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Comment by brvsft | Hacker News Reader

> People blame social media, but they never ask why social media is like that.

This is the kind of worldview that comes from years of navel-gazing in a therapist's office. "Why do I beat my kids? ...Because my father beat me! Now that I understand why I do it, I can stop beating my kids..." Or, you could just stop beating your kids.

It doesn't matter why it happens, it just matters that it happens. But instead of preventing or discouraging kids (or people in general) from using social media, you can blame the ghost of Ronald Reagan--the gift that keeps on giving.

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> This is the kind of worldview that comes from years of navel-gazing in a therapist's office. "Why do I beat my kids? ...Because my father beat me! Now that I understand why I do it, I can stop beating my kids..." Or, you could just stop beating your kids.

Which of these approaches is more likely to result in someone changing their behaviour? Is there any evidence that advice to “just stop X” is as or more effective than causally aligned methods?

What an unusual attitude for an engineer to have. I suppose you fix bugs by “just not writing bugs in the first place”, too.

> s there any evidence that advice to “just stop X” is as or more effective than causally aligned methods?

There is clear evidence that taking longer to stop beating your kids is more harmful to them so less effective than just stop beating them.

… which is irrelevant if advice to “just stop” has no effect

This is funny because most therapists these days practice CBT or one of its variants, which is explicitly focused on behaviors and outcomes and gives minimal weight to investigating "root causes" like that. The kind of worldview that comes from never doing therapy I guess.

I understand such therapy is rather formatted that when the patient asks “why do I strike my children?” the therapy looks not for root causes but immediate ones. “What do you feel leading up to these violent incidents? Once you understand that, it becomes your choice to head them off.”

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