Comment by beezlebroxxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by beezlebroxxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

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beezlebroxxxxxx

> ...that many people would find offensive. It's a lost cause to suggest that corporations implicitly understand something innate about female psychology...

You are wrong. Feminism as a broad social movement, and as an academic discipline, explicitly sought to question and attack the social structures and behaviors that were often insisted to be "innate" about female psychology and well being. Basically no one would find that offensive today. It's profoundly mainstream.

Many more people would find it offensive to imply that social media addiction, or that an increasing trend of suicidal ideation as a result of social media use, is somehow a result of femaleness tout-court. That's downright archaic.

Social media companies take advantage of the ways women are socialized into an incredible and unnecessary focus on their bodies by pouring rocket fuel on it.

The reflexive rejection of any inmate gender differences can do just as much harm as good. For instance, if girls are innately predisposed to fall into harmful social media habits and feminism rejects and denounces any acknowledgement of it does that help girls? Or does it hurt them?

For instance, a greater tendency among girls to express aggression through social violence rather than physical violence is universal across all cultures. Few would say this is not an inmate difference, and it has obvious roots in sexual dimorphism. This is significant with respect to social media because you can't punch someone through a screen, but it amplifies the ability to carry out social violence. Group chats, and threads denouncing rivals are a very effective tool of social violence.

Failure to recognize this innate difference in how boys and girls express aggression could lead to platforms failing to recognize the importance of curtailing this behavior, leading to greater harm.

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with either of you. However, it seems you say

> You are wrong

But also:

> Many more people would find it offensive ... Is somehow a result of femaleness tout-court

But the person you're replying to seems to be saying that if there is some ingrained female-related cause, it couldn't be discussed today.

How does the second thing I quoted from you not directly agree with the comment you replied to?

Because the implication of their argument is biological causation, which is pure conjecture on their part.

On the other hand, the entire posted article goes at length to study the social impact of social media for young people and young girls in particular and routinely references the heightened effect of the hyper focus on bodies for young girls.

Their comment is just a naked assertion. Would people find it offensive? Well, if the entire basis for your point is a strawman, then yes. But as far as I can tell, there is no causal evidence between femaleness and social media addiction or suicidal ideation. The need to leap to biological causation is unwarranted and unsupported.

Acting like they're already agrieved is a rhetorical slight of hand without substance.

There’s a great deal of evidence for innate sex differences in average social behavior, and those differences would readily explain the disparate impact.

It’s hardly fair to call that a “leap”, especially given the comparatively limited body of evidence in support of your preferred hypothesis.

"But as far as I can tell, there is no causal evidence between femaleness and social media addiction or suicidal ideation"

And yet the charts look wildly different.

If blue spheres and red spheres both explode, but blue spheres explode 25% more often. Would you hypothesise, discuss and test whether or not it might be it's essential blueness or would you prefer to avoid the most obvious difference and shy away from discussing it? Does that sound reasonable to you? If it is blueness, you will arrive at an answer much faster if you're allowed to investigate and talk about that. Perhaps then they can explode with the same frequency.

It is fairly common that biological causation is suggested or suspected when dealing with a difference in outcomes along gender lines. Sex hormones as an factor for behavior is usual one of the first suspect, especially if the difference is found around or after puberty. There are historically a huge number of studies done on testosterone to demonstrate this leap done by both researcher and public opinion.

That said, much of those studies where later found to be mostly wrong, and testosterone tend to be a bad predictor and a very weak influence on behavior. It seems more that hormones have a stronger influence on shaping culture than it has on shaping behavior.

That’s just your opinion.

You're proving my point whether you realize it or not.

This article makes repeated references to the hyper focus on women's bodies on social media, and repeatedly points to them as a causal factor.

Please, present reputable published evidence for "innate" biological causation for the female sex in relation to the mental health effects of social media use and its impact on suicidal ideation. The absence of evidence is the not the proof of some grand conspiracy.

In fact, it would have been hard to provide a better proof of your point!

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