[pembrook]

Interesting how most comments are bending over backwards to argue against the findings and support the moral panic narrative (“social media is making kids commit suicide at dramatically higher rates”). It seems a majority of people really want this to be true. That’s what makes me most skeptical that it is.

I’m fully open to the idea that social media is uniquely harmful to humans. But the burden of proof should be on the side claiming unique harm, not the other way around.

I hate big tech and social network-effects monopolies as much as the next guy. But history would suggest those shouting “this time is different” tend to be wrong when it comes to what the kids are doing these days.

[ghusto]

I called 100% BS on the last one (video games desensitise children to violence), "but this time it's different" ;)

Moral panics are usually baseless, but this doesn't fit the usual mould. This is rather coming from the other direction, where parents and teachers are observing children change for the worse in real time. They also observe how they get better when internet devices are taken away (usually as punishment for poor behaviour).

The only two demographics that are hard bent on denying these effects are sub-groups of childless young adults, and parents who don't parent ("I have work to do, here's an iPad").

[pembrook]

I think it's super interesting that the "violent videos games" moral panic is basically non-existent as a mainstream narrative these days.

Yet, both time spent playing videos games per young male and school shootings have risen dramatically over the last two decades.

So you would think that particular moral panic would be at its peak, given how much moral panickers claim to care about "the data" (basically correlation = causation fallacies, but still).

Which basically suggests these are just memetic hysterias that run their course. Once all the eyeballs and ad dollars have been squeezed out of the narrative, the narrative dies. Nobody actually cares about looking too closely at the supposed "data" or whether said correlation is actually true. I'd bet a large sum of money this is where the smartphones/social media/etc. panics will end up as well.