that correlation doesn't equal causation as the article itself pointed out.

Is there another event besides the releasing of the first smart phone in conjunction with social media that we is a possible contributor to the rise of suicide and depression from 2009 - 2015?

Do you really think that's the only thing that changed in the world in that period?

I agree that smartphones could play a role and they are easy to point to as a new way to consume media (Was there a similar rise in depression when TVs were becoming common? When newspapers or tabloids became common?), but since the early 00s a lot went for the worse in terms of future outlook and expectations on what a happy life is or can be, not to forget wars, and economic depression, which all would maybe not immediately have an effect on mental depression statistics and slowly caused a rise from 2008.

But let's say it was the smartphone, then I'd still argue that the emergence of the smartphone (and the iPad) as a whole is likely more at fault than Facebook itself. Many many more people started to spend time looking at small screens doing all kinds of things as a distraction, including people who never had a computer or played games or browsed the web before for leisure.

I'm sure Facebook and Instagram were factors as common places where that time is spent, but there's also so much more than social media, for instance the fact that people are more connected in general via chat Apps and chat groups, where they also share photos or have discussions, though it's not really falling under the "social media" umbrella.

> Is there another event besides the releasing of the first smart phone in conjunction with social media that we is a possible contributor to the rise of suicide and depression from 2009 - 2015?

Global economic collapse.

People love to look at social media as a cause for misery because it means they can avoid looking at the hard stuff - unemployment, precarious housing, poverty.