[zooq_ai]

I for one hope this case reach the supreme court and it's struck down on egregious Government overreach. This case has no proof about net harm to teenagers by social media.

This case is basically projecting everyone's misplaced hate of social media without doing a proper controlled experiment of it's benefits/harm to the society.

You can't do controlled experiments on humans and hence the states have no case except overreach. If they really want to cater to their constituents then pass specific laws.

[thesausageking]

The data is well established that social media use by teens leads to worse mental health outcomes. I'm a parent and as my kids near the age in which social media becomes a thing, I started digging into. I had assumed it would be vague and filled with underpowered studies, but it's not. Social media is bad for kids and the data is very clear on it.

This post has a list of the some of the better studies and gives a good synthesis of the results:

https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/sapien-smartphone-repor...

[katfish17]

This article was a good rebuttal to Haidt's post: https://reason.com/2023/03/29/the-statistically-flawed-evide...

[thesausageking]

That's a good analysis, but I don't find it convincing. He's trying really hard to disprove Haidt's post by poking holes in many of the studies. If you look at 386 studies in the social sciences, of course you'll find issues with the analysis or design of many of them.

The larger trends ("most of the effect is driven by teen who use no social media", etc.) aren't supported by the data he presents (look at the table of "social media time" -> Depression for example).

Are the researchers who look into this problem predisposed to finding a connection? Probably. But I do think the open, community based analysis Haidt led was done well and if you look at what they found digging through 386 studies, it's compelling.

[Dweller1622]

> He's trying really hard to disprove Haidt's post by poking holes in many of the studies.

Because this is how evidence based reasoning works. If the evidence that is supposed to support the hypothesis is fundamentally flawed, then our hypothesis doesn't actually have any support.

The fact that we can apparently so easily find flaws in what is supposed to be empirical evidence should make us more cautious about drawing firm conclusions. In fact, low quality literature is something of a plague in many social sciences at the moment (e.g. the replication crisis in social psychology).

This post presents a decent discussion of this sort of issue https://www.cremieux.xyz/p/beware-the-man-of-many-studies

[zooq_ai]

I can prove the same correlation with the rise of

a) Broadband Internet

b) Transgenderism

c) iMessage

So, why Meta?

[thesausageking]

No you can't. Read the linked studies. "correlation doesn't equal causation" isn't a magic spell that disproves all research.

For more, here's an open, collaborative review of 386 studies: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w-HOfseF2wF9YIpXwUUtP65-...

[SpaceManNabs]

Thank you! It is well established that teenage girls’ attempted suicide rates rose with the advent of social media.

I dont think there are any smoking-gun causal studies, but the correlation evidence is very strong.

[RandomLensman]

Isn't this largely a US phenomenon?

[SpaceManNabs]

It has been studied mostly on US adolescents. There is some research on Dutch teens too.

I would say more that this effect is more well studied on US teens so we can say more conclusive things on US teens. In addition, there is some indication that the effect could also be present in non-US teens and should be further studied.

[RandomLensman]

Thanks. Most things I have seen have the US/perhaps Anglo-Saxon countries stand stand out (e.g., https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-resistance-hypot...), but could indeed by evolving.

That makes putting it on social media alone much more tenuous, though.

[SpaceManNabs]

A lot of the research says that social media isn't a cause, but more of a catalyst in the presence of other factors like cyber bullying

This reminds me of similar effects where people attributed misinformation online to mostly right wing people, but it was actually right wing was only a catalyst when a predisponsity for chaos was also present OR when de-policing and federal investigations were blamed for rise in crime when it was only also when a particular district had a "viral" event.

I don't think social media is a causal factor in itself, but it is definitely a catalyst factor in the presence of other things like wealth inequality, clout chasing, and cyberbullying.

[blackhaz]

I don't know about you, but my Facebook is littered with every day pedophilia, mostly generated and edited photo/video shorts with literally children doing erotic dancing in prostitute clothing. I don't know, did I click on something wrong? Some ads lead to obviously adult pay-per-view accounts on third party sites - you're a click away from porn. Many posts, appearing for some reason clustered - I guess when their advertiser's budget allows - are Russian propaganda with armies of bots liking posts about "how great Motherland Russia is". And no, blocking, disabling and going out of my way to tell Facebook I don't like this content and that I'm here only for astronomical communities doesn't help at all. Being a Ukrainian father living abroad, this not only irritates the hell out of me, but makes me deeply sad about teenagers encountering all this crap. This is capitalizing on children vulnerabilities. This is making money on the propaganda of terrorism. I think Facebook should burn in hell, and I wish good communities, whatever is left, would move out of there and find a new home ASAP.

