confounder

Amen. So cathartic to see someone publish the post I've been wanting to write for a while, and with a much better title.

Also: I've noticed a new abuse recently of sites implementing scroll momentum on desktop — has anyone else seen this? I couldn't believe it, but there it was.

And Haidt forcefully refuted this a couple years ago: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/phone-based-childhood-cause-epi...

The preponderance of evidence, much of it from Meta's own internal communications, indicates that social media harms teens, and especially girls, in ways ranging from sleep deprivation to eating disorders to anxiety to depression to sexual grooming to suicide. Many of us adults see it as a moral duty to try to stop this, though YMMV (your morals may vary). Kids did homework before YouTube; and yes it is reasonable to propose that a teen can babysit outside their home yet not be exposed to hardcore porn on X, etc.

Your argument seems to be a false choice between "either kids play in the woods or they play online in toxic social media hellscapes". Yes it is tragic that some components of a great childhood are impossible now for so many children. But this doesn't imply we must now let them play with guns and matches and razorblades.

I have a friend who works with lots of young people whom she routinely tries to get to come to organized events but they often can't make it because they're attending the funerals of friends who've committed suicide. It's almost unbelievable how bad it is. This genie absolutely must be put back in the bottle by any means possible, and society is trying to figure out how.

[Edit: removed reference to whataboutism]

I think this is the most concisely accurate description of Stoicism I've yet seen; well done.

Like this one? https://checkr.com/our-technology/ai-powered