I Changed My Mind on Social Media and Teen Depression | Hacker News Reader

I Changed My Mind on Social Media and Teen Depression

richardhanania.substack.com

38 pointsbarry-cotter29 comments

> A final reason I didn’t want to believe in the social media hypothesis was that I’d much rather blame wokeness … it’s annoying to me that intellectuals won’t even consider the possibility that radical new ideas about race and sex might be to blame, and the fact that the most liberal demographics, that is women and LGBT adolescents, are having the most mental problems indicates that there is something to the theory that wokeness causes misery.

Why is this trash linked on HN?

“I want to believe something is true so therefore it is true”. I actually respect the honesty here. Most people think this way but would never admit it.

“Cogito ergo est”

Hmm, at first I thought your comment was just a low effort post but upon thinking about what the quote was trying to say and to then see immediately the problem they were pointing out. Poetic

I see woke as tolerance, open to each other and acceptance.

Yes it's over done sometimes but it's hard to see how he would connect wokeness with depression.

Or does people understand under wokeness something different than I do?

Like great that black kids get heroes in cinema!

I see woke as being viscerally intolerant not only of differing opinions, but also of the people who have them.

wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Too often I hear people complain that they're being oppressed for their "differing opinions." A tolerable opinion is something like "my favorite color is blue," not "gay people shouldn't exist." If your opinion revolves around the intolerance of other opinions, then I'm not going to be tolerant towards that.

It’s related to a previous post that shows liberals being more negatively affected by social media/phones and earlier.

Wokeness was meant to be that: being awake to social problems. And just like many noble beginnings before, this too got co-opted by nefarious actors who substituted ideals with divisive lies. For example, they've turned the concept of seven rays, symbolized by a rainbow, into a cult of skin and genitals. This happened because the founders of the movement didn't define principles that would quickly identify and weed out selfish grifters.

Literally the worst take I've seen in years

Amazing to say something like "I dislike moral panics" to "Im pretty sure the issue is actually wokeness" in one paragraph. Author needs to keep introspecting, good job challenging your self on one idea atleast.

Wokeness is moral panic. We must root out whiteness around every corner.

Here is "wokeness" as defined by the lawyer for the leader of the anti-woke brigade:

> Asked what “woke” means more generally, [Desantis’ General Counsel Ryan] Newman said “it would be the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”

> Taryn Fenske, DeSantis’ Communications Director said “woke” was a “slang term for activism…progressive activism” and a general belief in systemic injustices in the country.

Theoretically, this inherently hyper-political stuff does not belong on HN, yet it's often tolerated here for some reason.

Or -more likely- being afraid of a new ideological framework (wokeness) is a moral panic (like the war on drugs, communist scares, etc.)

I think there's ample lived experience showing that larger groups of adolescent human beings can be hateful towards people who are different in any way.

In the past, young people were unable to escape this while at school, but once the school day was over they at least had a reprieve until the next school day.

With social media, there is no longer any down time. You are vulnerable to harassment all the time.

I think there is a reason that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sundar Pichai, and others limited screen time for their own kids.

It has two main issues:

1. Filters and constant bombardment of beauty and model influencer

2. Bombardment of all the news (climate change, ai take jobs,.political unrest) while neither being able to bring it in relation and also seeing real issues.

Actually, I think these two issues are actually not the cause of the depressions. I think its mainly because people who are constantly on social media are: Not productive Not social Not fun.

I think its mostly loneliness. I see groups af girls just watching their phones together. Parents looking at their phones while the child is trying to get attention. It's the fakeness of it all.

The things you name the reasons why the social media is addictive. Not why it is harmful.

If the sharp rise since 2012 in female teenage depression in USA is caused by social media. Why isn't the same sharp rise seen in Europe, where female teenagers also use social media?

Suicide rates amongst female European teenagers are rising as well. I'd encourage you to consult the literature before making assertions like that.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00431-021-04240-7

I had consulted the literature, though I'll take note of bringing along the references. I admit that I am only looking at my own small corner of the world, Denmark. But still, It seems odd to me that our country would for some reason be immune to the evils of social media if that is indeed the root cause of these rises. For references: Stable suicide attempt rates in the period:

https://psykiatrifonden.dk/files/styles/common_04/public/med...

Mænd=Men, Kvinder=Woman, I Alt= Total

And falling suicide attempt rates over the same period:

https://psykiatrifonden.dk/files/styles/common_04/public/med...

Statistics are from the Danish Psychiatry foundation.

I'd encourage you to consult the literature you link before making assertions like that.

If you review the article you linked you'll see that female suicide in Sweden is actually lower in 2018 than it was in 2009. So it' doesn't match the same rise since 2012 seen in America.

https://media.springernature.com/lw685/springer-static/image...

And sure you can fit an overall rise across all the years, but it's clear from inspecting the curve that this is not a strong correlation, and in fact if you remove the years prior to 2008 that should be irrelevant for the changes due to social media since 2012, then there is no upwards trend. So what is actually seen is likely better explained by relation to the general economic prosperity prior to 2008 and downturn after than anything related to social media.

Kinder Eggs and/or lower legal drinking age?

I was about to just make that joke, then realized that actually social media might be worse than alcohol…

The Allcott study compared Facebook vs. no Facebook. Would be interesting to also see and compare that to the results of X vs. no X where X could be messaging app, email or Tik Tok, etc.

No one cares about middle aged people. They are also depressed

Come on now. That's like screaming "white lives matter too!" at a black lives matter protest.

No one is arguing that depression is great for older people or for men, just because they are taking a focused look on what might cause a sharp rise in the rate of depression of young females.

This guy. Of course now that his political allies are beating up on big tech he's going to come around.

Is there more context to share?

Yes, read the other talking points this applause cow for conservative viewpoints is peddling. It has nothing to do with thinking for himself and everything with jumping the bandwagon.

As someone not familiar, I'm just getting a sense of ad hominem. I didn't think 'social media = bad' was a conservative view as all my peers (a good mix across the political spectrum) are mostly in agreement that social media sucks.

I think it's a bit much to accuse him of being an "applause cow" for conservative viewpoints. He's written at length about how conservatives on the whole are the low IQ and low information party. Not exactly something you say to garner applause from a conservative audience.

I can see why people would find him grating though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com