[zooq_ai]

This has nothing to do with the lawsuit

[asylteltine]

Teenagers started having extreme and rampant mental health issues as soon as social media became pervasive. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence though.

[superkuh]

Do you think the rise in rates of diagnosed autism spectrum disorder over the same time period reflect an increase in actual expression of the phenotype in the population? Or was it from an increase in diagnosis and treatment?

Do you think the rise in this premise of "rampant mental health issues" reflect an increase in actual expression of the phenotypes in the population? Or was this from an increase in diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues?

[BorisMelnik]

it was bound to happen with any communication platform teens use on the internet, it was already starting in the early 2000s with text messaging, definitely MySpace

[asylteltine]

MySpace is social media

[megaman821]

Actually, if you look at the data, the debut and rise of Taylor Swift is obviously causing the teenage mental health crisis.

[stronglikedan]

The mental health issues correlate with the rise a lot of things besides social media. Certain medications, for one. Correlations aren't causation, of course.

[stillwithit]

I for one feel no obligation to your existence; no need to provide you food, shelter, healthcare.

It would be government overreach to force such. Since I have no obligation to your existence itself, who cares what you have to say, or your philosophy? You’re just some pointless meat suit I have no responsibility to.

There you go; you got exactly the world you project you want.

[zooq_ai]

Government has no obligation for Food, Shelter and Healthcare.

They are their to basically provide security, insurance against calamities and proper enforcement of laws based on constitution.

[Timon3]

I strongly disagree. There are many groups in our society who shouldn't have to rely on charity for survival, like the disabled, the elderly and children. Letting those without the means to provide for themselves die if they're unlucky, even though our economy can support them, is a terrible thing and shouldn't be an acceptable point of view.

[zooq_ai]

That's exactly where the "Insurance" part comes in.

Any act of "god" where pure bad luck is involved, some central entity should absolutely take care of them.

However, Government should also not be in the business of prepping bad choices -- diet, family formation, bad lifestyle. Any society that is given unconditional support will degenerate

[Timon3]

> That's exactly where the "Insurance" part comes in.

How does that work for people who have never been able to work (i.e. chilren in bad households and people with disabilities from birth/young age)? They can't pay for membership, so why would a private insurance company insure them for free? What if all insurance companies happen to not accept them as customers?

> However, Government should also not be in the business of prepping bad choices -- diet, family formation, bad lifestyle. Any society that is given unconditional support will degenerate

How do you guarantee that no bad choices are propped up without letting individuals die due to missing coverage?

[zooq_ai]

Lots of children in bad households have made out to be ok, and plenty of children with well-off families.

Disabilities birth/young age is act of "god". It's perfectly fine to take care of them. However they only account 1-2% of the population.

Death due to Missing Coverage is overrated. All Emergency Units take in patients and most exaggerated medical bill people actually don't pay the said bill

[stillwithit]

That’s true; we keep giving unconditional support to our Constitution based society and it’s a degenerate mess.

[cscurmudgeon]

Isn't this the world we live in? Taxes for the common good, but the government doesn't force you to work and doesn't force you to directly provide for others.

Well-intentioned but still moronic socialism/communist projects fail for a reason. They fail to understand scale and human psychology and the basics of economics.

[stillwithit]

Whole lot of capitalist projects fail. Moronic capitalism and all those failed startups, the resources wasted on them! Most new capitalist businesses fail in their first year! Morons everywhere!

Market of goods and services with prices determined by social behavior among buyers! Sounds like socialism!

I know language skills alone make it feel like yer smurt but when you go compose dumb logic, eh.

[awejralwej]

Age requirements for cigarettes and alcohol and driving are also insane government overreach. No one has ever done consistent and conclusive research that I have read and approve of that clearly and undoubtably demonstrates that cigarettes and alcohol are bad! Or that vaccines are safe! And guns! Don't forget about guns! Children should be allowed to protect themselves! (And if any of you try to give me "evidence" then I'll know you're a liberal groomer woke.)